Shutter speed.

[Bitslizer]

So left in auto, it seems the shutter speed is so slow at night that any cars driving past is a streak, can't even tell the make/model or SUV vs Sedan.

I'm using 2 starlight lite cameras 0.007/0.008 lux The street light is actually sufficient to get the camera to run in color mode up to 1/250 or 1/500 if I force them in manual mode but even 1/500 shutter is too slow (over exposed) during the day.

1) anyway to set a shutter "floor" so that it can have a faster shutter during the day but will not go slower than a pre-defined shutter speed at night by auto-adjusting gain instead?
2) anyway to tell what shutter speed the camera is using? with RTSP viewer like tiny cam I can tell the FPS but not shutter. Not using blue IRIS but I can get the free/lite version for tinkering until I find the right setting.

Thank You

 

[sebastiantombs]

Log directly into the camera's web GUI using the IP address of the camera. Use IE, not Edge, or Chrome with the IE plug-in for best results. If you haven't done that before you will be prompted for an admin password. I'd also suggest not using the QR for PnP and not opting for auto updates during that procedure.

Once logged into the camera go to Settings, Exposure. Then click on the shutter speed. A list will pop up. At the bottom of the list a selection will be there for manual. Select that. Typical settings would be 0 to 4ms for the day profile and 0-16ms for the night profile. That will give you a range of up to, roughly, 1/250 for daytime and 1/60 for night time. You can play with the range to adjust for each camera and the conditions it operates under. Don't forget to "save" your changes to the camera.

Typically at night slower than 1/60 (~16ms) is too slow to get reliable video of motion.

 

[wittaj]

Take it off auto settings at night unless you like seeing Casper and blurring and hotspots. Auto settings in most situations for shutter will produce a great picture, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting. Even in the day auto settings are usually not your friend.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-30 (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more and gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared.

Now what you will notice that happens immediately is your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night image results in Casper during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

So if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 30ms as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 25-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

 

[Bitslizer]

i'm trying to force a 4(1/250) or 2 (1/500) ms shutter in Color mode at night, but allow the shutter to go up to 0.25ms (1/4000) during the day. If using the Day/Night mode, it forces B/W at night. I maybe able to live in B/W but ideally i want color (help with color ID of cars passing by)... much less IR dust ghost false MD alert for example
If using the General/Normal mode, the 2ms shutter is too slow during the day and it won't auto adjust the shutter to a faster speed in shutter priority or manual mode

I'm willing to trade off on shadow noise rather than streak/blur from too slow shutter speed

 

[wittaj]

You need to set the range of times 0-4ms - if you force just 1/250 then you get that issue. Setting a range of 0-4ms menas at 0 means it will go up to 1/100,000 shutter speed and the 4ms means no slower than 1/250 shutter and the camera will do this based on the available light.

Another problem with the Dahua cams that has yet to be fixed is their day/night programming sucks!

You either need to use the app someone created here to force it to the day and night settings based on sunrise/sunset OR use the schedule in the camera to set times for it to go to day and to night, but then you need to jump in there periodically to adjust it based on the time changes of sunrise and sunset...

 

[Bitslizer]

semi related....

Not sure if its a 3D NR too strong thing? a jogger passed by at 5am before the sky starts to get bright, can see his blur under the street light, but get to a darker part not under the street light and he seeming engaged the cloaking device blending into the street.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, you need to take NR down as far as tolerable and that number is camera and location specific. But too high, coupled with too high of a gain and it will ghost trail.

 

[sebastiantombs]

You can force color at night with the Day/Night settings. Frankly, unless you have really lots of light at night, as in semi-daylight, you will not get color video at night with shutter speeds high enough to prevent blur.

 

[wittaj]

^+1 I suspect you are running shutter priority that doesn't let you adjust the gain, so to make up for a 1/250 shutter at night, the gain is probably 100 and you get that blur due to NR also high.

Try my recommendations in post #3 above and @sebastiantombs in post #2.

Starlight is just a marketing term...all cameras need light and a lot of it because the sensors are so small.

 

[Bitslizer]

You can force color at night with the Day/Night settings. Frankly, unless you have really lots of light at night, as in semi-daylight, you will not get color video at night with shutter speeds high enough to prevent blur.

How? I mean I can force set the night profile to color(yes I saved). But when I change the profile management to day/night it seem to reset the night to bw/ir

thanks!

 

[Bitslizer]

I will try to post some photo with different setting tonight picture is worth a thousand words

 

[wittaj]

How? I mean I can force set the night profile to color(yes I saved). But when I change the profile management to day/night it seem to reset the night to bw/ir

thanks!

See my post number 5 above. The day/night profile management isn't what you think - that uses the day settings, so the "day and night" setting under day is set to auto which is why it goes to B/W. Also why your settings are not working as you think...

Under settings is a "Day and Night", so set it to color.

Also, make sure you are using IE as other web browsers are sometimes googy with some of these cameras.

Also hit save 3 times and then refresh to ensure the setting held.

 

[Bitslizer]

I do

See my post number 5 above. The day/night profile management isn't what you think - that uses the day settings, so the "day and night" setting under day is set to auto which is why it goes to B/W. Also why your settings are not working as you think...

Under settings is a "Day and Night", so set it to color.

Also, make sure you are using IE as other web browsers are sometimes googy with some of these cameras.

Also hit save 3 times and then refresh to ensure the setting held.

I don't seem to have a shutter speed "range"

Is that a IE plugin thing? Been using chrome and have not yet got a chance to fire up my pc with ie (work laptop which I normally use does not allow ie plugin)

 

[wittaj]

Yes, under Chrome even with the IE plugin thing that could be a problem. but I don't think so in your case. Under exposure, go to the setting as Manual and then go to the bottom of the pop up box showing all the shutter speeds and you can select customized range.

IE is the best for these cameras.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I use a combination of things to manage day/night profile changes. I use "auto" in both day and night profiles of the camera. In addition I use the Sunrise/Sunset utility to force the camera into the night and day profiles. This lets me have specific setting for day and night in the camera and still allows the camera to switch modes on really overcast days or bright early mornings.

Sunrise/Sunset Utility

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

I wanted to use stronger noise reduction at night and weaker during the day, but Dahua seems to have made a mess of the profile management. On most cameras, there doesn't seem to be a way to have the camera switch automatically between Day and Night profiles when the camera changes between...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Bitslizer]

Yes, under Chrome even with the IE plugin thing that could be a problem. but I don't think so in your case. Under exposure, go to the setting as Manual and then go to the bottom of the pop up box showing all the shutter speeds and you can select customized range.

IE is the best for these cameras.

Feel like smacking my head, found "customized range" WAY at the bottom of the drop down...... not sure how I missed it before

 

[Bitslizer]

seems to be doing what I want so far, some minor tweaks for noise and exposure. Thanks again @sebastiantombs and @wittaj