Poor Night Imagery

[glyoder]

Good Day -

I'm running the following setup:

• 1x Indoor, 5x Outdoor Cameras, all of them DS-2CD2155FWD-I running firmware 5.4.4
• Each of the cameras are set to their factory defaults
• Synology Surveillance Station 8.2
• Ubiqiti Unifi router/switch

The networking, PoE, NVR recording and general software setup are working great. I love the functionality. Daytime images are also quite good. However, as you will see from the following, most of the night images are awful. I have one (!) camera that's performing quite well at night, but the rest might as well not be turned on. I have washing out, "starring", and pretty severe IR reflection (I think). Take a look at the following images and you'll see what I mean.

So, a few questions:

1. What is the best location and angle for mounting this camera under the eave of a house to minimize reflections? Should it be mounted as close to the edge as possible? Should any of the house be in the frame at all? Is there a possibility of IR reflection even if there is no visible reflecting surface?
2. What camera settings should I use given the HW/FW setup I have?
3. Any other suggestions?

I know that the dome cameras are not ideal, but given that one of them is working spectacularly, I have to think that the others can be improved.

Thanks in advance.

Greg

 

[catcamstar]

Hi, no expert on Hik, but my suggestions:
- fix your time settings in the cam: 14:00 is 2pm, and shouldn't be nighttime
- clean your dome glass inside and outside, and make sure there is no single spot left for ir reflection
- positioning of the camera body is optimal when you eliminate at max level any ir reflection to inside rings (or outside walls) - for example your first image looks great, but your garden path is underlit because your wall is overlit. I would suggest to turn that one bit more to the right.

If the above do not help, you can try to elinate all ir on the domes itself, and work with external ir illuminators.

 

[whatevah]

Most of your problem is due to IR reflection off the lenses... that's primarily why they're not recommended for outdoor use (or indoors, unless you need the protection the domes offer). Start off with cleaning the domes. But in the long run, you'll need to shut off the built-in IR LEDs and use dedicated IR emitters or switch to turret style cameras because you'll need to clean the domes regularly. Technically, you'll likely want separate IR emitters with any camera so you don't get IR reflections in rain/fog and minimize problems with spiders and insects. My driveway camera uses the on-board LEDs and it's been nearly useless all night due to fog.

 

[SouthernYankee]

Read the cliff notes in the wiki. The wiki is in the blue bat at the top of the page.

Your first mistake, you spent money without becomming educated in the subject matter.