A139 infrared cam results?

DashCamUser123

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I may eventually upgrade to the A139 3-channel. I am mostly interested in how the internal-facing infrared cam is working. At night, can it see thru the side windows of your vehicle? I assume there will have to be some ambient street light to get decent video capture with the infrared cam thru the side windows?

I want to capture any action coming from the side windows at night. Let's say the front or rear cam motion detection starts the recording in Parking Mode. Then whatever triggered it walks to the side of the vehicle. I am wondering what is the quality of the captured video thru the side windows?

What about during the day in bright sunny weather? Will this wash out the video from the side windows or can the cam adjust the exposure?
 
The main problem is probably the fact there is no CPL for those cameras so you get quite a lot of reflections (I ordered a polarizer foil and will see). Especially at night if there is any light source inside your car (including the IR light...).
 
I have my cabin camera installed on the mirror stalk and so the lens are only offset 1" from dead center in my car, but the side windows are not much visible and not what is outside them, i think for that the lens are not wide enough,
It is nothing new though, it was the same i saw testing the B2W and Zenfox T3, in the daytime not much of the outside can be seen as it is fairly overexposed.
You can probably tweak the EV setting to expose the outside better, but then the inside of the cabin get dark, i have not attempted this as to me the cabin is all i expect the cabin camera to record.
I still like the cabin camera though i dont think it have a active IR cut filter. at least my brown winter jacket appear very purple in videos, or at least anything but the dark brown it is.
There is a short "bleep" of cabin footage in this video.
 
@DashCamUser123 I'm so dumb, now I've realized I misunderstood the question. :facepalm: I thought you are gonna install the internal camera to a side window (I did it). :LOL:
 
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I dont have CPL on my side cameras, one of which can be seen in the youtube preview above on my R side rear door
 
I dont have CPL on my side cameras, one of which can be seen in the youtube preview above on my R side rear door
Yeah. Well, when one use the internal camera properly (for internal stuff) then most likely doesn't need CPL (but with CPL I bet you can get more of the outside world even from the spot in your car - even thought it's more about dynamic range). As I've mentioned above i thought he's talking about installing the camera to sides and in that case, as you can see, it's probably must-have:

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My side cameras ( K2S system ) are extremely close to the glass, the lens is 1 - 2 mm from it, still yes there is reflections too, but not more than i can live with.
As a result of that i dont have anything else in the footage.

It is also the same on my rear camera, where i also have CPL but to deal with reflections in windscreen of car behind me, but also have reflections there as my rear window are almost flat and vertical.

When i change to use the SG9663DR system for side i will also have CPL filters there, but it will be a month or so before i move that system.
 
You can probably tweak the EV setting to expose the outside better, but then the inside of the cabin get dark, i have not attempted this as to me the cabin is all i expect the cabin camera to record.
You can normally get quite a good compromise with the EV set at about -1, inside can then sometimes be a little dark, but it is still good enough for evidence.

What about during the day in bright sunny weather? Will this wash out the video from the side windows or can the cam adjust the exposure?
You have to adjust the EV or the outside will often be washed out, but you can get good outside results most of the time with a negative EV setting. At night most of the outside will then be a bit dark, but still decent evidence.

The main problem is probably the fact there is no CPL for those cameras so you get quite a lot of reflections (I ordered a polarizer foil and will see). Especially at night if there is any light source inside your car (including the IR light...).
Depends where you put the camera, I have mine on the overhead lamp cluster in the centre of the car, and from there it sees very few reflections, and a CPL wouldn't work there anyway because of the angles. You want to avoid the around 45 degree angle seen in your image, try and get it closer to 90 degrees, and moving the camera further away from the window to get less angle will also give a wider "field of view" close up, although then you also get a few blockages from pillars.
 
Haven't tried my A139 interior cam looking out a window, but it does 'see' well through them from center-front looking rearward, as long as sun glare isn't happening. On my night-time parking recordings, the IR LED's blind the outside view except right at the glass; I will capture the face of someone trying to open the door. There's always some light here from distant streetlamps so non-IR cams do fairly well. Given the daytime characteristics of the A139 interior cam I'm sure it would do fine as a side-cam with the IR LED's turned off and the exposure setting optimized.

On side-cam angle, mine are somewhat near the glass pointing downward around 30-40 degrees; this is to allow the cams to capture close to my van without going below the horizon in the top of their view. More down and I can almost see lane markings, but I lose the distant view which I want. When I get the rear side cams in, they will be aimed low for closze capture and I'll aim the front side-cams up for distance. Because of the downward aim I have now, there is some spatial distortion but no loss of details, so I'm OK with that.

Everything is a compromise, and my goal with side-cam aim is not to maximize any particular aspect, but to minimize all losses. I think 'from the horizon down' achieves that goal since my van sits quite high- in a lower car a slightly higher aim might be advisable. Unlike front cams, there are no real 'rules of thumb' for side-cams; aim yours to get what you want from them.

Phil

PS- Kamkar is correct; no IR-cut filter with the interior cam so colors won't be accurate
 
PS- Kamkar is correct; no IR-cut filter with the interior cam so colors won't be accurate
If it is pointing out of a side window and your windows have IR filtering,as many modern vehicles do, then the colour will be normal. Until you open the window.
 
If it is pointing out of a side window and your windows have IR filtering,as many modern vehicles do, then the colour will be normal. Until you open the window.
I don't know how common that is yet, but for dashcam purposes accurate color rendering is almost unnecessary when you'll almost certainly have that on view from one of the other cams which has an IR-cut filter. In a single cam situation it would matter more.

Phil
 
I don't know how common that is yet, but for dashcam purposes accurate color rendering is almost unnecessary when you'll almost certainly have that on view from one of the other cams which has an IR-cut filter. In a single cam situation it would matter more.

Phil
I think it’s as normal for cars as aircon, but you could argue that having an extra colour band recorded is extra evidence, evidence that is invisible to humans!
 
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