Manual Shutter speed day and night
- Thread starter Cameraguy
- Start date
In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter 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 with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in 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 immediately at night is that 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 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
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 20-30 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.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible. HLC at 50, unless for LPR, will certainly degrade the image with motion.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter 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 with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in 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 immediately at night is that 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 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
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 20-30 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.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible. HLC at 50, unless for LPR, will certainly degrade the image with motion.
Last edited:
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Just my two cents, but I'd say the slowest you'd want is 16.66 or 10.00ms at night. Highest is whatever you think is applicable for the location of the camera. Day time I'd say 0.001 is probably good for the fast end. Day time low end is whatever will work in the specific location but no slower than 16.66ms.
I can see blur, with my tired old eyes, at speeds slower than 16.66ms, 1/60.
I can see blur, with my tired old eyes, at speeds slower than 16.66ms, 1/60.
This setting work ok for me for all my cameras with only one full time profile.
Please post a night video with motion showing how it works OK.
Unless you have stadium quality light at night or you do not care to be able to freeze frame capture a clean image of someone, auto shutter settings will not work. My still video looks like noon at midnight on auto settings, but it is a ghost/blur for any motion.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
flynreelow
Known around here
- Dec 12, 2016
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My cameras record on FTP server dav files; and I use VLC on linux to view the recorded file as it is.
I try to convert with VLC and upload but look like forum did no like the resulting file so now you have the original file inside zip.
To bad if you can't see that sexy lady from the original file.
I try to convert with VLC and upload but look like forum did no like the resulting file so now you have the original file inside zip.
To bad if you can't see that sexy lady from the original file.
flynreelow
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i have converted it for you and hosted it. its a big file, 170mb or so.My cameras record on FTP server dav files; and I use VLC on linux to view the recorded file as it is.
I try to convert with VLC and upload but look like forum did no like the resulting file so now you have the original file inside zip.
To bad if you can't see that sexy lady from the original file.
the MOV file can be found here, and played back via VLC or Quicktime and others..... here Index of /ipcam
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Guess I'll never see that sexy woman. I'm not downloading 170mb worth when a simple screen capture of motion would do the trick.
In the mean time, leaving things on auto is a road to failure. As the scene darkens down after sunset, the camera slows the shutter to 1/30, 33ms, and even slower to maintain a "nice" picture. This is true of low end cameras, mid level cameras and high end cameras. As has been said, unless your scene is very well lit at night auto settings will result in motion blur making the video useless.
In the mean time, leaving things on auto is a road to failure. As the scene darkens down after sunset, the camera slows the shutter to 1/30, 33ms, and even slower to maintain a "nice" picture. This is true of low end cameras, mid level cameras and high end cameras. As has been said, unless your scene is very well lit at night auto settings will result in motion blur making the video useless.
Last edited:
flynreelow
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its actaully alot better than i thought once the light (maybe floodlight) comes on.
Original dav recording it is only 7Mb.
Pictures are saved from VLC with 2x magnification
Camera it is a EZ-IP D2B20-ZS
Light it is a 20W LED reflector.
I am open to suggestion if you think I can get a better recording with different settings.
I increased Gain to 60 and now I have to use scheduled profile because that camera will switch to color mode but light it is not enough for ID.
Pictures are saved from VLC with 2x magnification
Camera it is a EZ-IP D2B20-ZS
Light it is a 20W LED reflector.
I am open to suggestion if you think I can get a better recording with different settings.
I increased Gain to 60 and now I have to use scheduled profile because that camera will switch to color mode but light it is not enough for ID.
flynreelow
Known around here
- Dec 12, 2016
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video is better than the snap shots, and i dont know why the converted file was so big. i think you can do that locally with a smaller file size... i was just trying to help out and took that file, and converted it, and uploaded to a site..
that being said, it wasnt bad. especially with the extra IR
user8963
Known around here
(now there are screens)You can use search on
VBR/CBR discussion
iframe/fps match discussion
and post conditions tab screens
