Night performance from Hikvison and Longse

[5string]

The following pics are from my freshly installed cams (all substream):

Longse s500 driveway (IR + street light)


Longse A400 front door (porch light OFF, IR only)


Hikvison 2cd-3345-i 4mm (IR only with a little street light)


Hikvision 2cd-3345-i 2.9mm (IR only)


Longse a400 rear entry [porch light OFF, IR only (it was rainy so moved a bunch of stuff under patio cover)]


What can I do for better performance from the Hikvision cams? They have only their EXIR illuminators, wheras the other cams have porch light/ street light assistance. All image settings are stock. 3rd pic is mounted ~12ft up looking at corner of front yard. 4th pic is ~ 25 ft high looking at side yard and street.

Also, why do the front/rear entry cams look "blotchy" with IR only?

All pics are from substream, but main streams do not improve night performance that I can tell.

 

[5string]

During the day/dusk, all cams look great.

 

[5string]

Front door with porch light ON


Rear entry porch light ON (same blotchyness as front entry with IR only)

 

[nayr]

that 'blotchyness' is IR reflection, because your looking at walls.. dunno what to do bout your front door, but back door should help if you move it so the roof and wall are out of frame.

can you turn the IR off or cover it up with a film or something to cut it down up front?

 

[fenderman]

With the hikvisions, make sure you disable smart ir....also try turning up the gain...
are the a400 dome cameras? as nayr pointed out its IR reflection. See this pdf https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/1177-Hikvision-Foggy-as-***?p=10194&viewfull=1#post10194

 

[klasipca]

Nice Longse s500 shot, even better then what I am getting out of it, but looks like you have more light in there.

 

[5string]

that 'blotchyness' is IR reflection, because your looking at walls.. dunno what to do bout your front door, but back door should help if you move it so the roof and wall are out of frame.

can you turn the IR off or cover it up with a film or something to cut it down up front?

I will try the masked IR idea. Thanks!

 

[5string]

With the hikvisions, make sure you disable smart ir....also try turning up the gain...
are the a400 dome cameras? as nayr pointed out its IR reflection. See this pdf https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/1177-Hikvision-Foggy-as-***?p=10194&viewfull=1#post10194

Yes, the a400 are domes. On the Hikvisions, I will disable the smart IR to see if it helps. Thanks!

 

[klasipca]

For that reason alone I am avoiding domes

 

[Kawboy12R]

I have some domes at my place but they've either got the IR turned off or I ordered them without IR. Built-in IR on anything but a PTZ is bad mojo, and double bad on a dome outdoors.

 

[jimg]

With the hikvisions, make sure you disable smart ir..

Can you explain why? Just interested...

 

[fenderman]

Can you explain why? Just interested...

Because smart IR dims the IR power to prevent over exposure..this occurs even if a person is not directly in front of the camera.

 

[5string]

I found the culprit: WDR enabled. After clicking that off, the images are now fairly well lit (raining now, thunderstorms all day):

Hikvison 2cd-3345-i 4mm (IR only with a little street light) WDR off, Smart IR off, Iris 1/100 Gain 90, DNR 72


Hikvison 2cd-3345-i 2.9mm (IR only) WDR off, Smart IR off, Iris 1/50 Gain 100, DNR 75 *any way to improve this image? grainy, hazy*

 

[nayr]

nice, WDR has little use at night.. its more for high contrast changes like a camera looking at both a covered porch and a bright driveway in same frame.. if you need it on during the day try to use separate profiles for day/night.. most of the times you turn it off unless you really need it, flattens out colors and adds a lil bit of blur.

that grain is noise from high gain, you can reduce the gain but it'll darken the image.. its already pretty dark, so your best bet is to add more lighting.. either visible or infrared.

 

[Mel42]

Try turning your Iris Exposure time down at night to 1/30 or 1/12 to let more light in and adjust gain down, 1/12 or lower and you my start seeing motion blur.

 

[Kawboy12R]

May start seeing motion blur at 1/12? 1/30th should be an absolute maximum acceptable exposure length for slowly moving targets and "cheap" cameras using poor lighting. 1/60th is much better but still not great for walking targets up close (the money shots) unless they stop. 1/120th for more serious ID. If the video is garbage at 1/30th add more lights unless you want to admire the scenery instead of use your cams for people ID.

I think his exposures are reasonable at 1/50 and 1/100 for freezing people. A little extra grain is better than blur. Add more light to improve the picture, not lengthen exposure.

 

[5string]

Is it reasonable to use electrical tape to mask some of the leds?

 

[nayr]

completely, actually few things will hold up outside better for longer than some good quality electrical tape.

 

[5string]

completely, actually few things will hold up outside better for longer than some good quality electrical tape.

Copy, gonna leave 2 unmasked on each side of light sensor aND see how it performs.

 

[5string]

Clarifying: ok directly over led, or tape on dome?