Worlds First Review - Dahua DH-IPC-HFW5449T1-ASE+D2 - Dual Lens Full Color 2.0

[wittaj]

So what is the latest opinion on this Dual Lens camera (not sure what is the hardware version) for clarity and complete darkness using just its IR.

I'm looking for the best night vision using only IR . I'm considering 5442T-S3 after reading reviews on its improved night time clarity + builtin IR. But read the specs on this dual lens having the same image sensor (image Sensor 1/1.8" + 1/1.8") but better Max aperture (F1.0 vs F1.8). If i'm understanding things the D2 would be far superior in night time clarity to the 5442-S3. I'm considering both the 3.6mm and 6mm.

Your thoughts on which to get: the latest D2 vs the 5442-S3?

If you are solely going to be using IR, then the 5442 series will be a much better choice.

Many people have reported the focus to be soft and not as crisp due to the combining of the two lens.

As I stated in post 187, I think this camera will work well in the following conditions:

• An overview camera where IDENTIFY is not the primary purpose, but want the ability to obtain color video without a lot of ambient light. I can run this at a much faster shutter than other overview cams and get color with minimal/no blur.
• A camera with light sources that are way in front of the camera and behind the person. Any situation where a backlight situation happens that would provide a dark/black silhouette. Perhaps an offset of a house where the floodlights would be well ahead of the camera. My last example and Wildcats are great examples of a situation that this camera would do very well in.
• An area that you want color, have a little bit of ambient light, but do not want the LED camera lights on like what is needed for the 4K/X.
• Those wanting a turret version for the smaller form factor.

The last bullet can be met with the 5442 fixed lens, but the other bullets don't match the setting you are looking for.

 

[crosis]

As I stated in post 187, I think this camera will work well in the following conditions

All your photos / videos within the post are non-viewable / 404. If they're still around I'd sure like a fresh Google Photos link.

 

[CanCuba]

When I manage another trip to civilization, I plan on buying two of these. One will be to replace this 2431-S-S2. From what I've read and seen, I think this cam will fit the bill perfectly.

I have one of my runway lights mounted to the left of the camera. There's a light with a decent output pointed at the vehicles across the street. And it's an overview cam. The cam to the left under the runway lighting will be replaced with a Color4K-X. With the amazing microphone on the 4K-X, I should be able to pick up some interesting conversations.

 

[CanCuba]

When I manage another trip to civilization, I plan on buying two of these. One will be to replace this 2431-S-S2. From what I've read and seen, I think this cam will fit the bill perfectly.

I have one of my runway lights mounted to the left of the camera. There's a light with a decent output pointed at the vehicles across the street. And it's an overview cam. The cam to the left under the runway lighting will be replaced with a Color4K-X. With the amazing microphone on the 4K-X, I should be able to pick up some interesting conversations.

View attachment 176536

I ended up mounting a 4K/X in this location. This is probably my favourite camera if one has enough light. And tremendous microphone on this units.



Mounted the two 5449s where I had 2431-S-S2 cams. What a difference going from 1/3" sensors to 1/1.8" on 4MP. I did find the IVS a bit oversensitive but I dialed back the sensitivity and they're triggering properly now.

 

[church]

Little new around here and to the camera game as a whole -- but looking for some advice! I'm torn between a couple different cameras, and this is one of them.

First off, I really only have the need for overview cameras. I know this sounds strange, but I am in a townhouse directly on the sidewalk/street in front, with an access street behind where the garage is. I'm a center unit and only have about a 20-30 square foot area both in front and behind that I am maintaining visual custody of. As such, my IDENTIFY range will be, at most, 3-6m. Anything a little beyond that is a bonus but the community I live in has their own camera systems, maintained by the metro district, with LPR+ at all entry and exit roads/sidewalks, and has a history of making recordings available to homeowners/LEO to support investigations. So, I care more about RECOGNIZE in the 7m+ range, like on the street for passing cars.

Lighting conditions at night are average. There are streetlights out front, but none within about 50m of my door. I keep my porch light on at night (100w equivalent LED at around 4500K), and have a similar light behind the garage. Neighbors behind the garage also have lights, but they would, much like the distant streetlights out front, provide backlight and ambient illumination, and will not be directly helpful. I do NOT want to use built-in warm LEDs, even if the camera I end up getting has them -- both to not call attention to the cameras at night, and also to not attract bugs. Plus, my neighbors wouldn't like it. However, the ability to either fall back to IR if no light is present or activate built-in LEDs wouldn't be unwelcome, like during a power outage, etc -- my cams and NVR are battery backed with about 2hr offline runtime capability.

