Chokolinho
Getting comfortable
I run my s3 at 4 and 45. I hope the firmware updates will improve things, otherwise this will be a disappointment.
B54PRO-Z4E first impression
- Thread starter tmxv4128
- Start date
The smart illumination of the B54IR is working great. You can see how it changes the aperture as it keeps me at a constant rate as the background gets darker/lighter. That's what I think is wrong with the B54PRO. It seems to pick out a section of the image--in this case the hedge on the right--to make it look good; but what invariably happens is that the rest of the scene is darkened too much. It is a problem with metering in the B54PRO.
Good point. Time for those Dahua Engineers who earn the big bucks (er Yuan) to solve this dilemma.
That's a GREAT video ... but what puzzles me is the exposure with the S3 is waayyy brighter (like a couple of stops!) than the 54PRO. Check out when you are far away ... and look at the background there. What the heck is going on if these are the same exposure?!?
If so, is it possible that the S3 IR light is better ... and/or maybe the S3 sensor is more sensitive to IR than the 54PRO?
If you can run them side-by-side with an external illuminator, that might shed some light (pun intended!) on those two possibilities.
Mebbe. Over my head.
But imho we’re not dealing with normal video noise. I think it’s the sensor
And yes I think the S3 sensor is that much better. The whole “brighter is better” is a marketing driven thing that’s not new.
The reason mine doesn’t appear the same is that I have 2X IR, streetlight, mini PTZ IR, and white LEDs from the 4K-X beside it all hitting that scene.
It’ll still work given enough supplemental light.
I have always thought that the B54IR-Z4E-S3 has the best illumination from the IR of any of my cameras. Second would be the Color4M-T. After that, there is a huge drop-off. The 54IR-ZE-S3 drives me crazy with its center spot illumination. Yeah, I would like to set up a B54IR-Z4E-S3 next to the B54PRO-Z4E and use a Tendelux DI10 (I have one in a box I have never used) for illumination, but it is not easy to do in my yard. I have a courtyard on the other side of the house that would be an easy setup, but that would be a boring scene. I like the driveway because of the 90+ feet to the barbwire fence.
That is a great question. It does appear like a blanket is thrown over the image and it just doesn't respond. If you look at the video of the B54PRO-Z4E, you will notice that the trees beyond the barbwire fence are not even visible, but on the B54IR-Z4E-S3, they are illuminated well. Also, I am ghosting once I get past the end of the driveway at 60 feet; yet with the B54IR-Z4E-S3 it is a clean image all the way to the fence 90' away. I think it is a metering problem similar to the way the sides of a ColorT180 do not respond in IVS.
Unless you drop shutter below 2ms you can forget freezing motion on these 54Pro's, 4ms, 8.33ms, forget it, never going to happen. Below 2ms (ideally 1ms) and you will see motion freeze as sharp as the static objects. I am not saying it is ideal and you probably sick of me bashing on about it but I have hours on this thing 
And yes I agree the sensor is not looking great at this point
And yes I agree the sensor is not looking great at this point
I have so far found the 49225PTZ, 5442 bullet and S3 bullet to have best IR power, in that order give or take with the latter two. Hard to say with the 54ProZE turret, at this point I would say less power than the others mentioned. I suspect that the S3 sensor is possibly just more sensitive to light, either that or somehow the 54Pro is being crippled elsewhere in that respect. Other than IR it always puzzled me how the 49225 PTZ was so damn good at night, on paper it had the 'same' sensor as other 2mp starlights, in reality the difference was very clear to see.
As you will know from the camera world, not all sensors are created equal! sensor size on paper almost never tells the full story, one manufacturer will usually have the edge. I think all we can say at this point is that the S3 bullet series appear to be peak IR night vision for Dahua, if you exclude the PTZ range which is not fair competition!
StevenFromTexas
Getting comfortable
Dahua has Reolinked its new cameras. Pull back the curtain and someone is yanking everyone's chain. Those settings on the cameras are mostly for your amusement. Welcome to Artificial Stupidity on steroids. 
The good news is how much money I'm saving by not upgrading one damn camera!
The good news is how much money I'm saving by not upgrading one damn camera!
Nice statement.
I feel sorry for the "guinea pigs" that have spent so much time trying to dial in those cameras, only to be somewhat disappointed.
I feel sorry for the "guinea pigs" that have spent so much time trying to dial in those cameras, only to be somewhat disappointed.
Indeed, we paid to be beta testers, what a deal right
- I should know better, an expensive lesson, now I need to buy more cameras to fix it.We've got a couple of threads going on about various issues, so I created a separate post specifically about my testing of the "IR sensitivity differences between 5442-S3 and T54PRO-ZE ... puzzling results" - title and conclusions updated after further testing.
