Dahua 5442/T54IR vs the rest

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CamCrazy

Pulling my weight
Aug 23, 2017
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I own several older 5442's and am looking to upgrade some older Dahua 2MP models. Mostly these are in areas of zero ambient light, some do have assistance from 4000-5000 lumen PIR floods. Have been scanning the forum today and also picked up on the Color4k and Procolor series, seems like the latter might be a little fresh for conclusions yet?

Being lazy I know and usually I do spend hours reading!! for freezing motion at night are the 5442 (T54IR-ZE-S3) series still looking top spot?

Will read some more in the meantime, maybe I will have to get one of each to test but useful to know beforehand if one or two are worth avoiding.
 
If you have enough light to run the 5442s in color and no motion blur, exposure somewhere around say 0-6 to 0-8 ish and your IVS works well, it’s really tops as far as image quality imho

If you desire some of the new features, dual mics, onboard white LEDs etc

The Color4T 3.6mm (knowing it can have a sweet spot for focus from about 8ft to ? 30-35ft? YMMV) Only onboard white lights, no IR LEDs and can’t see IR so must have light, but impressive

The new 54PRO is dealing with FW issues but it should improve and in theory be as good or better than the 3449Pro

The other would be the 3449AS-PV-PRO which works well but it does have a small bit of digital noise different than the 5442. Much better light pickup and more evenly dispersed IR. Dual mics very good, TIOC features like flashing red/blue lights if you enable, and will switch automatically and very quickly from B&W\IR to color with onboard motion activated white lights, again optional in settings
 
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bigredfish said:
If you have enough light to run the 5442s in color and no motion blur, exposure somewhere around say 0-6 to 0-8 ish and your IVS works well, it’s really tops as far as image quality imho

If you desire some of the new features, dual mics, onboard white LEDs etc

The Color4T 3.6mm (knowing it can have a sweet spot for focus from about 8ft to ? 30-35ft? YMMV) Only onboard white lights, no IR LEDs and can’t see IR so must have light, but impressive

The new 54PRO is dealing with FW issues but it should improve and in theory be as good or better than the 3449Pro

The other would be the 3449AS-PV-PRO which works well but it does have a small bit of digital noise different than the 5442. Much better light pickup and more evenly dispersed IR. Dual mics very good, TIOC features like flashing red/blue lights if you enable, and will switch automatically and very quickly from B&W\IR to color with onboard motion activated white lights, again optional in settings
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That is very useful thank you, light is purely triggered by PIR's at this point, so really the color cameras would be running under their own steam. I like the idea of having led and IR, may be that I will get some 5442's and a 54Pro to trial also. Are the 8MP variants still a stretch for night work compared to the 5442 and 4MP generally do you know.
 
Actually, I prefer the IPC B541R-S3 camera. This is the bullet version and I now have a few of them and they work well, even at night in color. I do have one of the IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 in the back yard and it does not do as well at night in color. Could be that it needs more light than what is available at that location. So, I have decided to order another Hikvision DS-2CD2087G2-L in 4mm. They have the larger 1/1.2" sensor and I know it will work very nicely in that location.
 
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Parley said:
Actually, I prefer the IPC B541R-S3 camera. This is the bullet version and I now have a few of them and they work well, even at night in color. I do have one of the IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 in the back yard and it does not do as well at night in color. Could be that it needs more light than what is available at that location. So, I have decided to order another Hikvision DS-2CD2987G2-L in 4mm. The have the larger 1/1.2" sensor and I know it will work very nicely in that location.
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OK, you have my attention! - the 5442 bullets I own perform better than the turrets so this figures with the S3. How good are those Hikvisions in comparison to the 5442 and S3?
 
^^^^^^
Those are 5442s btw , S3 just the latest iteration
 
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The camera in post 4 is a Hikvision DS-2CD2087G2-L. I made the correction to my typo. These cameras are fantastic for night vision. However, they have a fixed lens and are not a varifocal like the Dahua's. The Hikvision's come in 2.8mm, 4mm and 6mm. They have their spots and the Dahua's have their spots.
 
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Thanks both for this info, very useful, sorry I should have made it clear I realised the s3 was just latest 5442 variant, better in low light....wow, that sounds good though! the originals I have are impressive to me at least. I will pick up on of the Hikvisions to play with and add at least a couple of the S3 5442's to my shopping list, Do you think it is worth me trying any of the colour options at this point. These cameras are at a remote location with no ambient light at all, aside from PIR triggered floods on three of the existing 5442's
 
I would buy one of the 3449PRO's. Its an impressive little camera and I think you'll be surprised how well it does even vs the 5442 in B&W/IR.
If running color it has its own LEDs and the transition is amazingly smooth

It’s been out a while. No issues. The new 54PRO is supposed to be its big brother with different gee wiz processing, same sensor. It’s just not ready yet imho


View attachment Best-192.168.1.110_ch12_20250322221210_20250322221312.mp4
 
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bigredfish said:
I would buy one of the 3449PRO's. Its an impressive little camera and I think you'll be surprised how well it does even vs the 5442 in B&W/IR.
If running color it has its own LEDs and the transition is amazingly smooth

It’s been out a while. No issues. The new 54PRO is supposed to be its big brother with different gee wiz processing, same sensor. It’s just not ready yet imho


View attachment 229524
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great lookin image.
 
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bigredfish said:
It is, if you go full screen you'll see the little bit of digital noise I can't seem to get rid of. Its not bad, but its not as clean as the 5442. The 5442 just takes a lot more light to run in color and of course no onboard white LED's

View attachment 229529


With enough light the 5442 is hard to beat

View attachment 229530
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time for you to get the 54 Pro and start some more testing.
 
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Parley said:
I have to say that the specifications on the 3449PRO look pretty good.
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It’s a great little camera.

In theory the 54PRO. is better with its HDR and different processing based on Steve’s explanation.

The other benefit, in theory, of the 54PRO over the 3449Pro is the close focus distance spec is much smaller. Though in real world I’m not seeing what the spec shows, much less.

Just have to wait and see how the FW gets sorted out on the 54PRO
 
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bigredfish said:
It’s a great little camera.

In theory the 54PRO. is better with its HDR and different processing based on Steve’s explanation.

The other benefit, in theory, of the 54PRO over the 3449Pro is the close focus distance spec is much smaller. Though in real world I’m not seeing what the spec shows, much less.

Just have to wait and see how the FW gets sorted out on the 54PRO
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when do you use the onboard lighting on your cams?
 
Thank you all for the replies, I am seeing a theme developing which makes me wonder if trying to get IR and LED to work together is going to be tough, maybe? The 3449 Pro looks interesting, I assume this is the IPC-T549M-ALED-S3 in which case I might try one of those also. Not sure whether to take a punt on an early 54Pro or not to be honest, I like the idea because in theory it will 'do everything' but time will tell. On the plus side there seems no downside to picking up more 5442 variants, in fact the S3 looks to be a nice improvement. In almost all cases for myself there is no ambient light, this has always been a consideration when buying cameras, that situation is changing but some locations are too close to public roads for lighting.
 
Well for better or worse I have 5442 S3 and 54Pro ZE ordered for testing, hoping the firmware works itself out for the latter. Really needed black in the Pro but will get the rattle can out and prep it well before applying. I am very methodical with testing and my end goal is high quality frozen still images, will be sure to post feedback and can compare to original 5442 bullets and turret cams. My hope is the turret 54Pro IR power will come close to the 5442 bullets with 4x IR, or closer than the non Pro 5442 S3 turrets.
 
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