Hi all,
Purchased couple of months ago 8 x DS-2CD2052-I 5MP IR Bullet Network Cameras and 1 x DS-7608NI-E2-8P NVR and I really think it's a great investment for a house and also one of the best bang for the buck.
During the first in-house tests, for a couple of days, well...nights actually, 5 out of 8 cameras were showing visible water drops and fog inside the lens. I've noticed that this was happening only during the night because while IR is ON camera gets a little bit warm, not hot, but just warm and as assembling was done somewhere in China where humidity is probably 80-90% it will take a while for the silica particles from inside to absorb all the humidity from condensation. Anyway, after 3-5 days everything was fine and I could actually test the cameras outside.
Camera placement was done under the roof, about 1m away from rain/snow/sunlight, so I expect no issues caused by the weather. Actually, I've had extreme weather this spring with a lot of snow and rain and 60-80 km/h wind and cameras are fine. Also, min. temperature was -6C and had no issues, so I'll need to wait the winter to check'em @ -25C.
The worst nightmare are the spiders and they're "homes" they're building from one night to another just in front of cameras lenses. This is causing the IR to get reflected back partially from spider's pan into the lens and is closing down the diaphragm from inside, causing the recorded movie to get almost black and without contrast. I'll need to purchase some spider poison spray or just spray some vinegar with mint if I want to be 100% eco & green.
During the day, 5 Mpx image is nice and crisp, so crisp that I've actually narrowed down the sharpness a little bit and the contrast from cameras dedicated controls. AWB is OK for 7 cameras, but for another one white is a bit blueish; I don't mind that and I'm just ignoring it, because it's not much a difference, but it worth mention it.
Also, 1.3 Mpx works fine too and it has the same aspect ratio with the 5 Mpx and I can only recommend those 2 resolutions only. All other resolutions should not be ever considered because aspect ratio is different and you'll loose from the vertical view angle (it does an automatically image crop inside the camera and you definitely don't want that, so just use the native sensor aspect ratio and resolution when possible).
When viewing 5 Mpx on a Full-HD monitor/TV you won't get many details, so you should use 2X zoom on your NVR or when using iVMS dedicated software if you're actually looking to see for car blades, bugler face or any other details, if available on the view/recording. This will give you the opportunity to view the exact image captured by the sensor. Increasing the zoom to 4X or more will get you a bit "pixelated" image, so can't really recommend you that.
During the night, if 0-lux around your house, image is just no good, so you'll need to use some source of lighting to compensate for this downsize or use different camera with a powerful LED-array IR. Myself I've added 1 x cheap 10-watts visible light LED projector under each camera being in complete blackness and projectors are auto-activated when there's movement in front of the camera; also, crepuscular sensor inside the reflectors helps saving some energy too. This helped a lot quality for all recordings during the night. Of course, if you can spare some more money for auxiliary IR reflectors it will be better, but in my case the visible light reflectors are also helping me to move around the house freely, without carrying with me a flashlight.
Attaching some pictures now to compare images during the day, during the night in almost 0-lux with default IR and during the night with default IR + 10-watts visible light LED reflector. All pictures are scaled-down to my Mac Book's 1280x800 resolution and were taken by creating a screenshot while during the playback. All pics are looking identical with what my eyes see. Also, I would appreciate if you'll not download and share across Internet those pics; thanks for understanding!
In low-light recording, either if we're speaking about color recording (just before auto-switching to IR recording), but also during the night if there's some light in front of the camera, the recording quality is at least good if not very good. To be honest, It was so low-light outside, but cameras were still doing daytime recording in color-mode and quality was very good. Quality recording issues may be occurring in 0-lux light only.
Recording bitrate was setup to somewhere around 10 Mbs @ 15fps, H.264 (don't like H.264+, sorry) and I find this bitrate as being very good.
Pic_01 shows the narrow IR angle, I estimate about 30-40 degrees horizontal angle. In front of the camera you could probably recognize a person from at most 10 meters, but on sides it will be difficult to recognize someone without an additional light source.
Pic_02 is camera IR only; the "TERMOFIX" brand is not even showing up on the expanded polystyrene, so there're no details in 0-lux if camera's IR is used.
Pic_03 is camera IR + visible light 10-watts LED reflector @ 3.5 m away from the camera, a couple of seconds after powering ON automatically based on motion detection (my heating central just powered ON and the smoke from it was causing the light to get ON too).
Pic_05 is camera IR + visible light 10-watts LED reflector under the camera (light is enough to change the recording from B/W to color).
Pic_04 is showing a very good image on a sunny morning.
Bottom of line, I can recommend these cameras to anyway looking for a decent quality outdoor recording, but need to understand that in 0-lux additional light will help in getting a good quality.
