Shutter Speed and Full Color, I am doing something wrong!

[Rob2020]

Hello everyone, I have read, and read again old threads, new threads, wiki posts and I am doing something wrong, I just can't figure it out. Here is my issue, I have two Dahua (Andy) IPC-T5442-AS 3.6 watching my driveway from two different angles w/BI5 (under the garage eaves). I run these in full color using Auto default settings, I live at an intersection that has two new super bright white LED streetlights, near the foot of my 50' driveway. The street is lit like daytime, the driveway somewhat lit for about 20 - 25 feet up. Note: they only stay in color with the forced color setting.

When I run color at night and review the alerts, it looks pretty darn good, I can identify cars with some minor ghosting and blur but not so much as to make it unidentifiable. Last week I had a person on foot at 3 A.M. in my driveway snooping around, also pretty darn good footage all things considered. I have repeatedly read not to use default settings and so I have been trying to see what improvements I can obtain by fine tuning. The one camera I am fine tuning gave me a full black picture with 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night), I then bumped the upper setting to 10ms then 12ms, minute improvement, I jumped way up and 70% of the picture is dark. I am guessing my attempt to stay in full color with these settings is the issue. I also considered one of my other settings is out of whack so I throw myself on the mercy of the experts to tell me what I am doing wrong. Thanks!

 

[Flintstone61]

I have the 5442 2.8, I dont have the BI machine here, But I;ll check my settings tomorrow, if nobody has answered i can hopefully help......My stays in color at night on default settings, but i have tickled some of the settings.....

 

[JJStats]

When you get everything fine tuned. Could you upload the attachments of the new settings and picture of the street? Thanks.

 

[user8963]

I have the 5442 2.8, I dont have the BI machine here, But I;ll check my settings tomorrow, if nobody has answered i can hopefully help......My stays in color at night on default settings, but i have tickled some of the settings.....

I saw the same on one of mine... if you tune a "too dark" picture the camera switch to night mode (B/W)
if you use all auto settings it can stay at colormode, but you will get horrible motion blur. in my case i have to use "force to color" if i want it with adjusted shutter/gain settings.

what i dont understand... on the newest firmware (from andy) i get a less noisy picture than with the "normal" firmware it was delivered. now there is advanced 3d and 2d for noise reduction. No idea where the difference is.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Every camera needs light to "see" in color at night, even the 5442. The first thing to do is to get them off of "auto. Set a day profile and a night profile. The key things are shutter speed and gain. Select manual for shutter speed and scroll down on the list to select custom. Set the shutter speeds to 0.01 and 16.66. This will give a maximum shutter speed of 1/60th a second, about the slowest it can go without getting blur. Then set the gain to give you a reasonable picture with as little noise as possible. Gain on a 5442 can go to 70 or 80 without too much noise For a day range try 0.01 and 16.66.

Next, download and install the Dahua Sunrise/Sunset Utility - Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset Follow the "bouncing ball" and add the cameras to it. You can adjust the offset for sunrise and sunset to fit your specific conditions.

Getting color video at night is a balancing act of light, shutter speed and gain. Side issues are setting brightness, contrast and gamma. It can be a little tricky but is also a very good learning experience, but a frustrating one at times.

 

[Rob2020]

I have the 5442 2.8, I dont have the BI machine here, But I;ll check my settings tomorrow, if nobody has answered i can hopefully help......My stays in color at night on default settings, but i have tickled some of the settings.....

That would be great and thank to all who commented.

Any other comments welcome.

 

[Rob2020]

Every camera needs light to "see" in color at night, even the 5442. The first thing to do is to get them off of "auto. Set a day profile and a night profile. The key things are shutter speed and gain. Select manual for shutter speed and scroll down on the list to select custom. Set the shutter speeds to 0.01 and 16.66. This will give a maximum shutter speed of 1/60th a second, about the slowest it can go without getting blur. Then set the gain to give you a reasonable picture with as little noise as possible. Gain on a 5442 can go to 70 or 80 without too much noise For a day range try 0.01 and 16.66.

Next, download and install the Dahua Sunrise/Sunset Utility - Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset Follow the "bouncing ball" and add the cameras to it. You can adjust the offset for sunrise and sunset to fit your specific conditions.

Getting color video at night is a balancing act of light, shutter speed and gain. Side issues are setting brightness, contrast and gamma. It can be a little tricky but is also a very good learning experience, but a frustrating one at times.

Thank you, does the sunrise sunset utility do anything vs. setting up a time profile beyond adding a lot of convenience?

 

[Rob2020]

I saw the same on one of mine... if you tune a "too dark" picture the camera switch to night mode (B/W)
if you use all auto settings it can stay at colormode, but you will get horrible motion blur. in my case i have to use "force to color" if i want it with adjusted shutter/gain settings.

what i dont understand... on the newest firmware (from andy) i get a less noisy picture than with the "normal" firmware it was delivered. now there is advanced 3d and 2d for noise reduction. No idea where the difference is.

View attachment 95560

I saw the same on one of mine... if you tune a "too dark" picture the camera switch to night mode (B/W)

Guessing that is one of a couple issues, thank you.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I'd say the biggest advantage is the convenience of the Sunrise/Sunset utility. The schedule in Dahua doesn't take varying sunrise/sunset times into account so you'll be constantly fooling with it as the seasons change and when DST come and goes.

I do use auto to switch modes even with the Sunrise/Sunset utility. That does take some extra tinkering to get shutter speed just right but compensates for overcast days, but I make sure I've got it right for both day and night before doing that.

 

[Rob2020]

I'd say the biggest advantage is the convenience of the Sunrise/Sunset utility. The schedule in Dahua doesn't take varying sunrise/sunset times into account so you'll be constantly fooling with it as the seasons change and when DST come and goes.

I do use auto to switch modes even with the Sunrise/Sunset utility. That does take some extra tinkering to get shutter speed just right but compensates for overcast days, but I make sure I've got it right for both day and night before doing that.

Thank you for the added clarification.