Best way to Focus the DS-2CD2632-IS Camera

[Eddie Current]

I bought two of the DS-2CD2632-IS and have installed one of them in my front yard. As of right now I'm having a hard time getting it focused. Anyone have a clue how to get this camera to focus any better?

 

[dahomes555]

There are zoom and focus screws on the inside of the camera. Remove the lens cover to access them (on the bottom of the camera's body). Easy peasy. I would recommend that you get the cameras setup on your network first, and access them from your mobile phone as a mobile monitor. Then you can hold the "monitor" while climbing up the ladder and making the fine tune adjustments on zoom/focus.

 

[dahomes555]

See part #3 on the camera diagram pictured below:

 

[Eddie Current]

Thanks guys, the camera is mounted, wire to the server and running within BI. This camera seems to be a bit more challenging and may take more effort to setup than other Hikvision cameras I have and so far I'm not very happy with it.

Here is a night picture!

 

[dahomes555]

Yeah, that's going to happen with many camera where the IR LEDs are surrounding the lens. Think of a flashlight. When you turn on a flashlight in a dark space, the area directly around the circular-shaped bulb is the brightest and it gets gradually less bright the further you get from the center. Same thing is happening when the IR LEDs surround the lens in a circular pattern, as most cameras do. For better results, either use a detached IR illuminator, or use one of Hik's cameras with EXIR. The EXIR illumination projects in a more rectangular shape than a circular shape. That provides a much more even illumination throughout the area of view and will greatly improve the picture quality.

 

[Peter]

I am not familiar with these cameras but I have heard there is a rubber/foam ring around the lens preventing ir reflection back into the lens - check it!
If there is too much ir light cast in the middle then maybe one can carefully bend the 5mm leds in the inner ring a little bit outward to reduce center hotspot.
Maybe we can paint with a non permanent black marker a little on inner ring leds to reduce their output to the center.
Maybe silly with marker pen but you can always try.

 

[dahomes555]

That can cause a problem, yes. The image that you posted doesn't look like you are having IR reflection issues, though. IR reflection will look more like this

, or even worse. When you do have IR reflection issues, you will notice that the problem tends to produce a "halo" effect, as you can see the bands of circular white on the outer edge of the image I posted. When it's really bad, you can sometimes even see the white dots of the IR illuminators themselves.

As I said, I don't think that you are having IR reflection issues. You're just pushing the camera to do more than it is really capable of. If you were using this camera to cover a smaller area, the IR illumination would probably give a better result. But you are expecting it to cover the entire yard (or whatever area is in view) with equal illumination and that just isn't going to happen with a circular array of LEDs like you have on a traditional bullet or dome camera. The EXIR technology that I mentioned in my previous post has a single IR LED that is seen in this picture

(the lens is on the left, the IR lamp is on the right) will produce a much more even result. I'll upload another picture from one of our sites that shows this camera at night.

 

[dahomes555]

This camera has EXIR and you can see that it has a wider array on the LED. It still doesn't fill the entire field of view, but it has a more broad coverage than with a circular LED array.

 

[Eddie Current]

I have the same hot spot on my DS-2CD2632. Luckily I'm using mine in a situation where it's zoomed in to almost 12mm so it doesn't matter too much. Mine really does not give very much IR light outside the hot spot either. I'd get one or more wide angle white light LEDs up there if you want to really see more of what's going on in those trees.
Like someone else here says, use a tablet or phone to focus while you are up on the ladder.
Having said all of that, it's quite a wide angle being covered there, so it's being put to use as an overview camera that is unlikely to ID someone anyway. Perhaps better off with one of the wide angle EXIR cameras there to give an overview, as someone else here says, and using the DS-2CD2632 to monitor a choke point where it can be zoomed in more.

I'm thinking this camera is not a good match for the area I'm tiring to use it in. I'm going to replace it with a spare DS-2CD2032 cameras I have until I can figure out a better camera for this area.