Arecont 3130, disappointing image quality

[Kiwi 0]

I need some feedback on how to improve these images. The lenses are the 4mm ones supplied by Arecont. I would probably want to move closer to 6 to 8mm if I have to change the lenses.

 

 

Daytime 1920 x 1200

 

http://tinyurl.com/3ybev7

 

 

Nighttime 1280 x 1024

 

http://tinyurl.com/2wjpot

[CollinR 0]

Whats the problem> Or what are you tring to capture?

[survtech 0]

I don't see a real problem either. Are you complaining about the day shot or the night shot or both? Megapixel cameras are not noted for their low light capabilities so I wouldn't expect much better than you posted there.

 

By the way - that's a pretty coastline. Is that New Zealand? I hope to visit there someday.

[rory 0]

The image is all washed out, or out of focus. Is that the best they can be focused? All the edges are blurry, like there is a lens/iris problem.

[Kiwi 0]

The image is all washed out, or out of focus. Is that the best they can be focused? All the edges are blurry, like there is a lens/iris problem.

 

Yep, that's the issue on the daylight image. The focus is as best as I can get it. It seems that the daytime IR filtering is not that good, and/or the lens IR focus shift is high.

 

The night image is about what I expect - it's just there for comparison as it has the same lens. The distant lights are out of focus though - same IR focus shift issue.

 

I would have hoped the quality would be as good as I could get with a 3.0 MP point and shoot.

 

Yep, that's Hawkes Bay in New Zealand.

 

Thanks for the posts so far!

[rory 0]

Would be a gorgeous photo if we could see it clear

 

Anyway, maybe send the manufacturer the image also and see what they say.

[securitysys 0]

Are you sure you have the spacer in there? If it's not that, then it's not focused properly.

 

Just double check and make sure that the spacer is in there, because if your not able to focus it any better then that's what it most likely is.

[Kiwi 0]

As it happens these particular 4mm Arecont CS lenses have lots of focusing range and so don't need the shims. I certainly agree however, all other CS lenses I've tried will not reach infinity without the shims.

 

I can approach the correct focus from either side so I'm sure that's not the problem. Also you can see in the image many objects are in focus, just IR-rich objects are not, such as trees, white buildings, and the horizon.

 

These lenses have no iris, although in my experience having one helps (via extending depth of field,) but doesn't directly solve the IR focus problem.

 

My feeling is that either these are poor quality lenses with poor IR characteristics, or Arecont have not sufficiently filtered out IR on the color side camera sensor. To some extent I've seen similar effects on some normal color video cameras, but I didn't expect Arecont to sell me a camera and lens system that doesn't work well in daylight.

 

I have sent Arecont support an email - I'll post their response when it arrives. I'll also post the same scene using a normal point-and-shoot camera in a day or two.

[kao 0]

I notice you get a lot of sky area and fair amount of land (several kilometers) away from the camera.

 

Why not point the camera down a bit (less or no sky) and zoom the lens a bit to bring in a tighter picture?

I mean...you are not going to get any useful video of anything out beyond a few blocks.

 

Not trying to be critical...If the camera is supposed to be getting a "postcard" type view, then I think you are on the right track. But if you are trying to capture activities happening in the lot and street below, then I'd adjust the camera to get just that.

 

I often have to correct our installers when they set up a camera in a long hallway because they think the camera should capture everything up close and all the way at the other end, when its real purpose is to capture people within 5 meters of it. Same for outside - they often point the cameras to get a very "picturesque" scene showing buildings, skyline, background trees, etc...when in reality we only need the immediate area (10 to 15 meters of ground).

 

Back on point - I agree...I would have expected an image on par with a 3.0mp point and shoot.

Looking forward to Arecont's response.

[survtech 0]

I would seriously look at other manufacturers' lenses. I have seen the problem you describe on poor quality lenses and perhaps that is the case with you. You might look at CBC/Ganz and others' Megapixel lenses. Computar/CBC and others make pretty good Megapixel lenses.

 

And you are probably correct about the lack of iris on the lens. Although I'm not that familiar with Megapixel cameras' lens requirements, in my experience, a lens that lacks an iris is typically lower quality.

[Kiwi 0]

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Actually the current use of this camera will be for a webcam as I don't have a suitable security application at the moment and can't resist taking advantage of the view at my parent's house. The only other lenses I have for it are 16mm with manual iris - a bit too long for the view. As the two lenses mount adjacent to each other, there is a limit to overall diameter and there is not an auto iris output on the camera.