I have POS Reolink RLC-811A cams up now (I know...I got them for $25/ea secondhand and was budget constrained in initial setup) and want to get something better. I have a decent doorbell camera that I will not be replacing. Sweet spot for my desired FOV is between 2.7-4.3mm, mounted and replacing the Reolink cams.

I'm torn between the 5449T1 in this thread, the Color4K-X, and the T54IR-ZE-S3. Presence of indirect/background lighting with limited foreground illumination makes the 5449T1 very attractive to me, especially with the sensor upgrade on the new hardware revision. Two-way audio and mic quality are pros of both the 5449T1 and the Color4K-X, but I'm concerned about the light performance of the Color4K-X in my situation, even with the 1/1.2 sensor. Neither are varifocal however, which is a big negative. The T54IR-ZE-S3 checks nearly every box save for worse color low light performance than the 5449T1 and no two-way audio. I'm not a pixel snob and will happily go with a 4MP sensor for improved light performance.

As an aside, my dream camera would probably be a new version of the 5449T1 that is varifocal; the fact that it isn't is probably the only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on a pair already. This camera but varifocal, and upgraded to a 1/1.2" 8MP color shooter with the new 1/1.8" 4MP IR shooter would be the bees knees.

Any thoughts all? Appreciate anyone who takes the time to read the above and respond!

 

[CanCuba]

Little new around here and to the camera game as a whole -- but looking for some advice! I'm torn between a couple different cameras, and this is one of them.

First off, I really only have the need for overview cameras. I know this sounds strange, but I am in a townhouse directly on the sidewalk/street in front, with an access street behind where the garage is. I'm a center unit and only have about a 20-30 square foot area both in front and behind that I am maintaining visual custody of. As such, my IDENTIFY range will be, at most, 3-6m. Anything a little beyond that is a bonus but the community I live in has their own camera systems, maintained by the metro district, with LPR+ at all entry and exit roads/sidewalks, and has a history of making recordings available to homeowners/LEO to support investigations. So, I care more about RECOGNIZE in the 7m+ range, like on the street for passing cars.

Lighting conditions at night are average. There are streetlights out front, but none within about 50m of my door. I keep my porch light on at night (100w equivalent LED at around 4500K), and have a similar light behind the garage. Neighbors behind the garage also have lights, but they would, much like the distant streetlights out front, provide backlight and ambient illumination, and will not be directly helpful. I do NOT want to use built-in warm LEDs, even if the camera I end up getting has them -- both to not call attention to the cameras at night, and also to not attract bugs. Plus, my neighbors wouldn't like it. However, the ability to either fall back to IR if no light is present or activate built-in LEDs wouldn't be unwelcome, like during a power outage, etc -- my cams and NVR are battery backed with about 2hr offline runtime capability.

I have POS Reolink RLC-811A cams up now (I know...I got them for $25/ea secondhand and was budget constrained in initial setup) and want to get something better. I have a decent doorbell camera that I will not be replacing. Sweet spot for my desired FOV is between 2.7-4.3mm, mounted and replacing the Reolink cams.

I'm torn between the 5449T1 in this thread, the Color4K-X, and the T54IR-ZE-S3. Presence of indirect/background lighting with limited foreground illumination makes the 5449T1 very attractive to me, especially with the sensor upgrade on the new hardware revision. Two-way audio and mic quality are pros of both the 5449T1 and the Color4K-X, but I'm concerned about the light performance of the Color4K-X in my situation, even with the 1/1.2 sensor. Neither are varifocal however, which is a big negative. The T54IR-ZE-S3 checks nearly every box save for worse color low light performance than the 5449T1 and no two-way audio. I'm not a pixel snob and will happily go with a 4MP sensor for improved light performance.

As an aside, my dream camera would probably be a new version of the 5449T1 that is varifocal; the fact that it isn't is probably the only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on a pair already. This camera but varifocal, and upgraded to a 1/1.2" 8MP color shooter with the new 1/1.8" 4MP IR shooter would be the bees knees.

Any thoughts all? Appreciate anyone who takes the time to read the above and respond!

I recently installed two 5449H-ASE-D2 dual lens cameras and a(nother) 4K/X.

I'll post some pics in this thread later. But the 5449 is a great cam and I have two more headed my way this week. They will replace older 2431 (with 1/3" sensors) as did the first two 5449s and the new 4K/X.

 

[CanCuba]

Ok, here's some nighttime images from the 5449s and 4K/X. 4K/X is my favourite for an overview cam if there's enough ambient light. I run my illuminators at 100% at night. I want people to know that there are cams present. Of course, the narrow focus of these cams means it's hard to use them for IDENTIFY purposes unless one is prepared to adjust the focus manually.