Regards!
Purchased couple of months ago 8 x DS-2CD2052-I 5MP IR Bullet Network Cameras and 1 x DS-7608NI-E2-8P NVR and I really think it's a great investment for a house and also one of the best bang for the buck.
During the first in-house tests, for a couple of days, well...nights actually, 5 out of 8 cameras were showing visible water drops and fog inside the lens. I've noticed that this was happening only during the night because while IR is ON camera gets a little bit warm, not hot, but just warm and as assembling was done somewhere in China where humidity is probably 80-90% it will take a while for the silica particles from inside to absorb all the humidity from condensation. Anyway, after 3-5 days everything was fine and I could actually test the cameras outside.
Camera placement was done under the roof, about 1m away from rain/snow/sunlight, so I expect no issues caused by the weather. Actually, I've had extreme weather this spring with a lot of snow and rain and 60-80 km/h wind and cameras are fine. Also, min. temperature was -6C and had no issues, so I'll need to wait the winter to check'em @ -25C.
The worst nightmare are the spiders and they're "homes" they're building from one night to another just in front of cameras lenses. This is causing the IR to get reflected back partially from spider's pan into the lens and is closing down the diaphragm from inside, causing the recorded movie to get almost black and without contrast. I'll need to purchase some spider poison spray or just spray some vinegar with mint if I want to be 100% eco & green.
During the day, 5 Mpx image is nice and crisp, so crisp that I've actually narrowed down the sharpness a little bit and the contrast from cameras dedicated controls. AWB is OK for 7 cameras, but for another one white is a bit blueish; I don't mind that and I'm just ignoring it, because it's not much a difference, but it worth mention it.
Also, 1.3 Mpx works fine too and it has the same aspect ratio with the 5 Mpx and I can only recommend those 2 resolutions only. All other resolutions should not be ever considered because aspect ratio is different and you'll loose from the vertical view angle (it does an automatically image crop inside the camera and you definitely don't want that, so just use the native sensor aspect ratio and resolution when possible).
When viewing 5 Mpx on a Full-HD monitor/TV you won't get many details, so you should use 2X zoom on your NVR or when using iVMS dedicated software if you're actually looking to see for car blades, bugler face or any other details, if available on the view/recording. This will give you the opportunity to view the exact image captured by the sensor. Increasing the zoom to 4X or more will get you a bit "pixelated" image, so can't really recommend you that.
During the night, if 0-lux around your house, image is just no good, so you'll need to use some source of lighting to compensate for this downsize or use different camera with a powerful LED-array IR. Myself I've added 1 x cheap 10-watts visible light LED projector under each camera being in complete blackness and projectors are auto-activated when there's movement in front of the camera; also, crepuscular sensor inside the reflectors helps saving some energy too. This helped a lot quality for all recordings during the night. Of course, if you can spare some more money for auxiliary IR reflectors it will be better, but in my case the visible light reflectors are also helping me to move around the house freely, without carrying with me a flashlight.
Attaching some pictures now to compare images during the day, during the night in almost 0-lux with default IR and during the night with default IR + 10-watts visible light LED reflector. All pictures are scaled-down to my Mac Book's 1280x800 resolution and were taken by creating a screenshot while during the playback. All pics are looking identical with what my eyes see. Also, I would appreciate if you'll not download and share across Internet those pics; thanks for understanding!
In low-light recording, either if we're speaking about color recording (just before auto-switching to IR recording), but also during the night if there's some light in front of the camera, the recording quality is at least good if not very good. To be honest, It was so low-light outside, but cameras were still doing daytime recording in color-mode and quality was very good. Quality recording issues may be occurring in 0-lux light only.
Recording bitrate was setup to somewhere around 10 Mbs @ 15fps, H.264 (don't like H.264+, sorry) and I find this bitrate as being very good.
Pic_01 shows the narrow IR angle, I estimate about 30-40 degrees horizontal angle. In front of the camera you could probably recognize a person from at most 10 meters, but on sides it will be difficult to recognize someone without an additional light source.
Pic_02 is camera IR only; the "TERMOFIX" brand is not even showing up on the expanded polystyrene, so there're no details in 0-lux if camera's IR is used.
Pic_03 is camera IR + visible light 10-watts LED reflector @ 3.5 m away from the camera, a couple of seconds after powering ON automatically based on motion detection (my heating central just powered ON and the smoke from it was causing the light to get ON too).
Pic_05 is camera IR + visible light 10-watts LED reflector under the camera (light is enough to change the recording from B/W to color).
Pic_04 is showing a very good image on a sunny morning.
Bottom of line, I can recommend these cameras to anyway looking for a decent quality outdoor recording, but need to understand that in 0-lux additional light will help in getting a good quality.
Regards!
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