 

This was Arecont's response:

 

It looks like you need to adjust the focus further. Our cameras are shipped with a 5mm spacer ring and a few 1mm spacer rings. When customers need to focus very far or very near places, they may have to add or remove a few 1mm spacer rings, in certain cases the 5mm ring may have to be removed, or extra 1mm spacer rings be added.

Also, closing the iris a little bit may help get sharper images at day time.

 

I guess he wasn't familiar with the lens they sold me (no iris) and it seemed like a generic answer. However, based on this and what securitysys mentioned, I've installed the 0.5mm-thick shims and will have the unit back in service tomorrow. I'm hopeful that perhaps the backfocus on this lens is critical to matching visible with IR focus. I'll post results when available, meanwhile I've taken a photo with my Canon 3MP p+s camera for reference.

 

http://tinyurl.com/32vfyf

 

EDIT: Here is the latest live image with shims. There is a definite improvement.

 

http://tinyurl.com/2ew5ug

[securitysys 0]

It's a definite imporvement, but you should still be able to get that picture better.

 

I don't use the Lenses that arecont supply, when I get a chance tomorrow I'll find out who makes the ones we use.

 

Good Luck!

[rory 0]

still look bad on my computer ...

[Kiwi 0]

Yeah, I looked closer at the lens construction and the entire assembly of elements moves when you change front focus, so in effect it *is* changing the backfocus, so adding shims is not any different. These lenses have no infinity marking or stop - they are simply adjustable over a fairly long range.

 

For those not familiar with the Arecont 3130 camera there is no built-in adjustable backfocus which makes it a PIA for setting up conventional lenses. They provide only a single .5mm shim and 5mm C-mount adapter for each of the day and night lens mounts.

 

I've installed a pair of 16mm machine vision lenses, these are high-quality and have a manual iris but are not "megapixel." They both needed 1mm worth of shiming to get the focus infinity setting focused, leading me to believe Arecont intentionally set the CS flange face 1mm under the spec of 12.52mm. I'll take it up to the house today and test it and post the results later.

 

EDIT: Here's the latest image. 16mm lens, f5.6 at 2048x1536

 

http://tinyurl.com/2wckan

[ak357 0]

Yeah, I looked closer at the lens construction and the entire assembly of elements moves when you change front focus, so in effect it *is* changing the backfocus, so adding shims is not any different. These lenses have no infinity marking or stop - they are simply adjustable over a fairly long range.

 

For those not familiar with the Arecont 3130 camera there is no built-in adjustable backfocus which makes it a PIA for setting up conventional lenses. They provide only a single .5mm shim and 5mm C-mount adapter for each of the day and night lens mounts.

 

I've installed a pair of 16mm machine vision lenses, these are high-quality and have a manual iris but are not "megapixel." They both needed 1mm worth of shiming to get the focus infinity setting focused, leading me to believe Arecont intentionally set the CS flange face 1mm under the spec of 12.52mm. I'll take it up to the house today and test it and post the results later.

 

EDIT: Here's the latest image. 16mm lens, f5.6 at 2048x1536

 

http://tinyurl.com/2wckan

 

You right about spec of 12.52mm

but unfortunately that not what really happened

Their housing come from manufacture under spec

so they had no choice but to supply shims

sometime i use more then one to get what i want

 

I would love to see image if u would tilt camera down a lot

[Kiwi 0]

Thanks for that info. That last image was just done quickly on a tripod and so is not optimally aimed, but I'm much happier with the result. Most of the muddiness is gone and it's now acceptable for the task.

 

I need to build a new outdoor housing for this configuration as the one I have is too short.

 

As another point of reference to those interested, below is a link to an IQeye 755 5 MP camera aimed at Mt Taranaki, located elsewhere on this island. If you are familiar with the commands you can fool around a bit with the image request parameters.

 

http://taranakivista.gotdns.com/still.html?ds=2?width=2400?height=1600?mode=0?from=appletvid.html

 

Thanks all to those who posted comments and suggestions!

[securitysys 0]

Yeah, I looked closer at the lens construction and the entire assembly of elements moves when you change front focus, so in effect it *is* changing the backfocus, so adding shims is not any different. These lenses have no infinity marking or stop - they are simply adjustable over a fairly long range.

 

For those not familiar with the Arecont 3130 camera there is no built-in adjustable backfocus which makes it a PIA for setting up conventional lenses. They provide only a single .5mm shim and 5mm C-mount adapter for each of the day and night lens mounts.

 

I've installed a pair of 16mm machine vision lenses, these are high-quality and have a manual iris but are not "megapixel." They both needed 1mm worth of shiming to get the focus infinity setting focused, leading me to believe Arecont intentionally set the CS flange face 1mm under the spec of 12.52mm. I'll take it up to the house today and test it and post the results later.