The 5449s are just what I needed for where they're mounted. The areas have high contrast at night and the stitched IR and colour image really works for this purpose.

Here's the 4K/X:



And here are some videos from the 4K/X. Including when the power goes out to my 18,000 lumen panel reflectors. The scene is illuminated only by the cam's on-board illumination and a 60W (600W incandescent equivalent) solar-powered reflector located to the right and behind the cam.

Early morning spark show

** Upload the second video is crapping out on me so the video in this post is the good one** Since I need a CPAP machine to sleep (total life-changing device for me and many others), I'm acutely aware of power outages at night. It doesn't become impossible to breathe but is a bit more...

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I have another 4K/X doing overview duty that gives me videos like this. There's another 18k lumen reflector illuminating the street. The shutter on both 4K/X's is set to 0-8.33ms. I could probably slow it down a bit more but I get rolling black bars as the reflectors are harmonizing with the 60Hz AC power.

Cuban Classic Cars

My 2nd. car was a white '69 bug. My dad traded my '63 fire breathing Galixie 500 off one afternoon while I was at school. He handed me the keys and said "Hot this SOB"! Challenge accepted. It went from 1600 cc to over 2 L. or from 53 HP to over 150HP. He eventually succumbed and had me build him...

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On to the 5449s...





In the second pic (pardon the incorrect aspect ratio), you can see the high contrast I'm dealing with and why I went with the 5449 dual lens. If I think of it tonight, I'm going to walk down the passageway to get a video of how the camera compensates.

The 5449 is a speciality cam, IMHO. It has its uses but I wouldn't build an entire system out of them. Same with the 4K/X. I have two more 5449s arriving this week and one will go to another high-contrast scene where the IR will "cover" the dark area. Living in Cuba, I also need to plan for power outages which makes the 5449 even more valuable. I have a 150ah battery backup with should last at least 18 hours just running the NVR and cams.

If you're able, upload a pic of the area you're thinking of covering. That way, some of us can chime in on which cam we would recommend.

Hope this helps.

 

[looktall]

CanCuba's neighbours...

 

[bigredfish]

Many flights in and out of the northern Caribbean use his lights for navigation

 

[CanCuba]

CanCuba's neighbours...

I forgot to mention that I had my first complaint. She lives half a block away and says the light penetrates her window at night. She seemed a little "off" so I told her I would tilt it down a bit. Of course, I didn't (but would if she asked again) and haven't seen her again.

 

[church]

If you're able, upload a pic of the area you're thinking of covering. That way, some of us can chime in on which can we would recommend.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the insight and examples! Very helpful. Here’s a few pictures of the front/back of the house, from the camera perspective (at ground level though).

Front view:


Rear view:


The lighting appears better in the images than in real life — it’s present to be sure but a longer exposure on my phone camera during capture improved it significantly. Neighbors are inconsistent with their lights, and don’t always have them on at night, but happened to tonight. I also don’t want to be entirely dependent on the ambient light, as it can’t always be counted on (like when the weather is bad — snow is a common occurrence here, and rain/fog can also detract from light quality).

Definitely will not be using the built in LEDs save for in a power outage scenario, neighbors vehemently complained when I previously had them enabled on my Reolinks.

 

[CanCuba]

Thanks for the insight and examples! Very helpful. Here’s a few pictures of the front/back of the house, from the camera perspective (at ground level though).

Front view:
View attachment 188535

Rear view:
View attachment 188537

The lighting appears better in the images than in real life — it’s present to be sure but a longer exposure on my phone camera during capture improved it significantly. Neighbors are inconsistent with their lights, and don’t always have them on at night, but happened to tonight. I also don’t want to be entirely dependent on the ambient light, as it can’t always be counted on (like when the weather is bad — snow is a common occurrence here, and rain/fog can also detract from light quality).

Definitely will not be using the built in LEDs save for in a power outage scenario, neighbors vehemently complained when I previously had them enabled on my Reolinks.

If you're dealing with inconsistent lighting, I'd go with the 5442 series. If there's not enough light any given night, it can go to IR. Too bad your neighbours aren't more open to more lighting.

Pulled this off the 4K/X and 5449 last night. Going to drop both gain and NR a touch more on each camera to see how it looks.

Cuban Classic Cars

My 2nd. car was a white '69 bug. My dad traded my '63 fire breathing Galixie 500 off one afternoon while I was at school. He handed me the keys and said "Hot this SOB"! Challenge accepted. It went from 1600 cc to over 2 L. or from 53 HP to over 150HP. He eventually succumbed and had me build him...

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