Okay, the "exposure mode" was set to "custom" and that gave me a monochrome image. The image still looks noisy.
Vigilant Solutions VSR-60-02MP1 IP Camera IPC262ER9-X10DU 24V, 1.5A, 50/60Hz.
- Thread starter observant1
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Okay, the "exposure mode" was set to "custom" and that gave me a monochrome image. The image still looks noisy.
And changing that to something more suitable doesn't work? Have you tried auto? Have you tried day mode, or anything else? Or are you saying you've made changes to the settings and you are still getting a poor image?
No, I'm saying that the "custom" setting apparently was the reason it was monochrome. There are a lot of settings so I was hoping for some guidance. At times it seems to try to turn the IR on but then there is too much light and the image washes out and it cycles it on and off.
Edit-
I discovered that "Smart illumination>overexposure restrain" caused a cycling problem and that the manual setting prevented that issue. I don't understand how "Smart Illumination" is related to the "Exposure>Day/night mode."
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This is just going thru my NVR. Looks like it's easy to set up a preset without messing with the cam gui.
The view is about mid range of the optical zoom. I could zoom much further in if needed. I'm happy with this cam but if you don't mind paying a bit more, you can get more. (this is not a complete set up) just 1st day of playing around. This is also not an ALPR cam. your millage may vary....
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- I replied to a reguest for info on if there are presets. It does not have any ifo on the cam gui or anything else. I do egree most people that purchase this camera is for the optical zoom and trying to set it up to capture license plates. It's not good "IMHO" as an overview cam or alot of things. Probably why it's on sale for 35.00 on several sites.
The view is about mid range of the optical zoom. I could zoom much further in if needed. I'm happy with this cam but if you don't mind paying a bit more, you can get more. (this is not a complete set up) just 1st day of playing around. This is also not an ALPR cam. your millage may vary....
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TheWaterbug
Known around here
I don't know (yet) how good it is at ALPR, but I dumped the config XML in my earlier post, and its contents show that it was definitely intended to be an ALPR cam.The view is about mid range of the optical zoom. I could zoom much further in if needed. I'm happy with this cam but if you don't mind paying a bit more, you can get more. (this is not a complete set up) just 1st day of playing around. This is also not an ALPR cam. your millage may vary....
I'm guessing that some company thought they were going to make it big selling ALPR services to 10,000 different cities, and commissioned a bazillion of these from Vigilant, then went bankrupt and got liquidated at auction. But that's just a guess.
I use the camera for ALPR and I think it works way better than expected. Here is an example from this morning, I have the $35 camera pointing north, and an actual ALPR pointing south, so the images are of the front plate (south facing) at around 140ft and rear plate (north facing) at around 90ft.
Actual ALPR camera:
$35 camera:
The $35 camera doesn't seem to do much image processing, and this is evident during dusk where the light tends to wash everything out. I was thinking about building an external luminosity sensor to trigger automation to set the exposure values to decrease brightness and max out contrast and saturation, and essentially use it as a bracket setting (when full spectrum light level is between X and Y, set camera values to Z). Adafruit TSL2591 High Dynamic Range Digital Light Sensor and a ESP32 would be all that's needed.
Here is the daytime performance, same 2 cameras, same vehicle, same time. It's not bad for ALPR work.
For comparison, the bigger brother of the $35 camera is the $800 PTZ. This thing is a monster. I know ppl say don't use PTZ for this, but I needed something to capture plates at a distance, and this thing delivers. At around 50% IR power, it can capture this at around 300-325ft.
Anyway, if you are using these cameras as general purpose cameras, I think they are ok--nothing special, and image quality is worse than $150 Reolink, but the 10x zoom gets you closer.