B54PRO-Z4E first impression

[CamCrazy]

It seems you’ve already made up your mind about 54PRO and consider it inherently flawed. In that case, what would be the purpose of testing it again?

Testing it again?!? I bought and own three, have been testing them for many hours so far and consider my feedback useful for others, that would be the purpose of me testing the new firmware. Just because I consider a camera to have flaws, does not mean I want to write off the three I spent good money on, especially if future update might improve them. If you would prefer to either ignore my feedback (both good and bad) or make comments like the one above then of course that is your choice

 

[[email protected]]

It seems you’ve already made up your mind about 54PRO and consider it inherently flawed. In that case, what would be the purpose of testing it again?

I presume to get the camera he paid for, to work correctly?

 

[bigredfish]

I have both the 5459 Z4 and the 5442 Z4-S3 stacked 1.5" from each other.

Rainy drizzly day. Now we wait for nightfall






Control images for B&W/IR from the existing 5442 Z4-S3

 

[Molbo]

I presume to get the camera he paid for, to work correctly?

Then, it would be better to wait for the "final" version of the firmware, instead of trashing clearly unfinished product and making Andy's business suffer even more in the current political and economical situation. I'm all for more testing but, in my opinion, the reports should not have too much emotions and drama.

 

[tmxv4128]

Why 6ms?
You are from the US - so 8.3ms (1/120s)...

With today modern LED lighting you can even put European 10ms... 50/60Hz (100/120Hz) light blinking from electric grid is no more with LED lights...

If you see ghosting on moving objects, then this means there is missing light.. More IR or longer exposure time...

You can also try to put minimum exposure time the same as maximum for the test...

When I was using the older firmware, 6ms seemed like a good compromise between 1/120 (8.33ms) and 1/250 (4ms.). After loading the firmware last night, I only had time for one test, so I left it at the previous settings. I’ll change it as I progress with further testing tonight.

 

[[email protected]]

Then, it would be better to wait for the "final" version of the firmware, instead of trashing clearly unfinished product and making Andy's business suffer even more in the current political and economical situation. I'm all for more testing but, in my opinion, the reports should not have too much emotions and drama.

Would have to disagree, sorry.
Seems from nearly all the users/guinea pigs, that this so called "Pro" camera is indeed inherently faulty and an big disappointment.
If I purchased from my UK suppliers, I would of definitely returned for a refund.

 

[CamCrazy]

Would have to disagree, sorry.
Seems from nearly all the users/guinea pigs, that this so called "Pro" camera is indeed inherently faulty and an big disappointment.
If I purchased from my UK suppliers, I would of definitely returned for a refund.

I concur 100% with this, at least two out of the three I purchased would have been returned, maybe all three - had they been local dealer supplied. Sadly none of the dealers in my country offer the 54Pro, S3 or 4K series, so options are limited.

 

[tmxv4128]

1- Is your white floodlight on or off? Any other ambient light close by?
2- Can you walk closer to the camera instead of passed it off so far?

18 sharpness should show a soft not well defined face

thanks

I had the LED light on the garage (to the right) on for this test; however, once I walk past that first bush on the right, it is just the LEDs from the B54PRO-Z4E illuminating the scene. 18 sharpness is about the max for this camera and firmware. Once you get past 18 the noise becomes unbearable. It is unlike other Dahua cameras, where 38-50 is the preferred range and the noise does not increase with the sharpness, as it goes up exponentially. Yep, I'll try to walk more towards the camera tonight. Luckily I didn't fall in the darkness, because there is no way to see the end of the driveway at night. I should probably get out my red led flashlight that I use when doing astrophotography. Thinking of swapping out the 4K-X that I have mounted on the garage for the T54PRO-ZE. Then I could have both going at the same time for the scene.

 

[[email protected]]

I concur 100% with this, at least two out of the three I purchased would have been returned, maybe all three - had they been local dealer supplied. Sadly none of the dealers in my country offer the 54Pro, S3 or 4K series, so options are limited.

Indeed.
Credit to all the guinea pigs (as yourself) that have attempted work arounds, later firmwares etc, so to try and bring this not so "pro" camera into some beneficial purchase.

 

[bigredfish]

I had the LED light on the garage (to the right) on for this test; however, once I walk past that first bush on the right, it is just the LEDs from the B54PRO-Z4E illuminating the scene. 18 sharpness is about the max for this camera and firmware. Once you get past 18 the noise becomes unbearable. It is unlike other Dahua cameras, where 38-50 is the preferred range and the noise does not increase with the sharpness, as it goes up exponentially. Yep, I'll try to walk more towards the camera tonight. Luckily I didn't fall in the darkness, because there is no way to see the end of the driveway at night. I should probably get out my red led flashlight that I use when doing astrophotography. Thinking of swapping out the 4K-X that I have mounted on the garage for the T54PRO-ZE. Then I could have both going at the same time for the scene.

Thx

 

[alekk]

To echo what @tmxv4128 said about the 1217 firmware being brighter, here's the T54PRO-ZE compared against the 5442 with the exact same settings.
Shutter speed is forced to 1/4000s, Gain is 0, Iris is full open, and NR is zero and toggled off - i.e. I tried to make a straight shootout of the exposure triangle.

I don't remember there being this much difference with the previous firmware ... kinda suggests to me that the base ISO is higher in the T54PRO-ZE ... which is what @wopi82 said earlier.

 

[alekk]

BTW, anyone running the 1217 firmware seeing MUCH larger .dav files on the SD card?
I set the time interval to 10 minutes ... and am using H.264H, AI Coding, 10 FPS, VBR, Quality 5, 8192Kb/s ... and comparing daytime footage from today (after applying the 1217 FW) to yesterday (at the same time), I'm seeing 3X (200->600MBytes) the size.

FYI that downloading the .dav files (via the web interface) still crawls along at less than 2MBYTES/sec ... even though firmware uploads are done at the full wire speed of ~10MBYTES/sec.

 

[steve1225]

To echo what @tmxv4128 said about the 1217 firmware being brighter, here's the T54PRO-ZE compared against the 5442 with the exact same settings.
Shutter speed is forced to 1/4000s, Gain is 0, Iris is full open, and NR is zero and toggled off - i.e. I tried to make a straight shootout of the exposure triangle.

I don't remember there being this much difference with the previous firmware ... kinda suggests to me that the base ISO is higher in the T54PRO-ZE ... which is what @wopi82 said earlier.

View attachment 234551

It’s not ISO, it’s always HDR

On PRO models you can’t simply compare ISO by comparing images. This don’t work like this

 

[bigredfish]

To echo what @tmxv4128 said about the 1217 firmware being brighter, here's the T54PRO-ZE compared against the 5442 with the exact same settings.
Shutter speed is forced to 1/4000s, Gain is 0, Iris is full open, and NR is zero and toggled off - i.e. I tried to make a straight shootout of the exposure triangle.

I don't remember there being this much difference with the previous firmware ... kinda suggests to me that the base ISO is higher in the T54PRO-ZE ... which is what @wopi82 said earlier.

View attachment 234551

Not seeing that extreme with Normal day settings, but its very overcast and drizzly