I have a bunch of HikVision cams like DS-2CD3145F-I, DS-CD3132-I etc. The image quality was kind of bad so I upgraded one of them to a Dahua. I don't recall the model number but it was one recommended on this forum and around $200. There is a pretty big improvement over my HikVision cams. However, it is still pretty bad, especially if it is dark (night time with multiple lights on).
I can buy some pretty good lens for my still camera (SLR if you are old enough to know what that is) for a few hundred dollars and they would to an excellent job in low light. My cell phone is doing a pretty good job in enhancing images (not enough for a security cam but the cell phone uses a VERY tiny lens). So if you combine the two, i.e. bigger glass and technology from cell phone cams I would expect MUCH(!) better results. Why do we not have this for security cameras?
I can buy some pretty good lens for my still camera (SLR if you are old enough to know what that is) for a few hundred dollars and they would to an excellent job in low light. My cell phone is doing a pretty good job in enhancing images (not enough for a security cam but the cell phone uses a VERY tiny lens). So if you combine the two, i.e. bigger glass and technology from cell phone cams I would expect MUCH(!) better results. Why do we not have this for security cameras?