GS1000 / GS2000 / GS5000 Lens Replacement

Hi Tekno,

Unfortunately buying lenses is not easy. Usually the ads don't provide enough info such as:
- is it a megapixel lens
- is there an IR/cut filter
- what size sensor is it for

That being said, Sabe is right, the viewing angle would be narrow with this lens.

how do you open gs1000 nicely? can't figure out where to press and how

guess what? I did manage to re-use old lens mount.

Hi Tekno,

Did you get your new lens installed? How does it perform?

I replaced the lens on my GS1000 with a 2.1mm lens from DX. The angle of view is now 160 deg in 720p, and it should be about 140 deg horizontal in 1080p.
The lens does not have an IR filter, so now you will pick up IR light, and have better brighter night performance at the cost of IR light skewing up the colours.

Lens from DX:
https://dx.com/p/2-1mm-160-degree-wide- ... 18&u=15237

***As an alternative, you can choose the 1.8mm lens which has a wider view.
It looks like it will fit the existing housing so you don't have to cut the plastic for the large 2.1mm lens.
https://dx.com/p/replacement-fixed-iris ... -8mm-47018

The existing mount did not work for some odd reason, I didn't screw up the threads or anything, so I had to buy mounts off ebay.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/150947627201?ssP ... 571wt_1163

Here are pictures of the mod. The housing will not go back on because of the lens is huge. I will be cutting the housing to make room for the lens.







Tiny hole to be made bigger.

Looks good kay188. Looking forward to seeing some videos with the new lens. Are the colors all off without the IR filter?

The colours are only off to light sources that emit IR light.

IR light is a very long wavelength of light that our eyes cannot see, but the camera can. Things that emit long wavelengths of light are usually very hot subjects such as a halogen bulb. I tested this myself, and halogen spot lights turn out purple on video because of the IR light emitted by the halogen spot light.

The other colours are not affected. Skewed colours are only on objects that emit IR light, such as halogen headlights on cars will look purple.

Hi kay188,

That colors in that photo look ok. This may be a good lens for people looking to upgrade.

I think the image is too distorted on the side.
Also the center is not linear.
Bad.

enjoy,
Mtz

Mtz said:

I think the image is too distorted on the side.
Also the center is not linear.
Bad.

enjoy,
Mtz

Click to expand...

You were on the Keychain 808 16 camera forum. Why'd they shut down that down?

That is a good low cost car dvr for $40. The latest firmware supports auto record and loop recording. But you would have to glue it to a suction mount for your windshield.

Sorry for offtopic: that thread was closed because an american forum user was always posting and frequently in some very bad english and people were so angry and disgusted and can't stop him for posting. So instead to ban that type of user by asking the site admins, Tom decided to open another private thread and its link is on the latest post of the original thread. Being private, he can ban that user. If I was Tom I shouldn't take that decision because now many people are reading the new topic and searching on the old one and quote from old topic are not so easy to post.

I will make a video review about the 808 camera and open a thread on this forum. The main drawback is because it cannot be started and stopped when charger detected. But with the Motion Detect feature I think you can let the camera turned on if you want to forget about pressing buttons.

enjoy,
Mtz

Mtz said:

Sorry for offtopic: that thread was closed because an american forum user was always posting and frequently in some very bad english and people were so angry and disgusted and can't stop him for posting. So instead to ban that type of user by asking the site admins, Tom decided to open another private thread and its link is on the latest post of the original thread. Being private, he can ban that user. If I was Tom I shouldn't take that decision because now many people are reading the new topic and searching on the old one and quote from old topic are not so easy to post.

I will make a video review about the 808 camera and open a thread on this forum. The main drawback is because it cannot be started and stopped when charger detected. But with the Motion Detect feature I think you can let the camera turned on if you want to forget about pressing buttons.

enjoy,
Mtz

Click to expand...

Okay thanks.

