Newbie here seeking advice (as all other noobs).

[wittaj]

Awesome! Now the next thing to work on is the settings...

Take it off auto settings at night unless you like seeing Casper and blurring and hotspots. Auto settings in most situations for shutter will produce a great picture, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting. Even in the day auto settings are usually not your friend.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-30 (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more and gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared. Your locations will be susceptible to some hotspots in those corridors so proper settings will be key.

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

So 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 30ms as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur.

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 25-30 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.

 

[kouma]

Before you do anything view the camera at night as this will affirm if the camera needs to be moved Outward facing your neighbors wall. If you see no hot spot or glare from the IR leave it in place. I would be pretty surprised if there wasn't some reflection coming off the down spout and the mounting wall.

Oh I see what you mean. I will check tonight and let you know. Thanks for the insight!

 

[kouma]

Awesome! Now the next thing to work on is the settings...

Take it off auto settings at night unless you like seeing Casper and blurring and hotspots. Auto settings in most situations for shutter will produce a great picture, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting. Even in the day auto settings are usually not your friend.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-30 (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more and gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared. Your locations will be susceptible to some hotspots in those corridors so proper settings will be key.

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

So 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 30ms as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur.

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 25-30 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.

Hi wittaj, I really appreciate your feedback and I am eager to implement it but excuse my ignorance, do these settings go into BI or the IPC configuration web portal? I am asking because I can't seem to locate any settings for shutter or gain from the IPC web configuration portal and I haven't installed BI yet.

 

[kouma]

Hi wittaj, I really appreciate your feedback and I am eager to implement it but excuse my ignorance, do these settings go into BI or the IPC configuration web portal? I am asking because I can't seem to locate any settings for shutter or gain from the IPC web configuration portal and I haven't installed BI yet.

Nevermind, I think I found it. I am making the changes now.

 

[wittaj]

Yep all settings are within the camera GUI

 

[kouma]

Yep all settings are within the camera GUI

Using the configurations above, I can't tell if IPC-D is bad because I didn't get a chance to see anyone walking by. As for IPC-C, I know it definitely needs some tweaking. When cars pass by there is a trail of smoke/shade behind them and when two people were walking by all I could see is a big cloud of smoke moving along the side walk, I honestly thought it was a ghost lol

Both pictures do not look that dark to me, but I have no experience how it is supposed to look in the dark. Which settings reduces these ghosts/smoke/shades around objects?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Test them both by walking through the scenes. Wear a cap or hoodie and see what kind of details you can reliably see.

 

[wittaj]

Ghosting is usually a combination of too high gain and too high of a noise reduction....AND the further away an object is the from the camera, the more likely to see that as it isn't getting much light at the farther out distances.

Did you do manual shutter where you can put in a gain range?

From your photo it does appear like the settings are decent as we are not seeing the usual hotspots that IR can give off.

 

[kouma]

Ghosting is usually a combination of too high gain and too high of a noise reduction....AND the further away an object is the from the camera, the more likely to see that as it isn't getting much light at the farther out distances.

Did you do manual shutter where you can put in a gain range?

From your photo it does appear like the settings are decent as we are not see the hotspots that IR can give off.

Hi wittaj,

I thought I did, here are the configs. However, I was unable to find where the noise configuration was.

 

[Teken]

Using the configurations above, I can't tell if IPC-D is bad because I didn't get a chance to see anyone walking by. As for IPC-C, I know it definitely needs some tweaking. When cars pass by there is a trail of smoke/shade behind them and when two people were walking by all I could see is a big cloud of smoke moving along the side walk, I honestly thought it was a ghost lol

Both pictures do not look that dark to me, but I have no experience how it is supposed to look in the dark. Which settings reduces these ghosts/smoke/shades around objects?

Just to be clear in (C) do you need to see left of the column? If so, both (C & D) will be better served with a separate IR Illuminator.

(C) can use either a IR spot vs flood light. Right now given the installation location it’s always going to be a compromise of seeing past the left column.

Using a single IR flood light will completely light up that long stretch on the side of the home. This will reduce glare (IR Reflection) seen on the side of your home.

 

[wittaj]

Hi wittaj,

I thought I did, here are the configs. However, I was unable to find where the noise configuration was.

The 3D NR is the bottom one on exposure that says grade. Take that as low as you can stand before the noise (spots jumping all over the screen) is unacceptable.

 

[Teken]

As has been stated probably a million times in this forum and others. Every camera that is installed should play a very specific role as to the target area and the environment it’s in.

Cameras are normally deployed for area, spot, zones. This can be phrased by many as overview, targeted, scan.

Anytime a camera will need to see in the dark and uses IR. The final installation point must take into consideration of IR reflection. With the advent of smart IR this has helped the installer compensate for less than ideal placement. But this doesn’t negate the fact angle & placement be done correctly from the onset.

