Problems With New HFW5241E-Z12E

[Nyghthawk]

Yup will focus going to day, but will NOT change focus when going to night

switched to night

noticed the difference ?

clicked "simulate sunset"

and....

now its right

 

[DLONG2]

Looks like I am dialed in with the night time LPR. Will probably need to make adjustments for sunrise and sunset. Wish the cameras came with 4 time settings! (Day/Night/Dawn and Dusk) I do have Backlight on HLC for 70, and WB for outdoor. IR Light is set at 100% for both far and near. Thanks all!

 

[bigredfish]

Can you post an example of a video/image using those settings? Quite different than mine and others..

• Typically, you wouldnt change any of the "Piture" settings much other than maybe Contrast.
• Any 3DNR setting over 50 will typically create motion blur
• I use CBR for LPR and max bitrate

 

[DLONG2]

Thanks, brf. I'll try those soon. In the meantime here's what I came up with . . .

 

[bigredfish]

Yeah definitely getting motion blur, better than I would have thought though.

 

[Nyghthawk]

Manually setting the camera profile, does NOT affect the focus, the focus is off every night time, since it has nothing to "focus" on, while during the day, the camera will refocus within 5-10 seconds.

I essentially need a script to click "simulate sunset" twice at sunset time....since the dahuasunrisesunsetscript.exe only sends the command ONCE, and for whatever reason does not allow it to focus.

Any ideas?

 

[bigredfish]

I do t use the script but others have had success with it.

I use “Schedule” and force a change 1 hr before sunset and 1 hr after sunrise.

The other method that works is simply to keep the camera in B&W both day and night

 

[Nyghthawk]

Schedule does NOT affect focus. (At least for me). When it changes to 'night' profile it tries to refocus, when it changes to 'day' profile, it will refocus again (but work because of day).

B&W is NOT the problem.

The Focus does not stay where I say to keep it, even with SCHEDULE enabled. IS there something I am missing?

 

[bigredfish]

You answered your own question.
the focus is off every night time, since it has nothing to "focus" on, while during the day, the camera will refocus within 5-10 seconds.

By using "Schedule" to change to B&W/Night profile BEFORE it gets dark, the camera has something to focus on and will generally stay there until morning. If you allow it to change profiles by itself, by waiting for the day/night sensor to determine its dark out, it will most often be too dark by that time to get a good focus.

And yes, if you keep it in B&W full time, regardless of other profile changes between day/night, it will generally keep a good focus.

B&W itself isnt the problem no, but when it switches from color/day profile to B&W profile at night, the focus will shift, and IF you have something for it to focus on BEFORE it gets too dark, (ie use the Schedule to tell it to switch one hour BEFORE sunset, before it would naturally change itself) it will adjust and keep that focus through the night.

Schedule is what you use to determine what times the day and night profiles are to be used. You adjust it. So on your camera, Schedule (telling the camera to switch to the Night Profile), does indeed affect the focus. Right now I have mine switch at about 7:30 both am and pm



**If it is changing on you AFTER having a good focus on night profile before dark, then you may have it zoomed out too far.. it's been shown that at 85-100% zoom, the camera wont reliably hold a focus day or night.

 

[Nyghthawk]

You answered your own question.
the focus is off every night time, since it has nothing to "focus" on, while during the day, the camera will refocus within 5-10 seconds.

By using "Schedule" to change to B&W/Night profile BEFORE it gets dark, the camera has something to focus on and will generally stay there until morning. If you allow it to change profiles by itself, by waiting for the day/night sensor to determine its dark out, it will most often be too dark by that time to get a good focus.

And yes, if you keep it in B&W full time, regardless of other profile changes between day/night, it will generally keep a good focus.

B&W itself isnt the problem no, but when it switches from color/day profile to B&W profile at night, the focus will shift, and IF you have something for it to focus on BEFORE it gets too dark, (ie use the Schedule to tell it to switch one hour BEFORE sunset, before it would naturally change itself) it will adjust and keep that focus through the night.

Schedule is what you use to determine what times the day and night profiles are to be used. You adjust it. So on your camera, Schedule (telling the camera to switch to the Night Profile), does indeed affect the focus. Right now I have mine switch at about 7:30 both am and pm



**If it is changing on you AFTER having a good focus on night profile before dark, then you may have it zoomed out too far.. it's been shown that at 85-100% zoom, the camera wont reliably hold a focus day or night.

I feel like that was a big facepalm to me!

Duh!

Change earlier, let it focus, then when the ambient light changes, it shall stay "focused". I will try B&W first, then night profile earlier. The problem i MIGHT have with changing night earlier, is when I have my settings to 1/500 for the shutter, might be washed out too early. I will work on this, thanks!

 

[bigredfish]

Yep, I have one At 1/1000 during the day in color, switches to B&W at 7:30 and goes to 1/2000. There is a brief period any given day before IR kicks in, depending on ambient light, that I don’t get good captures from 7:30-8pm

On my other, I just keep it in B&W 24/7 with two different exposures and it does fine.

