If street lights provided enough lighting at night, which camera would you recommend compared to a 5442TM? Higher 4K camera instead?
If lighting wasn’t an issue..which camera?
- Thread starter dorkiedoode
- Start date
Nope to 4K - any 4MP 5442 series with the 1/1.8" sensor.
Just trying to understand.. wouldn’t the extra MP/detail be helpful in the daytime since I have street lights outside my house that provides a lot of light.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
- 16,116
- 27,079
Hi @dorkiedoode
Rarely is street lighting that good. That noted, we have seen some car dealers which have great lighting on their lots ( see the videos from @bababouy ).
If in doubt, pick up a 8MP w/a 1/1.8" sensor and a 4MP w/a 1/1.8" sensor and compare for your particular setup.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Just for fun, here's a screen grab from a 5442 last night at about 21:00. The street light is about 200 feet behind and off to the right as can be seen by some of the shadows. In fairness, there was a full moon last night and that produced some more shadows that are easily seen. The blob of light at top left is my neighbors PIR-LED floods that go off with street traffic, very effective. In the center top of the capture you can see my neighbors garage which is about 350-400 feet away. Yes, it's a large garage, two bay big enough for a Freightliner, he's into boats among other things. The video is smear and tear free even with 50MPH street traffic, yes we have idiots around here, too.
If that isn't enough detail I'm surprised. This was snagged off my WiFi connected laptop from UI3.
If that isn't enough detail I'm surprised. This was snagged off my WiFi connected laptop from UI3.
This is with the 5442 at night with the streetlight.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
You're lucky, looks like the street light is right across the street and either LED or mercury vapor.
sebastiantombs
Known around here
I don't think you'll gain all that much unless you're big user of digital zoom. Have you had any problems identifying anyone with what you're using now? And, is it worth the difference to be able to see their pimples?
When someone moves through there at night, how is the motion blur on area like faces etc? If you end up needing to increase the shutter speed to help with that, that’s going to reduce the amount of light that gets captured by the sensor, which darkens the image.
“Detail” is usually measured by the PPF metric. The general advice for that is to aim for 100+ PPF in scenes where you want the best chance of ID’ing someone. If you design around that, the detail you get at night would be great during the day as well. You can use the IPVM Camera Calculator V3 tool to see PPM values using a Google Map image of your place.
The only 4K models I’d look are are the ones with the 1/1.8” image sensor (like the 1831/2831 models). Although that’s the same size sensor that the 5442s use, with twice as many pixels it won’t capture as much light as the 5442s.
That's a great looking shot. No lighting issue at all! You can try the 8MP cam with the 1/1.8" sensor but as @sebastiantombs mentioned, I think you'd be hard to beat that shot. Daytime may squeak out a little bit more detail but if it were me, I'd leave it alone 
We’re having gloomy weather today but here’s what it looks like in the daytime. I just feel like the image isn’t sharp. Zooming doesn’t help much too, hence the 8MP. I don’t have much experience with cameras so maybe I am expecting crystal clear..
5442 6mm focal.
Edit: hmm it looks a lot clearer on my phone.. but not my monitor. Is it the monitor resolution or RDP?
5442 6mm focal.
Edit: hmm it looks a lot clearer on my phone.. but not my monitor. Is it the monitor resolution or RDP?
sebastiantombs
Known around here
The difference from the phone to the monitor is a relationship of how many pixels are spread over how big an area. Granted 8MP is double what you're seeing now on your screen, but in the grand scheme it may not be worth the added cost, both money and processing overhead. Most people can;t see a difference from 4K on up but, as with everything, YMMV. Give an 8MP a try and see if it makes a difference to you.
I've got a 5442 and a couple 4k cameras (5831 and a Laview fixed lens). There's some pros/cons to each I guess. First of all I doubt you're going to notice much difference between the 4MP and 8MP, I honestly don't. In my opinion 4MP is good enough in most cases and gives you a shot at reading a license plate or seeing some identifying details. I'm in the same boat as you, both places I have the 4k cameras I did not care whatsoever about low light performance and I'm perfectly happy with them in those locations.
That being said, depending on which 4k camera beware that a lot of them are only 15fps if you care about that. Another thing, if you're picky, at least the cams that I have that both run the same firmware, they're slow to open the video stream for some reason. What I mean is, many times when I access them via the web interface on a PC or even using tinycam on my phone locally, it takes 3-5 seconds before the video starts coming in. My other 2MP and 4MP cameras never have this issue. I have no idea if it's just the size of the 4k stream or if the cameras have underpowered CPUs or what. I've seen other reports of the same issue here and there, some people may not care, and it has no affect on my NVR recording the streams from them.
So, while I'm not as anti-4k as some people, I think you're going to see minimal benefit if any for your use case. You're going to probably drop from 30fps to 15fps and not get a whole lot more clarity in your images. If you were starting from scratch though, you can get a fixed lens 4k camera for a lot less than a 5442 and that's probably the route I would have taken (and did in one case). Maybe you can swap your 5442 to a lower light spot and put in a 4k there instead. Amcrest runs some pretty good sales lately where you could get a 4k turret for around 90 bucks and flash it to Dahua firmware if you're into that.
That being said, depending on which 4k camera beware that a lot of them are only 15fps if you care about that. Another thing, if you're picky, at least the cams that I have that both run the same firmware, they're slow to open the video stream for some reason. What I mean is, many times when I access them via the web interface on a PC or even using tinycam on my phone locally, it takes 3-5 seconds before the video starts coming in. My other 2MP and 4MP cameras never have this issue. I have no idea if it's just the size of the 4k stream or if the cameras have underpowered CPUs or what. I've seen other reports of the same issue here and there, some people may not care, and it has no affect on my NVR recording the streams from them.
So, while I'm not as anti-4k as some people, I think you're going to see minimal benefit if any for your use case. You're going to probably drop from 30fps to 15fps and not get a whole lot more clarity in your images. If you were starting from scratch though, you can get a fixed lens 4k camera for a lot less than a 5442 and that's probably the route I would have taken (and did in one case). Maybe you can swap your 5442 to a lower light spot and put in a 4k there instead. Amcrest runs some pretty good sales lately where you could get a 4k turret for around 90 bucks and flash it to Dahua firmware if you're into that.
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Both of your shots look excellent on my 1080p monitor.
4k, takes a boat load of processing power, and recording space.
4k, takes a boat load of processing power, and recording space.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll consider it for my next camera.
Boy I wish they made a vari-focal 5442!
bigredfish
Known around here
They do but they’re not as bright as the fixed lens. I’ll try to find my post comparing the fixed 3.6 bullet to the VF bullet
5442 fixed bullet vs VF bullet
Review: Dahua HFW5442T-ASE 4MP Starlight+
5442 fixed bullet vs VF bullet
Review: Dahua HFW5442T-ASE 4MP Starlight+
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