Hello everyone! Long time 
I have a weird one and am hoping ya'll can help me out. I have tested a handful of PTZs on the market to no solid avail. The use case is an airport about 1 mile away from the cam. We have clear view of runway/taxi/takeoff/landings/etc but wow has it been a journey to find something capable of focusing day/night in dynamic lighting with a solid smooth motor.
I have some generic PTZ controller with a 5" screen that does well at tracking planes in the air assuming autofocus works. Otherwise it's a game of just running with presets on fixed locations.
My quest really comes down to finding a sub $600 camera with 25x or more that pans/tilts buttery smooth fully zoomed in. Apparently it's a lot to ask of a camera that's not Axis for the ability to pan/tilt AND zoom at the same time without some type of break in sequence and jitter, so I've given up on that.
The focus really comes down to:
Cameras tried so far:
DS-2DF6A236X-AEL - Unusable autofocus, everything else was manageable. When using the joystick, I found the tilt would be stuck in any direction I subtly gave it until I just let off the controls entirely. Sort of annoying alongside inconsistent gear/speed ratios but all would be okay assuming the AF actually worked. I set it to "manual" focus and it will still try to autofocus when running with the direction pad... ugh
DS-2DF6236V-AEL - Dome made the image unusable so I couldn't even test properly. Once dome removed, everything looked sharp as a tack. With it on.... I could barely read a license plate 200ft away.
Vikylin 8MP 25x - Probably the best option so far, but the WDR and image quality/coloring/etc forced me to evaluate other options. I've never experienced anything as bad as this and my assumption was the OEM reseller put an additional layer of firmware on it as I can't disable some of the underlying WDR artifacts even with it disabled. Is it possible a raw Dahua would be the option?
Sunba P636 V2 - Autofocus was a no-go, presets were rarely accurate.
DS-2DE4425IW-DE - Beautiful image all things considered, and so I would love to explore this style/series more, but the killer was a big one: The servo motors in the cam were so janky that panning/tilting was basically a no-go. Almost as if the pulley system had weights on it. Saw others online and other video samples with that same issue.
If anyone has buttery smooth slowwww pans/tilts with the newer Hikvision or Dahuas etc, great AF, decent dynamic image, let me know what you're working with! Thank you in advance!
I have a weird one and am hoping ya'll can help me out. I have tested a handful of PTZs on the market to no solid avail. The use case is an airport about 1 mile away from the cam. We have clear view of runway/taxi/takeoff/landings/etc but wow has it been a journey to find something capable of focusing day/night in dynamic lighting with a solid smooth motor.
I have some generic PTZ controller with a 5" screen that does well at tracking planes in the air assuming autofocus works. Otherwise it's a game of just running with presets on fixed locations.
My quest really comes down to finding a sub $600 camera with 25x or more that pans/tilts buttery smooth fully zoomed in. Apparently it's a lot to ask of a camera that's not Axis for the ability to pan/tilt AND zoom at the same time without some type of break in sequence and jitter, so I've given up on that.
The focus really comes down to:
- Great AF
- Smooth pan/tilt at slowest walk setting (Speed 1)
Cameras tried so far:
DS-2DF6A236X-AEL - Unusable autofocus, everything else was manageable. When using the joystick, I found the tilt would be stuck in any direction I subtly gave it until I just let off the controls entirely. Sort of annoying alongside inconsistent gear/speed ratios but all would be okay assuming the AF actually worked. I set it to "manual" focus and it will still try to autofocus when running with the direction pad... ugh
DS-2DF6236V-AEL - Dome made the image unusable so I couldn't even test properly. Once dome removed, everything looked sharp as a tack. With it on.... I could barely read a license plate 200ft away.
Vikylin 8MP 25x - Probably the best option so far, but the WDR and image quality/coloring/etc forced me to evaluate other options. I've never experienced anything as bad as this and my assumption was the OEM reseller put an additional layer of firmware on it as I can't disable some of the underlying WDR artifacts even with it disabled. Is it possible a raw Dahua would be the option?
Sunba P636 V2 - Autofocus was a no-go, presets were rarely accurate.
DS-2DE4425IW-DE - Beautiful image all things considered, and so I would love to explore this style/series more, but the killer was a big one: The servo motors in the cam were so janky that panning/tilting was basically a no-go. Almost as if the pulley system had weights on it. Saw others online and other video samples with that same issue.
If anyone has buttery smooth slowwww pans/tilts with the newer Hikvision or Dahuas etc, great AF, decent dynamic image, let me know what you're working with!
Thank you in advance!
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