My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best picture?

[AlpineWatch]

I am now the proud owner of a Hikvision camera. Bought a DS-2CD2032F-I from Aliexpress and got it installed today. Should have gotten the 6mm instead of 12mm but the image in the daytime is great, nightime - not so great. Very noisy and sparkly image.

I played around with settings a lot and finally hit on going to a slower shutter speed. At first I didn't think it would work as the AGC is so slow to act - I was getting a black screen for many many seconds. I'm running 1/6 and have some sparklies - 1/3 would be better but I'll leave it for now.

Is there a sticky for the 'best' settings in the daytime and night time?

Also, can I set a shutter speed for daytime and a different one for night time? I didnt' see that I could make that choice.

FW is 5.3.0

Thanks

 

[acp_xt]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Hello,

Could you post a full resolution image from the camera? That would help us judge how bad it is. Also do you have any external IR illuminators? I have the 2032-I version and the image quality is amazingly good but thats with the help of 2 external IR lamps.

In my camera, under the Auto-switch between day and night setting, I can have only a single set of settings for both day and night. But if you choose "Scheduled switch", and define start/end timings for day and night modes, then you can configure day and night settings separately including gain and shutter speed. But I am on V5.2.0 build 140721 which is a bit old, maybe the feature you seek has been added in newer firmware versions?

Cheers

 

[NoloC]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Hi,

I think you'll find exposure rates less than 1/30 will cause too much motion blur. This makes identifying people very difficult at night.
The suggestion for additional lighting may be the best way to go.
The shutter speed setting on these cameras, as I understand it, is a minimum. The camera will automatically change shutter speed to compensate for light levels. There is no iris.
Also the frame rate will diminish if needed to accomodate the shutter speed setting. For example if your shutter speed is 1/12 at night the camera could only do a maximum of 12fps.

Congrats on your purchase. They are great little cameras!

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Hello,

Could you post a full resolution image from the camera? That would help us judge how bad it is. Also do you have any external IR illuminators? I have the 2032-I version and the image quality is amazingly good but thats with the help of 2 external IR lamps.

In my camera, under the Auto-switch between day and night setting, I can have only a single set of settings for both day and night. But if you choose "Scheduled switch", and define start/end timings for day and night modes, then you can configure day and night settings separately including gain and shutter speed. But I am on V5.2.0 build 140721 which is a bit old, maybe the feature you seek has been added in newer firmware versions?

Cheers

Thanks for the input. I need to figure out how to get a full res image from the camera but once I do I'll post it. Thanks also on the info on how to set a different image setting for day vs night. Sounds like for mine that is the only way. It would be nice if these cameras could have a feature to automatically track sunrise/sunset based on date, time and lat/long instead of just fixed time.

Hi,

I think you'll find exposure rates less than 1/30 will cause too much motion blur. This makes identifying people very difficult at night.
The suggestion for additional lighting may be the best way to go.
The shutter speed setting on these cameras, as I understand it, is a minimum. The camera will automatically change shutter speed to compensate for light levels. There is no iris.
Also the frame rate will diminish if needed to accomodate the shutter speed setting. For example if your shutter speed is 1/12 at night the camera could only do a maximum of 12fps.

Congrats on your purchase. They are great little cameras!

Good to know. I have yet to look at today's captures to see how blown out the image is as the shutter speed is 1/6 since last night.

Has anyone seen if the 12mm version has less night vision capability just due to the tighter FOV? Kind of like zooming in a microscope - there's just less light coming in. (I wonder what the f number is for 2.8, 4, 6, 12mm lenses.)

 

[fenderman]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Has anyone seen if the 12mm version has less night vision capability just due to the tighter FOV? Kind of like zooming in a microscope - there's just less light coming in. (I wonder what the f number is for 2.8, 4, 6, 12mm lenses.)

It has worse nightvision because the ir can reach that far...

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

It has worse nightvision because the ir can reach that far...

Good point. Pretty decent though compared to my Costco 1080p Lorex HD-CVI which isn't saying much. Can't believe the Lorex claims 130'. Good news is it is helping the Lorex camera out.

 

[lulu5kamz]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

I have a one of these cameras installed on one end of our 50ft deck pointed at the other end of the deck. About 25ft from the far end I installed a CMVision IR56 illuminator to help out the camera. Here is a snapshot sample taken from the camera. It was raining at the time and this unknown dog was walking around our house. I use the daytime settings for the camera at night with no changes.

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Thanks for the photo. I guess given the distance (over 100') and only using the built in IR led's, I cannot complain.

I took a snapshot from the web GUI but don't know how to retrieve it. I found out how to download the motion detect videos but don't see how to get images.

Also, do I need to change any port settings on this to access it from the WAN? I've got port forwarding turned on where myexternalIPaddress:8020 is routed to my Hikvision camera (192.168.1.71) but I don't get a logon screen. If my PC is on the lan, everything works fine by internal IP address.

 

[NVR]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Although still shots are descent at night, It was very challenging for me to find a median between a clear image and avoiding blurs and ghosting for moving subjects. In the end I settled on the default settings as they seem to provide the least amount of blurring and ghosting. I did increase the FPS to full frame along side the defaults.

 

[acp_xt]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Thanks for the photo. I guess given the distance (over 100') and only using the built in IR led's, I cannot complain.

I took a snapshot from the web GUI but don't know how to retrieve it. I found out how to download the motion detect videos but don't see how to get images.

