Hikvision ColorVu + 4K (DS-2CD2087G2-L)

wittaj

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Hi all, this is confirmed, I have 4mm and when changed to Day, Gain Slider is shown at default 100%. The case of the missing gain slider is resolved :).
I guess time to slip on your slippers and walk up and down the sidewalk and lets see the motion!
 

wittaj

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Here is a quick clip of someone walking past my house but I was messing with the gain at the time as you might see the image go dark to lighter.
So jealous of all the light you have - your videos, regardless of camera, always put our same cams to shame LOL. I guess with enough light, even high gain isn't impacted...
 
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coney27

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this is patently not true. i have many Hik cams. my 2032's have it. my 2342wd-i on V5.5.82 build 190220 does NOT.
My T2347G(1) does have it, as I posted earlier in this thread. So either Hik occasionally decides to hide it for some reason (marketecture!) or some versions of teh FW are simply buggy...
You are correct. I totally misspoke. I went through many of my cameras and found the gain by changing to the day setting. My apologies.
 

pozzello

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so, on my T2347G(1), i can make the gain slider disappear ONLY with the 'scheduled-switch/common' settings. I have no 'auto' option. of course, the GUI may vary with the 8mp G2's, but it does seem to have something to do with one's day/night settings...
hik 2347G auto-switch.PNGhik 2347G sceduled-swicth common.PNGhik 2347G day.PNG
 

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What a great example in one location showing how a camera gain can be used (and some intentionally by manufacturers that don't allow adjustments) to make a camera look nice and bright as a still image as that is what the average consumer wants without concern or understanding of motion. I bet someone walking by at higher gains probably do not look as well as the lower ones!
So you can't adjust the gain when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... and presumably the gain is set to 100 when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... seems like @wittaj is correct... why not allow you to change gain based on the Day/Night switch setting?

I think @ljw2k 's image looks bright enough at 40 gain... if that helps reduce motion blur
 

ljw2k

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Going to try it on 1/250th Sec Exposure and 60 gain with LED on motion. I will mention the picture has a slight roll in it now due to the higher Exposure values but should get a great capture when the White LED's come on and just wish I can adjust the brightness of them but maybe in a later firmware.

1250.jpg
 
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spammenotinoz

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Going to try it on 1/250th Sec Exposure and 60 gain with LED on motion. I will mention the picture has a slight roll in it now due to the higher Exposure values but should get a great capture when the White LED's come on and just wish I can adjust the brightness of them but maybe in a later firmware.

View attachment 83022
Need some front light. Light behind won't help capture a face walking towards those cameras. There is no substitute for good light, a good security light on it's own is a great deterrent at night and a bonus if you have CCTV just makes the footage at night so much better.

If you don't want to use the Camera's LED's and Can't Hardwire a normal security light these work well.

Motion Mode and Dim + Bright (when motion is detected) modes work well for me.

The beast below is often < $20

1613792142550.png

1613792126209.png
 
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ZeeCam

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I saw mention of new firmware with led light but I am not finding. Where did you download?
 

CCTVCam

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Bad marketecture at work! The 4mm lens will inherently gather less light than the 2.8mm, so in order to meet their claimed '.0005 lux' rating (or at least get closer) with the 4mm, they must have pinned the gain up high and removed the control. lame...
I don't believe there's any need for them to do that. Look at gaming monitors (OK totally different industry I know but the laws around marketing and represnetation will be the same). In gaming monitors, often 1ms grey to grey response is mentioned. However, upon investigation by many of the top review channels on Youtube that measure response, they find many monitors can only manage 1ms if set to a the highest level of over drive which then introduces others factors that may make the monitor unsuable to the average gamer. It seems therefore that provided the monitor can manage the claimed figure for reponse, it's no a misrepresentation even if the setting is otherwise all but unusable due to other factors such as overshoot. There's often comment by some of the reviewers therefore that they suspect the top over drive setting on some monitors may have been included soley so the monitor could meet the marketing claims as it has little practical use otherwise to the many gamers due to other artefacts introduced at that setting. (I couldn't comment on whether this is true or not). Coming back to CCTV therefore, I see no reason why they'd have to lock gain to the highest setting and remove the slider to meet the specification claims for legal purposes. I'd have thought it much more likely that all they needed to do is simply have it possible for the camera to meet the spec, not deliver it with settings that meet the spec out of the box. In any case, even if it did need to meet the spec on out of the box settings, they could still include a gain control but just ship it with the default position of 100%.


So you can't adjust the gain when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... and presumably the gain is set to 100 when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... seems like @wittaj is correct... why not allow you to change gain based on the Day/Night switch setting?

I think @ljw2k 's image looks bright enough at 40 gain... if that helps reduce motion blur
I'm guessing they interpret auto as auto for all exposure controls. Not that surprising. The main factor of interest for us is there is gain control. Maybe there's life in these cameras yet given the side by side test above.
 

wittaj

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I'm guessing they interpret auto as auto for all exposure controls. Not that surprising. The main factor of interest for us is there is gain control. Maybe there's life in these cameras yet given the side by side test above.
I'll take credit for railroading this thread (since many said I did just that LOL) as it ended up resulting in folks figuring out these things have gain control LOL. That in and of itself is a major find and improvement to this camera that probably wouldn't have been found without so many people trying to figure it out the past 24 hours - how long has this camera been out and we as a group just now figured it out....