Now with very low light (colour) Cameras this has reduced the need for IR in some installations. Which avoids IR reflection but increases actionable data of colour clothes, vehicle etc.

Having said this the hardware for both (nighttime) colour & IR B&W must be adjusted to avoid motion blur / ghosting when objects are moving.

Once you’ve made all of the required physical changes for angle and software compensation. I’d quickly set the camera to colour only to see if both zones result in a better night time video image.

Keeping in mind lighting is cheap, effective, and provides more awareness & security.

Consider installing solar light fixtures on the property. Even if the camera doesn’t offer 0.0005 lux any extra light can make a 0.01 lux IP camera perform quite well!

If the camera is indeed a low light 0.001 - 0.0005 lux camera it will just amaze you how great the colour image is. All the while using extra solar lighting will reduce motion blur and help get that money shot when needed.

 

[kouma]

As has been stated probably a million times in this forum and others. Every camera that is installed should play a very specific role as to the target area and the environment it’s in.

Cameras are normally deployed for area, spot, zones. This can be phrased by many as overview, targeted, scan.

Anytime a camera will need to see in the dark and uses IR. The final installation point must take into consideration of IR reflection. With the advent of smart IR this has helped the installer compensate for less than ideal placement. But this doesn’t negate the fact angle & placement be done correctly from the onset.

Now with very low light (colour) Cameras this has reduced the need for IR in some installations. Which avoids IR reflection but increases actionable data of colour clothes, vehicle etc.

Having said this the hardware for both (nighttime) colour & IR B&W must be adjusted to avoid motion blur / ghosting when objects are moving.

Once you’ve made all of the required physical changes for angle and software compensation. I’d quickly set the camera to colour only to see if both zones result in a better night time video image.

Keeping in mind lighting is cheap, effective, and provides more awareness & security.

Consider installing solar light fixtures on the property. Even if the camera doesn’t offer 0.0005 lux any extra light can make a 0.01 lux IP camera perform quite well!

If the camera is indeed a low light 0.001 - 0.0005 lux camera it will just amaze you how great the colour image is. All the while using extra solar lighting will reduce motion blur and help get that money shot when needed.

Just to be clear in (C) do you need to see left of the column? If so, both (C & D) will be better served with a separate IR Illuminator.

(C) can use either a IR spot vs flood light. Right now given the installation location it’s always going to be a compromise of seeing past the left column.

Using a single IR flood light will completely light up that long stretch on the side of the home. This will reduce glare (IR Reflection) seen on the side of your home.

Thanks for the feedback Teken.

For C, I really care about whats on the right of the column (going up and down those stairs and walking to the right of the house) since the left area (driveway) will be covered by another camera. I will try tonight using no IR first and see if there is a difference. If not, I will rotate the camera more to the right . My area doesn't really get that dark since there are street lights.

 

[kouma]

The 3D NR is the bottom one on exposure that says grade. Take that as low as you can stand before the noise (spots jumping all over the screen) is unacceptable.

I will try that tonight and see if it creates a difference. Do you have a good starting number? I just picked 12

 

[Teken]

Thanks for the feedback Teken.

For C, I really care about whats on the right of the column (going up and down those stairs and walking to the right of the house) since the left area (driveway) will be covered by another camera. I will try tonight using no IR first and see if there is a difference. If not, I will rotate the camera more to the right . My area doesn't really get that dark since there are street lights.

Keep in mind you'll want to validate your efforts by completing a walk test at night. I'd start with basic static poses facing the camera at known intervals so you can make adjustments. Move on to slow walking than finish off with fast pace and running. You will find out right away there will be problems or successes depending upon the action from stationary, slow walk, to fast pace / running.

Everyone has a specific need and use case so you will need to be honest and narrow down what can be done given what is present. I did a install a while back where the goal was stealth and having the ability to determine race, clothes, and vehicle. It took no less than four cameras types to successfully capture the thieves.

These guys were copper thieves which were costing the city millions of dollars a year. Never mind the impact on safety to the community that had no power or were impacted by dirty power! A LPR was installed to capture license plates, long range laser PTZ was used to track the people, thermo camera used to position the PTZ camera to first alert and track those hiding in the bushes, and the color camera to obtain factual stats of the persons ethic background, color clothes, and vehicles.

There were multiple of these camera's because not one single camera could offer that money shot in all angles, conditions, and weather.

At the end of the day camera's are reactionary and offer after the fact information. As such our recommendation was to move away from copper and use less desirable grounding materials and place large placards indicating the same. Copper theft dropped to almost zero over a three year period when it came to replacing the stolen copper.

 

[wittaj]

I will try that tonight and see if it creates a difference. Do you have a good starting number? I just picked 12

12 is probably way too low, but then anything you move up to is an improvement! I usually start at 30 and go up or down from there.