Worlds First Review - Dahua DH-IPC-HFW5449T1-ZE-LED / IPC-Color4M - 4MP Full Color At Night Vari-Focal Bullet Cam

[CCTVCam]

Although sensor size is a big factor I'm not sure it's the be all and end all. At the end of the day sensitvity is still going to play a part and that's down to the silicon and independent of the size or number of photons striking it.

A sensors performance is always going to be a combination of all three. For most purposes though, often the 2 biggest factors are size and light gathering. This case shows though that it's not always case that those 2 factors rule exclusively.

 

[Wildcat_1]

As @CCTVCam mentioned above, there are more factors at play for sure and in the case of these cams there are a number of under the hood adjustments which are impacted by overall sensitivity and how far each can be pushed before you see the break points. This is evident through under the cover AGC + Exp Comp algorithms which in the case of these full color cams are pushed hard by Dahua. You can adjust to compensate for these (and should) as I've shown before (while Dahua is looking at the improvements and fixes I've recommended) but can still critically see where noise becomes an issue to the point you can improve light performance at the cost of degraded image quality which is NEVER a good idea.. In putting these cams through the paces as I did, there is a clear difference between the handling of this by these 2 models (4MP + 4K) in the same full color family hence my observations and my ultimate recommendation below.

My final wrap thoughts on this cam (since I covered a lot of the detail earlier) are that for the price point, which is the same or very close to the 5849T1, the 4K is definitely the better purchase choice in the current crop of full color Dahua's. Just remember DOF is shallow on the 4K, plan your install location including distance and height to target carefully to ensure critical focus at capture point, add appropriate additional lighting (off cam) and personally, I still prefer the overall PQ afforded by the 2.8 model over the 3.6mm after testing both.

HTH