 

EDIT: Here's the latest image. 16mm lens, f5.6 at 2048x1536

 

http://tinyurl.com/2wckan

 

You right about spec of 12.52mm

but unfortunately that not what really happened

Their housing come from manufacture under spec

so they had no choice but to supply shims

sometime i use more then one to get what i want

 

I would love to see image if u would tilt camera down a lot

w

 

But it's been a while, shouldn't they have corrected it by now?

[Kiwi 0]

I see the manual does actually mention the need to use .4 or .8 mm shims for "some lenses." A simple adjustable flange would be much more appropriate for this pricey camera.

 

Anyway, for those interested I've completed the "image quality" phase of this webcam, picture links below. The 16mm machine vision lenses work good enough. I did have to replace the window on my home-made outdoor housing (originally from a halogen lamp) with a 77mm UV filter glass to reduce distortion.

 

Now I'm trying to find a windows utility that can (a) download an image (via http) at an interval (not continuously) such as 10 minutes, and then (b) upload to my web host via FTP. This is to reduce traffic on the local internet connection the camera is hooked to as I've been advised that I could get a lot of hits once the word gets out.

 

http://tinyurl.com/29bfsz

 

http://tinyurl.com/29tnlv

 

EDIT: I've made up a script to do the HTML download using command-line program "wget" and automated the FTP upload using ftp -i:script. Now I just need to find a scheduler that can run at 15 minute intervals.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Guest

[zmxtech 0]

I emailed the Australian Arecont, was going to buy a unit - and got no response -guess they must be too busy for pesky customers....

[securitysys 0]

I emailed the Australian Arecont, was going to buy a unit - and got no response -guess they must be too busy for pesky customers....

 

I like Arecont's product, I don't like their customer service. I think that will be their demise.

 

There will be a lot of competition in the Megapixel arena in the next year or so, and some of the preliminary specs to price performance I've seen are comparable or better then the current Arecont line.

 

It'll be interesting to see how this part of the industry pans out in 2 years.

[Kiwi 0]

The lack of access control (username/password) over the settings bothers me a bit. You need to have a local host to isolate the user interface from the internet. Also the camera by default is set to only provide 2.3 megapixel images on the color side, using only the upper two-thirds of the sensor. You have to reconfigure it to get 3.1 megapixel and that process is not specifically documented.

 

I often get fatally-corrupt images, but I'm not yet positive it's the camera's fault. But all images have a minor defect (extra zeros) that cause the browser to not recognize the end of file - it has to just time out. This also shows up using the built-in web interface when you refresh the image. Dreamweaver detects and describes the defect.

 

To get the fastest video download you need to use TFTP, only good on a LAN.

 

Lastly, the color rendition to me seems pretty poor. OK for security purposes but not even close to a simple point and shoot camera.

 

Next time I'll be looking at IQeye and Star.

 

Nice surf today: http://tinyurl.com/23593t

[Kiwi 0]

Can any of you familiar with Arecont cameras tell me why I get a corrupt images at random? Typically about 1 out of 20. The manual mentions http 1.0 v.s.1.1 as a potential reason but I've tried forcing both and it doesn't seem to change things.

 

The command that got this image http://tinyurl.com/2wrq3h

'http://..../image?res=half&x0%=0&y0=0%&x1=98%&y1=76%&quality=18&ver=HTTP/1.0

 

I tried again an hour later and it did it again. The camera is behind a router with incoming traffic routed to port 80. I've also seen this problem locally connected to Luxriot, so I don't think it's network related.

 

 

 

(sorry for the link, I can't figure out how to make images appear in messages??)

[near sighted 0]

Also the camera by default is set to only provide 2.3 megapixel images on the color side, using only the upper two-thirds of the sensor. You have to reconfigure it to get 3.1 megapixel and that process is not specifically documented.

 

 

Kiwi,

 

I recently bought a 3130 too, can you provide the steps you took to re-configure the 3130 from color default of 2.3 megapixel to display 3.1 megapixel?

 

I've tried to contact Arecont customer service for setup help and they have decided to ignore their customers.

 

Thanks!

Brian

[Kiwi 0]

... can you provide the steps you took to re-configure the 3130 from color default of 2.3 megapixel to display 3.1 megapixel?

 

Thanks!

Brian

 

Enter these three commands from a browser with your specific camera's IP Address. Each will return a confirmation:

 

http:///set?sensorheight=1536

 

http:///set?sensorwidth=2048

 

http:///set?params=save

[near sighted 0]

Kiwi - Wow! Thanks for the quick reply! I'll try it out tonight.

 

Brian