Low-light struggles / improving image quality.
- Thread starter EagleEye7
- Start date
It is possible using either ONVIF or RTSP - note however, there is less compatibility than Hikvision camera with Hikvision NVR, so adjusting all the camera parameters within the NVR is not possible.
Good, but it seems you have skipped the 'Exposure' tab, which may be the most important in this situation!
Others will have better advice, but on this camera at least, the sensor size:MP ratio is a little poor, but probably not too bad. The image doesn't look too terrible, can you get an image with some motion (E.G person walking past)? Don't expect to be getting face ID on the street from a 2.8mm camera mounted at height though - you will have more luck with the varifocal on this, which has a much better sensor size:MP ratio, and has some good optical zoom.
Is the 'Alley' cam zoomed in fully? How high is it mounted?
Also, it is generally recommended to use H.264 encoding with a constant bitrate - H.265 may provide some storage savings, but can reduce the quality of the footage.
bigredfish
Known around here
Sorry, i did say I'm a noob .
The overview camera has an exposure of 1/25.
The alley camera is zoomed in to about 50% and that is at exposure 1/25 also
I haven't got any motion footage at night as where I live is tucked out the way and most people don't even know the road exists so we do not get any passing people really
bigredfish
Known around here
Noise Reduction, at night in particular, the higher the setting the more motion blur.
Static images dont tell much and are largely a waste of time. Get out there and walk around in front of it
Looking at the one sample pic, and knowing that the exposure is 1/25 or extremely slow, I can guess without seeing motion video that it will be soft and blurry.
And other than it being too high for ID, it could still be a decent overview camera. Likely you'll need to add light, IR or white light. Is your IR at 100%?
Typically you need a shutter of something close to 1/120 to freeze motion at night.
That will likely mean increasing Gain as faster exposure generally makes things darker.
The object is to get a moving target sharp and not blurry.
Then you can add NR up to the point that things get blurry
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Thats understandable. Some motion would be good to see if possible. You could even walk around yourself if you like.
1/25 is 40ms, I believe, this is a little high. Not sure how precise you can be on the Hikvisions, but try speeding it up a little (smaller number is faster) - you will get a darker image, but less motion blur, so better still captures of moving targets.
Are you able to figure out how to export stills / footage from the NVR, rather than phone screenshots? These will likely be a bit of a better image.
Hi sorry no I havnt worked out how to export the footage from the NVR yet, do you think I would be better off switching the alley and the drive cameras over, by putting the 4mp varifocal up on the roof line and the 8mp one on the side of my extension approx 8ft high?
Personally, I would keep them as they are, but it depends on your situation / goals. If you had a 2.8mm on the alley, and 12mm on the roof, you would have some tighter shots, but still not very tight - E.G you would have 2 'ok' views. I would be inclined to leave it as-is, with the 2.8mm 8MP on the roof, as an overview, and then try and dial the 4MP VF in on the alley for good face shots.
Thanks for everyone's advice so far, I will have a play around with the settings over the next few days.
CCTVCam
Known around here
- Sep 25, 2017
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A little high? The recommendation on here is you don't go over 12ms. Many find that too slow and use 8ms. I personally use 4ms or 10x faster than what you're using. If you can't get a good picture at 8-12ms, then something else is wrong in your setup, either your camera sensor's size and sensitvity, your settings, or your lighting. You mgiht struggle to hit 4ms in colour unless you have a 4kt which has it's own separate issues that should be considered before buying, even then, you will need a little ambient light.