Upgrading underwater camera

[chris mota]

I originally had taken one of my reolink 811 cams and converted it to an underwater cam for my koi pond. The picture was pretty good. I then had changed to a barlus 2mp cam which looked worse than the reolink. I now want to change the camera again and was looking for some input for a cam with good low light visibility. I was looking at the 4mp Dahua or maybe even their fusion model. What I really want is a cam that will show the fish pretty well throughout the 30ftx30ft pond. IR doesnt matter as it just shows all the particles in the water which is why I was looking at low light and starlight cams. Anyone have any recommendations for a poe cam that may do well in this role?

 

[duplo]

Dahua HDW2439T-AS-LED-S2

LED can be switched on with DMSS.. with warm light the problem of particles is not completely away, but much lesser than with IR/BW. Its impossible to have water so clean that you wont see it.

You can also use any other full color camera , but the better ones are huge, so hard to fit into housing

 

[TonyR]

According to the specs, the DH-IPC-HDW2439T-AS-LED-S2 above has only a 1/3" sensor, should be a lot larger for 4MP, at least 1/1.8" as are the 2 cameras below.

If not wanting any IR capability but instead use its built-in visible LED, consider instead ==>> Loryta 4MP Full Color Starlight WDR Turret AI IP POE Camera with 2 LEDs Fixed Lens Outdoor IP67 Weatherproof, Support POE, Face Image Capture, Built-in Mic, IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED S2 2.8mm

If IR capability wanted but also VERY low light capable (no built-in visible LED), consider ==>> Loryta Outdoor Security 4MP Ultra Low Light Starlight+ WDR IR Turret AI IP Camera,IP67 Weatherproof,Support POE and ePOE,Built-in Mic,Vehicle and Human Detection,Fixed Lens IPC-T5442TM-AS 2.8mm

 

[ipcamuser11]

Buy a camera module with IMX385(1/1.8") or IMX482(1/1.2"), I wonder if there is any ip camera that has better low light performance than IMX482

 

[duplo]

According to the specs, the DH-IPC-HDW2439T-AS-LED-S2 above has only a 1/3" sensor, should be a lot larger for 4MP, at least 1/1.8" as are the 2 cameras below.

According to spec sheets

IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED has F1.6
IPC-HDW2439T-AS-LED-S2 has F1.0

not sure if there will be any huge difference.

Underwater night is hardtime, really dark.
Without LED you will not see much. And with LED on short distance i dont think that the sensor size will help much ?

benefit for 5442 is 60fps@fhd and higher bitrqte, 2439 can only do 30fps and 6mbit

 

[TonyR]

According to spec sheets

IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED has F1.6
IPC-HDW2439T-AS-LED-S2 has F1.0

Apples and oranges....I was mentioning sensor sizes, not apertures.

I assumed the OP wanted excellent low light performance without having to resort to IR because of how it illuminated particulates floating in the water.

 

[chris mota]

I think im gonna get the 5442 s2, it has a min illum of .0005, will post a pic if I do...I was also looking some of the vari focal cameras as well. Is there a drop in quality with them?

 

[TonyR]

I think im gonna get the 5442 s2, it has a min illum of .0005, will post a pic if I do...I was also looking some of the vari focal cameras as well. Is there a drop in quality with them?

The vari-focal can be had with the same 1/1.8" sensor for 4MP so likely same "quality" BUT....I'm not sure if there's a full color version with visible light LED (and no IR sensitivity) like the fixed focal length IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED S2 you are considering. I could be wrong so ask Andy ( @EMPIRETECANDY ).

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED s2
actually is this model, IPC-HDW5449TM-SE-LED (dahuasecurity.com)

 

[chris mota]

how would the 5449 do in a pond VS the 5442?

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

how would the 5449 do in a pond VS the 5442?

5449 led has some good improvement compare to the 5442-led, better pics.

 

[chris mota]

pics from the barlus cam....will compare to whichever cam is next

 

[Perimeter]

A few things to consider:
The camera's LED light will reflect from each inserted glass layer you have. I assume you have at least one? So you might not be able to use it.
Depending on what you want to watch, your fish may be too close. This becomes more of an issue the closer the f-stop of the cam gets to 1.0 and the longer the focal length of the lens.

The vari-focal can be had with the same 1/1.8" sensor for 4MP so likely same "quality" BUT...

The low light color image quality varies vastly between these lenses! The new LED-S2 collects over 3 times more light than the varifocal! If you don't use illuminators, the low light color image of the LED-S2 seems much better at the same manual setting. In fact, in my testing, a shutter of 10ms on the LED-S2 still wins against one of 40ms of the varifocal. I was a bit surprised myself, I am still looking for user errors I may have made. However, you can set the varifocal to give sharp images at 3ft. Won't work with the LED-S2.

 

[duplo]

For me Barlus cam looks totally fine ?? What is the problem with it ?

Not sure what you expect. These are fixed cams which has factory focus around 10ft. Like @Perimeter already mention there will be problems with with close distances.

You will never get the same results as on National Geo TV shows because they are using 50.000USD+ cams or even expensiver robots with manual focus, better sensors, better optics etc. Also they have divers who control the cams.

There are some varifocal cams but they hardly fit somewhere. Dahua has no varifocal big fullcolor turrets like hikvision. Also only 1 ze fullcolor model is available from dahua. It has the same housing as 5442 ze bullet. It is really huge. Not only this. The inner is also really big. I have the camera here and removed the housing. Hard to fit in available stainless steel housing.

Here is an example video of the 3000€ hikvision underwater camera DS-2XC6224G0-L


Not sure what is your aim and what you mean by "better"

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Some camera like this? Lol pool is a little dirty, will have clean water later.have a waterproof box to hold the cam, can’t drop the cam directly to the water without any protection.

 

[TuckNTruck]

pics from the barlus cam....will compare to whichever cam is next

What kind of housing is the camera in?

 

[TRLcam]

I have built a few underwater IP cameras. Here is a link to a forum post from a few years past. Underwater IP camera on a beaver lodge

Here are a some videos from the last few years.

 

[duplo]

IPC-HFW5449T1-ZE-LED - Dahua Technology

IPC-HFW5449T1-ZE-LED

www.dahuasecurity.com

Not sure if @EMPIRETECANDY have it. It has optical zoom so you can adjust the sharpness for close distance. If changing focus is needed better buy ptz because varifocal not so fast

 

[TuckNTruck]

I have built a few underwater IP cameras. Here is a link to a forum post from a few years past. Underwater IP camera on a beaver lodge

That's exactly what I'm wanting to do. I read through the other thread, but could you explain the actual build process for the housing the camera went in? Materials, sealants, cable passthrough, etc? Thanks!

 

[TRLcam]

The housing is built with off the shelf PVC couplers and PVC pipe from the hardware store. The dome is a common replacement dome for IP cameras from Amazon. The sealant is Loctite Roof and Flashing polyurethane sealant. On the rear of the housing is a 1/4" plate that is drilled and tapped with a 1/2" pipe thread hole. In the hole is a brass 1/2" fitting sealed with Teflon tape. The cat5 is stripped back exposing the individual wires. It's fed through the fitting and then the fitting is filled with the Loctite sealant so it covers the individual wires and the outside sheath of the wire. This way, if the cat5 sheath is damaged and the cat5 is filled with water, the water will not enter the housing. I found out quickly, the river otters do not like wire and enjoy chewing on it. This camera has been in the water for a few years and has made some amazing videos for the customer.