Need suggestions on settings for best picture quality / performance balance.

[rufunky]

I have been playing around with these cameras trying to get the best picture quality/ performance balance. This is a ACTI Q110 covert camera.It looked awesome with the shutter speed at 1/5 but that was obviously useless if there was any motion so I moved it up to 1/30. I realize these are going to lack PQ due to the size of the lens so is this the most I'm gonna get out of it? I would appreciate any suggestions. So far this is what I have.

 

[Matthewtalk]

I know not about the settings of your particular camera. I just wanted to chip in a tip from my non-professional photography experience.
First, that's not a bad picture for a security camera, and a quite a good picture for a covert camera.

The resolution, colour is good given the lighting conditions. Since your TV watching area is dimmed and you are back-lit from the room behind you, its to be expected you and stuff around you is darkened. What you have is a lighting challenge, rather than a camera settings problem.

You can tinker with brightness in the settings but the room behind you will reach near white-out in order for you to get that darkened TV watching area to '18% grey' which is the mid-point of brightness cameras tend to adjust their aperture and shutter speed to reach.

Were the camera mounted in the bright room, but facing the darkened room without any light fixture in the frame, you'd have a much better exposure. Adding lights to the TV watching area of course defeats of the purpose of a TV watching area.

Another alternative is to leave the camera in the TV room but change the light shades on the fixtures on the room behind you to be opaque with only and opening at the bottom clear so to lessen the brightness that is causing the back-lighting. Since the camera is mounted much lower than those fixtures, it would need to be elevated to the height of the fixtures to not have direct light from the non-opaque opening at the bottom of the shade.

 

[rufunky]

Thanks Mathew, those were some really good points! I actually have not mounted this camera yet so a ceiling height mount and redirecting the camera all together is still possible. Hopefully I can get some more feedback before I start drilling holes and running wires.

 

[surveillanceone]

I agree with @Matthewtalk, this looks pretty good for such a camera. To have more details/range in the dark area while retaining the detail in the bright kitchen, the camera would need better WDR. But even then, the dark area looks good considering the lighting.

 

[rufunky]

Actually I had WDR turned off here. Maybe enabling it would have evened out the lighting a bit?

 

[surveillanceone]

Actually I had WDR turned off here. Maybe enabling it would have evened out the lighting a bit?

It's worth trying, it might cause more noise in the dark areas. I made the comment based off the camera's spec of only having 74 dB of WDR (with that I thought the pictures looked pretty good).

 

[rufunky]

I think I found a better angle. This angle would have the camera recessed into the wall on a tillable mount, no light behind it and once it is set into the wall it will cover the foyer door, kitchen door and the whole living area. If someone were to break in they would head toward the camera and down the hall to the bedrooms or toward the camera and down the stairs to the basement.

This is at 2592 X 1944 @15fps RES, 1 AE reference target, WDR off and 1/30 shutter speed