Ok folks, I have spent some time playing with this new dual lens camera.
@Wildcat_1 went into all the specs and details and did a wonderful comparison that I could never compete with, so here are my average Joe comments LOL.
I am shocked how little light is needed to get a color picture. This is a substream snapshot out of
Blue Iris, but this is just with kitchen and family room light making its way outside through mostly closed blinds. I had to turn off all the lights for this evaluation LOL.
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I wasn't expecting this to produce that well in color with such little light. The 5442 would be a dark unusable color image. Although it is the same sensor size of the 5442, between the algorithms, better F-stop and dual lens fusion, this camera has a much easier time staying in color than the 5442. My results between the two cameras were comparable to what Wildcat experienced.
This is probably close to the 4K/X in terms of how little light is needed to produce a color picture.
For these tests, I ran H264, 1/100 shutter, 35 NR, 0-50 gamma, and 8192 bitrate and exported out of Blue Iris.
This first video was forcing it in color with ZERO ambient light and IR turned on at 15. Not that I expect anyone to try to run it this way, but I wanted to really push it and see what it could do.
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It makes an attempt at color, but I do not think anyone would run the camera in this setup, but does show the extents to which it will try to produce color. If you turn the IR up, then it performs comparable to any other IR camera as Wildcat demonstrated in his video, except you can take the flashlight and "colorize" portions that can get enough light. A perp walking around with a cellphone in their face could probably produce enough light to get a color face.
This next video shows the camera using just the lights from the camera. It was still dark out there to the naked eye and this image is much brighter than looking out with my own eyes. You can see that more dialing in would be needed as a person would get blinded out as they approach the camera. Easy fix. We like when we can speed up the shutter at night and can stay in color! Not many cameras we can say that about. Usually it is slowing the shutter down to keep it in color. I think this camera could stay brighter in lower light than the 4K/X due to the fusion of the dual lens.
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This next video shows 1800 lumen from two different locations coming off the 2nd story. Similar to above, some more dialing in would be needed to eliminate the blinding of an object up close. Again a good problem to have in being able to speed up the shutter at night in color!
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The next video shows where this camera can shine - when the light is coming from behind the person.
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Still some dialing in to do, but Wildcat demonstrated this much better and how it can solve a problem of backlight behind the subject where any other camera would result in a black silhouette (like the 5442 did in his side-by-side).
In summary, one of the things I say to NOOB's that come here is that even a great camera used in the wrong place or situation will result in subpar performance. This camera is no exception and there are right applications for it, and some wrong ones.
I think this camera will work well in the following conditions:
- An overview camera where IDENTIFY is not the primary purpose, but want the ability to obtain color video without a lot of ambient light. I can run this at a much faster shutter than other overview cams and get color with minimal/no blur.
- A camera with light sources that are way in front of the camera and behind the person. Any situation where a backlight situation happens that would provide a dark/black silhouette. Perhaps an offset of a house where the floodlights would be well ahead of the camera. My last example and Wildcats are great examples of a situation that this camera would do very well in.
- An area that you want color, have a little bit of ambient light, but do not want the LED camera lights on like what is needed for the 4K/X.
- Those wanting a turret version for the smaller form factor.
At the end of the day, I think it is a toss up between this camera and the 4K/X. They both serve a purpose and have locations where one would be the better choice than the other. From a pure picture quality standpoint with each camera set up in their ideal location, I would lean a little towards the 4K/X at the moment in a little better clarity due to the larger sensor and more MP, but I think some firmware adjustments that Wildcat mentioned can probably close the gap in this aspect. But in any situation that I mentioned above that would favor this camera, I would have no hesitation with this dual lens camera.
At the end of the day, I am glad I have each camera and have placed each one at the location that allows it to perform its best.
Andy mentioned a new firmware is available for beta testing, and I just got a copy of it for testing, so I will try it out over the next several days.
As always, thanks to Andy for bringing us the newest tech first! It is awesome to be part of a community that can provide feedback to the manufacturer to improve the performance of their product in the types of situations that we use these cameras for, which in many instances are different than what Dahua intended them to be used for!
), complimentary approach to cams in series and with less compromise as an end user or installer.