Snippet/summary from thread.
In some of the discussions about trying to get good night-time motion capture with the 54PRO's, I commented that "Is it possible that the "3D NR" on the 54PRO that (as you can imagine with something that "averages" over multiple frames) just does dismally with moving objects in low light?" and "is it possible that the S3 IR light is better ... and/or maybe the S3 sensor is more sensitive to IR than the 54PRO?"
So I ran some simple tests to assess IR sensitivity of the 5442 versus the 54PRO ... short answer is if anything, the 54PRO appears to be more sensitive (in this DAYTIME scene) in IR as the image is brighter ... albeit some/most/all of this could be processing. HOWEVER, at night (which obviously is the use case for IR), I found the opposite.
So what I thought would be an easy test ended up providing puzzling results!!!
It's frustrating that my results were not consistent between day & night (photons should be photons!) and I can only guess that there some funky processing going on that is not allowing me to truly assess lens/sensor capability.
Note these tests do NOT tell us anything about possible differences between the IR LIGHT ... and how the camera (smartly) adjusts exposure from that.
Nor do they tell us anything about possible "3D NR multi-frame averaging" that the 54PRO may be overly aggressive with compared to the 5442 which would result in a cleaner STATIC image, but would cause more motion blur.
Snippet/summary from thread.
In some of the discussions about trying to get good night-time motion capture with the 54PRO's, I commented that "Is it possible that the "3D NR" on the 54PRO that (as you can imagine with something that "averages" over multiple frames) just does dismally with moving objects in low light?" and "is it possible that the S3 IR light is better ... and/or maybe the S3 sensor is more sensitive to IR than the 54PRO?"
So I ran some simple tests to assess IR sensitivity of the 5442 versus the 54PRO ... short answer is if anything, the 54PRO appears to be more sensitive (in this DAYTIME scene) in IR as the image is brighter ... albeit some/most/all of this could be processing. HOWEVER, at night (which obviously is the use case for IR), I found the opposite.
So what I thought would be an easy test ended up providing puzzling results!!!
It's frustrating that my results were not consistent between day & night (photons should be photons!) and I can only guess that there some funky processing going on that is not allowing me to truly assess lens/sensor capability.
Note these tests do NOT tell us anything about possible differences between the IR LIGHT ... and how the camera (smartly) adjusts exposure from that.
Nor do they tell us anything about possible "3D NR multi-frame averaging" that the 54PRO may be overly aggressive with compared to the 5442 which would result in a cleaner STATIC image, but would cause more motion blur.
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I did it knowingly. Bought one of each model and am $600+ poorer for it. But I knew what I was getting into from my experience of the 3449 TIOC Pro (which I think may be a better camera)
No worries, they'll go into the pile of "backup cams" and I may find a home for them someday. I am leaving the AS fixed on the back porch for now, as with the added flood lights it performs OK and I benefit from the onboard lights in that tiny space. I dont have a use for the Z4 or the ZE currently
This page in August we already kinda knew
Yeah I have the 3449 pro and can see some slight issues similar to the 54 pro, but nowhere near as bad.I did it knowingly. Bought one of each model and am $600+ poorer for it. But I knew what I was getting into from my experience of the 3449 TIOC Pro (which I think may be a better camera)
No worries, they'll go into the pile of "backup cams" and I may find a home for them someday. I am leaving the AS fixed on the back porch for now, as with the added flood lights it performs OK and I benefit from the onboard lights in that tiny space. I dont have a use for the Z4 or the ZE currently
This page in August we already kinda knew
I bought a dreadful Sunba PTZ some years ago! Live and learn. Also still got a working Huisan PTZ!
Well done for all your time spent investigating everyone.
I did it knowingly. Bought one of each model and am $600+ poorer for it. But I knew what I was getting into from my experience of the 3449 TIOC Pro (which I think may be a better camera)
No worries, they'll go into the pile of "backup cams" and I may find a home for them someday. I am leaving the AS fixed on the back porch for now, as with the added flood lights it performs OK and I benefit from the onboard lights in that tiny space. I dont have a use for the Z4 or the ZE currently
This page in August we already kinda knew
I got three the same so you were smarter than me, I've made better decisions but
Stupidly assumed they would be similar or same as the S3 series, as an ex work colleague used to say...assume makes an ass of you and me!
Thank you for all the guys spending so much time, money and effort testing out the B54PRO-Z4E. But the conclusion seems to be better for me to just keep the S3 instead of "upgrading" it with B54PRO-Z4E. I'm also disappointed with the result as I was looking forward to upgrade my camera with the B54PRO-Z4E.