Also, do I need to change any port settings on this to access it from the WAN? I've got port forwarding turned on where myexternalIPaddress:8020 is routed to my Hikvision camera (192.168.1.71) but I don't get a logon screen. If my PC is on the lan, everything works fine by internal IP address.

Why would you want to expose the admin page to the WAN (the 8020 port)? That would be less secure. You can forward just the RTSP port (554) to an external port on your router (for example 45678). This will let you access both the main and secondary streams through an RTSP viewer such as VLC. You don't need to change any port settings on the camera.

I would suggest not port forwarding your cameras at all and use a VPN instead. It's far more secure. Otherwise there is a very real chance that your cameras will become the target of hackers targeting broad IP ranges. It happened to me.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Why would you want to expose the admin page to the WAN (the 8020 port)? That would be less secure. You can forward just the RTSP port (554) to an external port on your router (for example 45678). This will let you access both the main and secondary streams through an RTSP viewer such as VLC. You don't need to change any port settings on the camera.

I would suggest not port forwarding your cameras at all and use a VPN instead. It's far more secure. Otherwise there is a very real chance that your cameras will become the target of hackers targeting broad IP ranges. It happened to me.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Thanks for the input. What you wrote is greek to me other than I thought I might try and adjust image settings remotely.
I'm running a simple version of ddr-wrt. I'll see if I can figure out how to route port 554 outside.

Is there a VLC equivalent for an iOS device? (iphone)

 

[acp_xt]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Thanks for the input. What you wrote is greek to me other than I thought I might try and adjust image settings remotely.
I'm running a simple version of ddr-wrt. I'll see if I can figure out how to route port 554 outside.

Is there a VLC equivalent for an iOS device? (iphone)

Sorry for the geek speak! What I meant is that the camera has two ports - typically 8000 for accessing the web interface to manage the camera, and the 554 port for viewing just the RTSP video streams.

Is there a VLC equivalent for an iOS device? (iphone)

Yes you can try this app IP Cam Viewer Lite (there is a paid PRO version also).
I am sure there are other iOS apps but I use Android and the best one there is tinyCAM Monitor Pro, which is not available on iOS.

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Sorry for the geek speak! What I meant is that the camera has two ports - typically 8000 for accessing the web interface to manage the camera, and the 554 port for viewing just the RTSP video streams.


Yes you can try this app IP Cam Viewer Lite (there is a paid PRO version also).
I am sure there are other iOS apps but I use Android and the best one there is tinyCAM Monitor Pro, which is not available on iOS.

Hmm, still having problems. VLC, IP Cam Viewer and Ivms-4500 all complain about not being able to get to the camera though I've routed external port 8002 to the internal port 554 of my Hikvision camera.

 

[wxman]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Good to know. I have yet to look at today's captures to see how blown out the image is as the shutter speed is 1/6 since last night.

Don't worry about that, the shutter speed is a "maximum time" shutter speed based on lighting conditions...That is, it will only slow to 1/6 when it's dark enough to need 1/6 and it will automatically adjust shutter speed based on lighting conditions, except it will never go slower than 1/6.

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Don't worry about that, the shutter speed is a "maximum time" shutter speed based on lighting conditions...That is, it will only slow to 1/6 when it's dark enough to need 1/6 and it will automatically adjust shutter speed based on lighting conditions, except it will never go slower than 1/6.

Thanks! I did review recordings and the daytime photos do look good but I wonder if it is adjusting gain to compensate for brightness issues instead of changing shutter speed. The setting for shutter speed is set to manual (there is no other setting in the dropdown) and when a car went by it was noticeably blurred.

 

[wxman]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Thanks! I did review recordings and the daytime photos do look good but I wonder if it is adjusting gain to compensate for brightness issues instead of changing shutter speed. The setting for shutter speed is set to manual (there is no other setting in the dropdown) and when a car went by it was noticeably blurred.

If it stayed at 1/6 shutter speed, a car would be so blurred that you probably wouldn't even be able to recognize it as a car. When mine is that that slow at night, you can't identify cars when they pass. You only see it as a long streak of light stretched along the road like a meteor or shooting star....also the picture would be so blown out at 1/6 in the daytime that even on the lowest gain setting, you'd probably see nothing but solid white.

 

[AlpineWatch]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

If it stayed at 1/6 shutter speed, a car would be so blurred that you probably wouldn't even be able to recognize it as a car. When mine is that that slow at night, you can't identify cars when they pass. You only see it as a long streak of light stretched along the road like a meteor or shooting star....also the picture would be so blown out at 1/6 in the daytime that even on the lowest gain setting, you'd probably see nothing but solid white.

Thank you! Tonight I reviewed saved images and cars passing by are crisp when paused.

I really wish nighttime images were cleaner.

 

[acp_xt]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Thank you! Tonight I reviewed saved images and cars passing by are crisp when paused.

I really wish nighttime images were cleaner.

Can you post a full res screenshot? You can take an image from the camera live view page.

 

[geek7899]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

Hello,

Could you post a full resolution image from the camera?

How do you do that ?
I click on the camera icon and it gives me a 600-700KB image. This is a 3MP 2335 Hik camera ...

 

[acp_xt]

Re: My first Hikvision (2CD2032F) - is there a sticky for setting it up for best pict

How do you do that ?
I click on the camera icon and it gives me a 600-700KB image. This is a 3MP 2335 Hik camera ...

The size sounds right. Check the actual dimensions of the photo. If it is not 2048x1536, are you viewing the main stream when you take the snapshot? I tried this on my 3 MP HIK and got a full res snap shot.