Fogginess on camera when there is no fog

G

gu3st

n3wb
May 13, 2022
8
5
South Africa
Hi guys

I have a couple of 5442 fixed lens 3.6 cameras from Andy set up around the house. One particular camera is set up against a tree in the yard, and I'm getting some fogginess in the FOV. I've double checked outside and on other cameras and there is no fog when this happens, so it's something on the lens. I've uploaded a video of the start of the fogginess. it generally lasts an hour or more and then disappears as quickly as it arrived.

Initially I thought it was moisture inside the camera, but judging by how quickly the fogginess appears (and then stays for a while and then very quickly disappears), I'm not sure it's moisture anymore. The temperature last night during this video was around 10C, but this has happened at higher temperatures too - around 12-14C. I'm sure you guys in other parts of the world have run this camera at much more extreme temperatures than that.

I also thought it may be IR glare - so I turned down the IR on the camera to the minimum and took exposure down to minimum too, and it doesn't make a difference.
The two little white dots opposite the camera are a PIR beam that connects with another receiver about 1m in front of the camera off to the side. Not sure if it maybe has something to do with that? But at some parts of the night the image is crystal clear, while other parts of the night this fog appears - so not sure it is that either, as I would imagine if it was the beam it would be a constant glare.

Any ideas what it could be?

Thanks!
 

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Strange.....
Is it me or at about 2:40:31 does a faint, round fog pop up suddenly that is sized and located about where the red circle is then fade away? Being circular and appearing that quickly I think would mean it was something with the optics.

cam-fog.jpg
 
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TonyR said:
Strange.....
Is it me or at about 2:40:31 does a faint, round fog pop up suddenly that is sized and located about where the red circle is then fade away? Being circular and appearing that quickly I think would mean it was something with the optics.

View attachment 163590
Click to expand...
Here is a screenshot from that red area an hour or so later. I definitely see a round shape there. I've noticed this roundness in this "fog" a lot - which is why my second thought was IR glare. It looks like a lens flare almost?
 

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gu3st said:
Here is a screenshot from that red area an hour or so later. I definitely see a round shape there. I've noticed this roundness in this "fog" a lot - which is why my second thought was IR glare. It looks like a lens flare almost?
Click to expand...
Yep, I see it.
I'm no optics expert but it seems that's the effect you get that coated optics are supposed to mitigate.....I think. :idk:
 
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This effect goes from zero to almost 100% in under 20 seconds?
It is creeping in from bottom right at about 2s to 4s.

To rule out glancing by some beam/reflection/scattering:
Give the camera side blinds (cardboard box) for testing to block side IR light hitting the lens.

Alternatively, take the cam down and check for moisture, replace silicate bags or use a described drying method (search bath flakes).

Personally, I would check the path of the other IR beams. Is there anything that could get in their way? Foilage, water drops etc and scatter light to your cam? Is one of the other cameras glancing this cam with IR LED?
 
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Yeah, now that I think of it, I've had some like that, especially when it's there's lots of moisture around..... itsy bitsy bugs.
 
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bigredfish said:
Unless it happens at the same exact time each night….. then I’d look at a streetlight or other light source/reflection
Click to expand...

Yeah if it is the same time every night, then I think it could also be the firmware got wonky and is kicking on backlight and then a tiny bug popped up from the bottom and bloomed it all out.

I had this with a camera once, except it was running in color. I reflashed the firmware and all was good.
 
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Thanks guys.

It doesn't happen at the same time every night. I've scoured through more footage and found a piece of video that is very clearly some kind of bug moving across the screen. Although I don't think it is necessarily the exact same bug/issue as the other issue - it does lead me to think that the other "fogginess" is also bug related.

So far I have factory reset (x4) and upgraded firmware to latest. This didn't solve anything.
So now to (hopefully) solve for bug glare, my idea is to get an external IR light. Would that help?

After that, it it still persists, I will try the other suggestions, like side shields, or perhaps moving the camera to a slightly different position to try and get rid of glare issues.

Is there a tutorial of some kind to open up the camera to rule out moisture? I obviously don't want to risk breaking it...
 

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Update: It's early days - but I made a change that seems to have helped (touch wood it's not just coincidence and the issue comes back when the weather changes again...).

The way the fogginess came in and out of view made me think of exposure changing - almost like the camera was hunting for something by changing some setting. All my exposure settings are manual and SMART IR is off, but the shutter speed was set to manual between a range of 0ms and 15ms (or something like that - can't remember the exact number).

I've now set the shutter speed to a fixed 1/60 at night, and SO FAR it seems like I haven't gotten this foggy issue again. It's been 3 nights now with no fogginess - so I'll obviously report back if the issue returns - but so far, early indications seems like it may have helped. Not sure if that makes any sense or if it's completely fluke and the issue will return in a few nights - but we'll see!
 
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bigredfish said:
I guarantee you that the thing on your video on post #13 above was a bug
Click to expand...
I 100% agree it was a bug - you can tell by the movement of the thing. But maybe the other fogginess in the other video was not? Or if it was, maybe the changing exposure caused the bug effect to be much worse, and now it's not as bad? I don't know... but I'm monitoring it. The weather has been very rainy for the last few nights so maybe it was coincidence and a change in weather caused the lack of buginess/fogginess. It's been 3 nights now of no "fog" after multiple weeks of no nights without fog.
 
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