You can get these on ebay, search 'm12 lens', 'board lens' will get you more results. Some examples (I'm not selling them):

With ir filter (for normal color):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-1-2-5-2-8-3-6 ... 4166228364

Improved low light f1.8 lens (says for ir camera, so full spectrum infrared color)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-8mm-F1-8-Mono ... 19d805d32e

This is an f1.4 infrared, great low light:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4mm-4-mm-CCTV-C ... 5647ee45d0

I put the last one on my contour roam bike camera and it greatly improved night quality. But you get a narrower view and softer picture.
All of these are full metal and glass lens as opposed to plastic that comes stock in the car dvr.

Mtz said:

I think the image is too distorted on the side.
Also the center is not linear.
Bad.

enjoy,
Mtz

Click to expand...

How is it bad? The center is not linear because I'm holding the camera by hand.

Of course the image is distorted on the side. This is a super wide lens, and it's a tiny lens.
There's no way to make the side clear and not distorted unless you increase the size of the lens.
There has to be compromises made for a tiny lens on a tiny sensor.
I'm a photographer myself. There is a reason why ultra wide lenses are very expensive and have huge front glass elements.
Cheap lenses have smaller front elements and are cheaper.

The main point of having a super wide lens is to capture what was beside you on the time of the car accident.
This mod cost $10. For $10 to have a super wide view is a very good deal.

Please have a better reasoning before you call this epic mod for a super wide view bad.

Is bad if also the center is not linear. When adding wide lens we expect some distortion on the sides, but I think not on the center.
Also don't forget if some event will occur maybe you will want to see the number from the car plate. And if you can't see it due to a bad lens then is no reason to use that lens. Most of the time the action is the center of the recording so we can accept if something was interesting on the sides and we can't see details because we already know the distortion of wide lens.
Also using wide lens even good quality will make the car numbers even smaller. And I know there is already some problem with american numbers because are not very visible by dash cams, so adding a bad lens will decrease the chances to see the numbers.

I don't have anything with your setup but users must know what can miss when using wide lens. They will not obtain more image without losing something.

enjoy,
Mtz

The center is linear... it called barrel distortion because it's a wide lens. It has to stretch the edge into the frame at the cost of barrel distortion.

Yes there is a reason for the lens.
At the event of an accident, you can prove better with a wide lens of your surroundings.
Licence plates are not that important at the event of a serious collision because you're going to stop, get out and get the other driver's information anyways.

Of course it'll make the car licence plates even smaller... it's a wide lens.
You can't have wide, and super clear for a $5 lens.
If you want wide and clear, engineer a lens yourself. It's the PHYSICS of light and glass that limits the physical size of the lens.
You want wide and clear? Your lens will be the size of your hand.
American licence plates are reflective. That's why it's not very visible because the headlights reflect off the plates blowing the plates out into glare.

I have just countered every argument that you have against that this lens is bad.
The early dashcams only prove the event of what happens in front of you, and where you were at the time of the accident.
People never had a problem with the early dashcams being low quality 640x480 resolution.

This is not a bad lens. In fact, it's 10x better than the stock lens it comes with.

Please get your facts straight.

kay188 said:

American licence plates are reflective. That's why it's not very visible because the headlights reflect off the plates blowing the plates out into glare.

Click to expand...

All license plates are reflective from all the world. But the american letters and numbers are thinner and sometime with strange colors than european (except Switzerland).



The problem with the reflection is because the headlights are almost on the same line with the dash cam. The reflected light is coming back to the lens on the same angle and the glare reflection is covering the letters and numbers. If light is coming from another angle for example from a light from a top of a bus, the license plates are more visible. My english is not good, I don't want to write more so I hope you understand this first time want I want to say.

I repeat (again): I don't have nothing against a wide lens, but on distorted lens. If yours is not, OK. And don't forget that "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
But here is the end of discussion for me. I don't want to repeat the same things forever.

enjoy,
Mtz

PS: in my country if the radar found me with a high speed and on the camera image or photo they can't see my number they have nothing to against me. Even if I have a unique pink Lamborghini paint with green-yeloow-lime stripes.

