IPC-HFW8232E-Z and the moon HELP!!!!!

[BobW55]

This may be a matter of I want my cake and to eat it too.

I am having trouble with moon light. See this:


I have tried just about every setting available. Faster shutter, lower F-stop (iris)
The 4 different modes of BLC.
I know this camera was not designed for the intended use. I am able to see the clouds at night, even on nights when I can not make them out with my naked eye. But on the few days a year, when the moon rises in the North East, well you see the results.
I am considering moving the camera to point towards the North/North-west, I think I may have a clear shot away from the trees. Just depends on how much sunset will mess with it.
If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

I even sent an Email to Dahua asking them to design a sky camera. I know good luck with that.

 

[wopi82]

Hi BobW55,



What seems to be the problem? You didn’t write, what you are willing to achieve. It is obvious, that the moon will dazzle the camera, and thus darken the overall exposure. If you want the exposure to go up, you need to use BLC and set the reference area to some dark part of the frame, where the moon or any other light source will not appear.

If instead, you want to see the clouds and moon face clearly, there is no chance to do that, as the camera’s sensor won’t be able to cope with such wide dynamic range scene. Even with WDR turned on, it will struggle to do that. Taking a HDR image of night sky and moon with DSLR requires at least 6EV of bracketing and further enhancement of RAW files to get decent result.

As a meteorology enthusiast I have to ask, what software/hardware you use to get the info at the bottom of your sample images? I’m thinking about buying an anemometer to observe wind speed. Four weeks ago we had a windstorm over Poland, with wind gusts exceeding 120km/h. I have a nice footage from my Dahua HDW4231EM-AS (until the power went out) but it would be great to have such info as You, implemented on the image. The only data I have, comes from a few local meteo stations, but it is very inconsistent. I wonder if such wind meter can cope with short, strong wind gusts and measure these properly.

 

[BobW55]

Wopi82,
The software I use is called : IPTimelapse | Webcam and Time-Lapse software for IP cameras and Canon DSLR cameras
It will pull weather information from several weather sources, including the weather underground, here is a link to the help file Weather
My weather station is here: Melvin Weather

And yes I kinda figured the camera is just not setup to deal with such a bright object. Headlights are one thing, the moon another.

 

[wopi82]

Thank you for the info. You can also accomplish timelapse through Dahua’s own software. I’m creating a whole year timelapse from my camera. It started over one month ago with a picture every 5 minutes. The changes in vegetation are already visible I download pictures with SmartPSS and combine them in After Effects.

 

[BobW55]

Yes I saw where Dahua will do its own time lapse.
What I use makes 2 videos.
First one updates every hour, adding onto the previous. Second one updates at midnight to show the previous 24 hours.
You can also set the capture rate up to 1 frame per second. It will upload a JPG after so many captures, I have mine set for 5 minutes.
You can also set how many days or weeks worth of JPG, and videos to keep. I missed that setting when I first started and filled my hard drive in less than a month.

 

[looney2ns]

This may be a matter of I want my cake and to eat it too.

I am having trouble with moon light. See this:
View attachment 23320

I have tried just about every setting available. Faster shutter, lower F-stop (iris)
The 4 different modes of BLC.
I know this camera was not designed for the intended use. I am able to see the clouds at night, even on nights when I can not make them out with my naked eye. But on the few days a year, when the moon rises in the North East, well you see the results.
I am considering moving the camera to point towards the North/North-west, I think I may have a clear shot away from the trees. Just depends on how much sunset will mess with it.
If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

I even sent an Email to Dahua asking them to design a sky camera. I know good luck with that.

In my opinion, it looks very good as is.

 

[BobW55]

Yes after weeks of playing around with the settings. I am beyond pleased with the camera.
Here is a shot from tonight. It is overcast, but a full moon.
I still have issues with sun flare and moon flare, but that just can not be helped.

 

[NordicCameras]

What do you guys think how would a panorama camera work towards the sky? @BobW55 how does it look during day?

 

[BobW55]

Here is a shot from this morning, it is a bit overcast and the sun flare cane be seen.
I will post one later today, after the sun has gotten out of the way.



You can always look for yourself here: Melvin Weather

Look at the left side of the page.