I’m capturing at about 100–120 ft. Out around say 150–160 it becomes a problem because you have to zoom past that magic 85% or so...

 

[Parley]

That is what I am doing with my 4 B/W cameras. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Wildcat_1]

Yep, as @bigredfish and I mentioned above, its by no means foolproof (still have to adjust a few times through the year) but its the closest to a non scripted solution out there IMO. I'm even having better success now (with tweaking) when using at full zoom which is notoriously problematic but is now usable at least (little softer than I would like but works).

I feel like that was a big facepalm to me!

Duh!

Change earlier, let it focus, then when the ambient light changes, it shall stay "focused". I will try B&W first, then night profile earlier. The problem i MIGHT have with changing night earlier, is when I have my settings to 1/500 for the shutter, might be washed out too early. I will work on this, thanks!

 

[Wildcat_1]

Agree with @bigredfish on this one. Here are my 5231 vs 5241 settings.

HTH

5231-Z12E

Video
Main Stream
Encode = H264h
Resolution = 1920 x 1080
FPS = 30
Bit Rate Type = CBR
Bit Rate = 15k (I play with this a little bit every now and again)

Picture
Contrast = 66

Exposure
Mode = Manual
Shutter = 1/2000
Gain = 10 to 42
Iris = 46
3DNR = On @ Grade = 10 (sometimes even leave this off)

IR Light
Manual
Near = 32
Far = 100​

5241-Z12E

Video
Main Stream
Encode = H264h
Resolution = 1920 x 1080
FPS = 30
Bit Rate Type = CBR
Bit Rate = 15k (I play with this a little bit every now and again)

Picture
Contrast = 62

Exposure
Mode = Manual
Shutter = 1/1000
Gain = 10 to 50
Iris = 65
3DNR = On @ Grade = 10 to 20 (sometimes even leave this off)

IR Light
Manual
Near = 80
Far = 100​

Can you post an example of a video/image using those settings? Quite different than mine and others..

• Typically, you wouldnt change any of the "Piture" settings much other than maybe Contrast.
• Any 3DNR setting over 50 will typically create motion blur
• I use CBR for LPR and max bitrate

 

[Nyghthawk]

::HUGG:: ::FIST PUMP:: ::CHEERS::

To @bigredfish. I think the B&W is PERFECT. Seems focus stayed. Even when it went "night mode". Made a few more adjustments.

During the day, it seems a bit "dark" on the plates, but its legible. Seeing if I can make some changes there. I think its just the morning plates as the plates are backlit.

But. I think there is NO need to have any involvement, other than adjusting the times for sunrise/sunset every month or two or so......

Woot!

noticed some plates were a little "pixelated" figured that was due to the bitrate, so I have adjusted that up. (noticed that someone else mentioned VBR vs CBR, and I had thought that was the case, so I am assuming with someone else saying that, and tests to come tonight will fix that issue)

 

[bigredfish]

Glad you made progress!

I like CBR on tag cameras and as high bitrate as you can. I run 8192

 

[mech]

@DLONG2
I have a 5231E-Z12E originally bought for LPR work, which nowdays monitors the far end of a parking lot. Even with the IR maxed out, it doesn't really attract my eye while walking in the parking lot at night. But if you want to camouflage the red IR glow from 850nm emitters, one strategy would be to install a white-light fixture close enough to the camera that a casual observer wouldn't notice the IR glow near the visible-light fixture. Maybe a coach light or general-purpose floodlight, etc.

My own LPR is illuminated with two CMVision IR200 which are a very powerful, very directional 850nm model. They're not perfect (not IP66, 2-axis mount) but it's a lot of 850nm for the buck, so I always put in a word for those if someone needs long-range LPR illuminators and has a semi-sheltered location under an eave. I also ordered one of these with 15-degree spot optics to play with, but it sounds like it's a few weeks out: New - Infrared POD Light

I can relate to the complexities of dialing in the LPR settings. Plates vary in reflectivity, some are dirty, some are bent, some are obscured by trailer balls, some are well-lit by the vehicle's plate lights and get overexposed, some are swamped by headlights... the sweet spot is small when the camera has to compete with visible-wavelength light in the mix. Having the camera defocus at random definitely does NOT help, which is one reason I relegated the Dahua to parking-lot duty and used a different brand of camera for LPR, one that doesn't second-guess my focus setting.

 

[bigredfish]

That image looks live it could use some more zoom. Mine are about 1.5-2 car widths fov

 

[mech]

That image looks live it could use some more zoom. Mine are about 1.5-2 car widths fov

That's as tight as that lens can go, it's a fixed 50mm lens on a 5MP box camera. In this pic it's second from the far end. It provides higher effective plate size than the old one, a 720p model (center position with the linear polarizer on the Tamron lens), plus a bunch of peripheral coverage and a bigger window of capture for more samples.

(Bosch does have a 75mm variant of that lens, I guess I could watch for a hot buy on it at eBay)

It's a good thing cameras are not habit-forming. I can stop any time...

 

[bigredfish]