Mtz said:

The problem with the reflection is because the headlights are almost on the same line with the dash cam. The reflected light is coming back to the lens on the same angle and the glare reflection is covering the letters and numbers. If light is coming from another angle for example from a light from a top of a bus, the license plates are more visible. My english is not good, I don't want to write more so I hope you understand this first time want I want to say.

I repeat (again): I don't have nothing against a wide lens, but on distorted lens. If yours is not, OK. And don't forget that "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
But here is the end of discussion for me. I don't want to repeat the same things forever.

Click to expand...

That's the exact same thing I said.
The reflection is because of the headlights of the car you drive is reflecting off the reflective licence plates.
So it becomes super bright to the camera and you can't see the licence plate.

In countries like russia, the licence plates there are not reflective. The headlights of the car will not reflect off the plates.
And it's black text on a white background, which makes it easy to read.
In Canada, the plates are blue on white background, and the whole plate is reflective.
There's nothing you can do about the reflection.

You have nothing against a wide lens, but a distorted one?

You cannot have wide and no distortion for cheap. That's simply against the laws of physics on light and lenses.
You need to have both to have a wide lens. Period.
You can have a really GOOD wide lens that is low distortion, but that lens will be very expensive.
On a cheap small 2.1mm wide lens that has 160 degrees view there's nothing you can do about the distortion.

If you want a wide angle lens without distortion... buy a Nikkor 6mm F/2.8.
You can see how large the lens needs to be to counter the distortion. Lets see you attach this to a dashcam.

[Broken External Image]:http://fstoppers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/nikkor-6mm-fisheye-rare.jpg

kay188 said:

That's the exact same thing I said......

Click to expand...

Dude, you got this whole situation wrong !!!

As Mtz said, "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder"......that means(and I don't wanna sound like an ass) just because YOU like it, that doesn't mean EVERYONE is gonna/should like it !!!

All he's saying is what HE thinks of this setup.

What you should've said is: "Here is my setup with the new lens, bla, bla, bla.....but please take into consideration that this will have some side effects on your video"....you being an photographer and all, you need to realize that not everyone is as experienced as you are and if you don't tell the "whole story", you risk of getting some bad reviews and loose your credibility(and temper).

Instead of saying "This is my new setup and it's great....." and then people having to say "Dude this is crap....." because HE/SHE doesn't like it, you could've said "This is my new setup but it changes the video in some ways(but I like it)" and people would say "This lens looks like it has better specs but I don't like how the video turns out"

It's like going to the doctor and he gives you some X pills but he doesn't say you shouldn't take then with Y pills(which you're taking now)......so you go home and start taking the X pills, you become sick as hell(losing vision and hearing, your hair starts to fall off, you loose appetite, you can't get it up....you know, all those bad things) and when you go back to the doctor to complain he says: well, you should've known that you're not supposed to take the X pill when you're taking the Y pills !!

I guess this would be the summary of everything you guys are arguing about.

Damn, I wish I had your phone number to tell you this over the phone, it would've been WAY faster....my hands are killing me

I said it was the same thing I said because he was saying how and why the licence plates are unreadable because of the glare off the headlights, which I ALREADY stated why it was blown out and glaring to the dashcam.

There's no reason to not like a wider angle on a dashcam. The main purpose for a dashcam is for evidence to prove your position at the time of the accident.

Dashcams started with very low quality video, but people still used them because they used it for the MAIN purpose of evidence in case of an accident.

Having a wider angle can show MORE.
Such as a car hitting you on the side. If your camera is not wide, then it doesn't see the car. Less evidence.
If your camera is as wide, it's better evidence to prove your innocence when you're hit.

Just because it's wide, doesn't mean it's not linear.
Of course the edges are going to be distorted. It's a $7 lens made in China. What do you expect?
As I stated before, if you want no distortion, buy the Nikkor 6mm F/2.8 and mount it on the camera.
You cannot have wide and cheap with no distortion and sharp edges. Period.

So there's no reason to say the lens is bad.