DarkFighter Technology - Street Lanterns too Bright

NavyCamera

n3wb
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Hi Everyone,

I just installed a Hikvision ds-2de4a425iw-de (PTZ camera 5mp with DarkFighter Technology)
The camera works perfect during the day, but at night the street lanterns are too bright, and I tried tweaking it down using different settings, but that either makes the image too dark or too bright.

Anyone has some suggestions?

Thanks for your help!
 

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wittaj

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One of the reasons why we say to test a location day and night before install!

Are you running default/auto settings for everything else? Sometimes just getting off auto shutter can help mitigate the bloom, but that does look like a tough field of view.
 

tech_junkie

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Configuration → Maintenance → System Service Check "Enable Supplement Light". Save.
Then,
Configuration → Image → Display Settings → Day/Night Switch Check "Smart Supplement Light"

and enable Defog
Save.
Then adjust WDR, save.
 

NavyCamera

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Thanks @tech_junkie, that helped a bit, however if I turn on 'Defog', 'WDR will automatically turn off.

@dudemaar the normal is view is per attachment. You can see still see the street lantern shining on the cars, even though the lens is not pointing on to the street lights.

@wittaj I tried manual, Iris priority and shutter priority, but the lights are still very bright. Maybe I just have to accept this outcome...
 

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wittaj

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Yeah, looks like you just are stuck with some unfortunate light fixtures.

I am not sure what other settings you tried, but here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures, but also helps with AI:

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

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 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (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 or white light.

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 static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, 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.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
 

NavyCamera

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@wittaj Thank you for the detailed explanation, much appreciated. The new settings it definitely helped. Like you said I didn't get a brighter image, but the during motion tracking I did get relatively clear image without blur, which is more important than a static image.
 

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wittaj

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Yeah that does knock the light bloom down some and certainly to a point that you can probably actually do something with the video now!
 

KenAllen15

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You might have some success enabling HLC instead of WDR. HLC will automatically adjust the exposure until there are no clusters of pixels without color data (pure white).
 
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