Now granted it seems strange that it needs to be on Day setting for gain as it is the night time that we are more concerned about having too high gain. Too high of gain is bad for daytime too, but a faster shutter can overcome a higher gain during the bright daytime. Nighttime is ghost city.

However, even with this find, it still doesn't resolve the fact that this camera for what @Night-Owl was trying to accomplish - ID people at the sidewalk - simply isn't the right location for this camera. Even controlling gain, the faces are too small and too far away to make an ID even if they were not ghosting. Great overview camera. Great camera if the subjects are closer. But just like any other camera, if the lens size isn't appropriate for the area being targeted to cover, it isn't the right camera for that location - doesn't matter who makes the camera or what the specs say.
 

johnfitz

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Now granted it seems strange that it needs to be on Day setting for gain as it is the night time that we are more concerned about having too high gain. Too high of gain is bad for daytime too, but a faster shutter can overcome a higher gain during the bright daytime. Nighttime is ghost city.
I just double checked... The gain control in available for all day/night switch settings except auto... you can set the gain for day, night, and scheduled-switch.

I also tried changing the light brightness control to manual with the day/night switch set to auto but the gain still can't be manually set.

Does the day/night switch control anything other than the smart supplement light (and gain when set to auto)?

When the day/night switch is set to auto and controlling the gain, is the gain set to 100 or is it being dynamically changed?
 

Night-Owl

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So you can't adjust the gain when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... and presumably the gain is set to 100 when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... seems like @wittaj is correct... why not allow you to change gain based on the Day/Night switch setting?

I think @ljw2k 's image looks bright enough at 40 gain... if that helps reduce motion blur
These cameras don't do black and white only colour so I to was wondering why day / night, why not just put on day and lower the gain to what is acceptable for both day and night as the setting is max gain, so it will use what it wants up to that setting. Since the gain setting has been found I sold both my used cameras within 10 minutes. (Well pending funds). Issue is, after playing with the gain etc on Dahua as seen above, I am not sure the Dahua can out perform the Hik, for colour night vision more motion tests are needed on a max of 80% gain to see what motion is like at night on that setting. I will need to see in another 8 hrs when gets dark :). More videos coming :) on 80% Hik Vs Dahua in approx 8 hrs :). If the NIC motion is fixed on 80% gain then I will need to rethink things....
 

alastairstevenson

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When the day/night switch is set to auto and controlling the gain, is the gain set to 100 or is it being dynamically changed?
Check it with this in the browser :
http://<camera_IP_address>/ISAPI/Image/channels/1/gain
and this
http://<camera_IP_address>/ISAPI/Image/channels/1/exposure
 

Dave Lonsdale

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So you can't adjust the gain when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... and presumably the gain is set to 100 when the Day/Night Switch is set to Auto... seems like @wittaj is correct... why not allow you to change gain based on the Day/Night switch setting?

I think @ljw2k 's image looks bright enough at 40 gain... if that helps reduce motion blur
I notice that this thread has become very active. But there seems to be a theme that increasing the gain also increases ghosting. Would some learned person please explain? My understanding is that ghosting is caused exclusively by the noise reduction averaging the image from many sequential frames. Perhaps the available bit rate also contributes to its visual severity.

Could it be that when the gain is increased, the noise already in the image becomes far more noticeable and so you instinctively reach out to increase the noise reduction and then blame more gain?
 

coney27

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I did a quick night test last night under a no ambient light outdoor scenario. Make sure to watch it in 4k.
 

Night-Owl

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I did a quick night test last night under a no ambient light outdoor scenario. Make sure to watch it in 4k.
Hello, was this 2.8 / 4mm etc and what settings were you using please, thank you
 

wittaj

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I notice that this thread has become very active. But there seems to be a theme that increasing the gain also increases ghosting. Would some learned person please explain? My understanding is that ghosting is caused exclusively by the noise reduction averaging the image from many sequential frames. Perhaps the available bit rate also contributes to its visual severity.

Could it be that when the gain is increased, the noise already in the image becomes far more noticeable and so you instinctively reach out to increase the noise reduction and then blame more gain?
Gain is a setting that controls the amplification of the signal from the camera sensor and as you point out this amplifies the whole signal, including any associated background noise. But you can take gain too high that not even touching noise reduction you get ghosting if the shutter speed is slow enough.
 

wittaj

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I did a quick night test last night under a no ambient light outdoor scenario. Make sure to watch it in 4k.
Keep in mind that snow has a tremendous reflective quality to it and the results could be substantially different when it is dark grass. There was a fair amount of noise in your face even up close and I think would be worse without snow.

All of my cameras, including some cheapo analog I am still running, are looking really good at midnight right now with a ton of snow out there...
 
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