B40 Out of focus issue

Hmm... I can understand how glare from the sun would make it harder to properly represent objects' light & saturation but I would also think that the visual acuity & sharpness of objects (such as sign text & number plate figures) wouldn't be affected with light levels etc.

Just came home from a drive and I have some stills from footage I have. the lighting is a bit different due to the sun's brightness diminishing but if you notice the gradual loss of focus with the shot after I think you can notice that there seems to be a loss of focus.

To be absolutely certain I'll be taking photos from the camera in my garage when cold and with the camera running for about 30mins. I'll set a legible object at a set distance from my car and see if/how the focus degrades over time. This will hopefully remove any doubts and should the camera be defective Ill be able to present proof to the seller.

For now are the stills I mentioned earlier:
 

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both of those snapshots look fine to me, and look similar to video produced by both of mine (i have an original a118 and the new a118c). I can easily read the number plate on the red car. Are you expecting to be able to make out details such as the lettering on the sign behind the red car? that won't happen with most dashcams due to video compression. if you need detail that fine, this may not be the camera for you.

while the garage idea is a good one, it may be flawed - in the garage, your vehicle is in the shade, so it won't get as hot as it would while out driving. the sun will heat up the camera as well, since it's directly attached to the windshield. Just something to think about. perhaps you could test while sitting in an uncovered parking lot, as it will more closely simulate actual driving - in the sun, probably with the aircon running since you'd be sitting in the car as well.
 
Gibson99 said:
both of those snapshots look fine to me, and look similar to video produced by both of mine (i have an original a118 and the new a118c). I can easily read the number plate on the red car. Are you expecting to be able to make out details such as the lettering on the sign behind the red car? that won't happen with most dashcams due to video compression. if you need detail that fine, this may not be the camera for you.

while the garage idea is a good one, it may be flawed - in the garage, your vehicle is in the shade, so it won't get as hot as it would while out driving. the sun will heat up the camera as well, since it's directly attached to the windshield. Just something to think about. perhaps you could test while sitting in an uncovered parking lot, as it will more closely simulate actual driving - in the sun, probably with the aircon running since you'd be sitting in the car as well.
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Good idea. I'll give that a try maybe tomorrow morning or sometime this week making sure to park somewhere I can judge detail at distance and have the car warm up in the sun as well.

The garage test was inconclusive as 30 mins running time didn't seem to affect much. However, reviewing footage earlier I have 2 snapshots where there is a noticeable (not huge but I can only imagine it getting worse in summertime where 30°C is common in the shade!) change in clarity. This is before & after 25 mins parked in the shade after a good hour's drive:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u8o6nqrp50vbl2s/Screenshots_2015-02-20-22-44-41.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3n2apr99zgbuo0r/Screenshots_2015-02-20-22-46-18.png?dl=0

Camera firmware is: A118.20150104 which I think is the latest.

PS. Sorry for the screenshot spamming :D
 
toggling between the 2 recent screenshots i see 2 different things (aside from the phone/tablet status bar at the top).
1) because the sun and clouds moved and shadows changed between the two shots, the camera changed exposure value between the two shots - look at how you can see blue sky in one but it's completely white in the second - washed out. the number plate directly in front of you does lose a little bit of sharpness, but that can be attributed to the altered EV and possibly more diffuse light due to cloud cover - note how sharp the shadows on the buildings are in the first shot versus the second.
2) a blue hatchback halfway down the road on the left disappeared and the black car on the left transformed into a white van! :p

@jokiin - is it just me or does it feel wrong to talk about shadows on the forum now? o_O
 
Gibson99 said:
toggling between the 2 recent screenshots i see 2 different things (aside from the phone/tablet status bar at the top).
1) because the sun and clouds moved and shadows changed between the two shots, the camera changed exposure value between the two shots - look at how you can see blue sky in one but it's completely white in the second - washed out. the number plate directly in front of you does lose a little bit of sharpness, but that can be attributed to the altered EV and possibly more diffuse light due to cloud cover - note how sharp the shadows on the buildings are in the first shot versus the second.
2) a blue hatchback halfway down the road on the left disappeared and the black car on the left transformed into a white van! :p

@jokiin - is it just me or does it feel wrong to talk about shadows on the forum now? o_O
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TBH I was looking at the balconies of the buildings to the right, in the shade in both shots and you can tell a difference in focus.

I'm still not that convinced as seeing footage of the camera with the blur issue
and other user videos
it seems my camera footage looks more similar to that with the focus issue.

Oh and with respect to HDR/EV fine tuning, do these settings affect the visual acuity of the camera at all?

Thanks for the help so far!
 
have you taken a look at my sample videos on youtube? granted, youtube video compression can make even a good sharp picture look a little fuzzy, but you seem to be good at picking out the details. i have my cameras set to the default EV setting of zero, and i haven't experimented with changing it.

go to my youtube page here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Gibson99dotcom then look at the A118/A118C section - I have several different videos there you can check out.
 
Gibson99 said:
have you taken a look at my sample videos on youtube? granted, youtube video compression can make even a good sharp picture look a little fuzzy, but you seem to be good at picking out the details. i have my cameras set to the default EV setting of zero, and i haven't experimented with changing it.

go to my youtube page here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Gibson99dotcom then look at the A118/A118C section - I have several different videos there you can check out.
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OK been over to your channel and I have to say I never imagined seeing a Camry drift and hear a supercharger whine from its engine!!:D

For your A118/C vids quality seems good even for the incident video shot completely at night. My worry is should a hit & run happen and it comes down to footage to identify the perpetrator, it would suck to not have the quality to read a number plate 2-3 car lengths away!

Battery life aside, the regular A118 (non-cap) isn't known for any other problems that the A118C doesn't have right?
 
The cap version has only been out for about a month so we don't know if it has any long term issues yet. But basically they took an a118, replaced the battery with caps, tweaked the firmware to work right with them such as instant shutdown, added an RTC battery to store date time and settings (exactly like the bios battery on a PC) and that's about it. Everything else is the same so performance and reliability should be about the same too.

I miss the supercharger... It was fun racing cars like mustangs and camaros, esp previously the v8s... They got mad when they couldn't outrun a beige 4 door mom-mobile. :D
 
Hi there to all. I am new to the Dashcamtalk forum and I received my B40 cam a few weeks ago.

I also seem to have the "Out of Focus Problem".

The installation went fine and I thougt everything was going well until I decided to check out the footage on a bigger screen.
That's when I discovered that although the left half was perfectly in focus, the right half was out of focus. I contacted the Ebay
seller and explained the problem but so far have had no reply !
I think the problem could be fixed by rotating the lens about 90º but I'm not sure how to do this.
I am willing to open/dissasemble the camera and trying to rotate the lens myself to see if it corrects the problem but I don't
really know how easy (or difficult) it could be.
Has anybody tried it out or are there any videos or photos of the proccess ? Any info would be greatly welcome.

Also, does anybody know where one can purchase extra sticky-back windscreen mounting brackets in case one wants
use the camera on another car or on the rear screen ?

Many thanks :-)
 
GTD said:
Hi there to all. I am new to the Dashcamtalk forum and I received my B40 cam a few weeks ago.

I also seem to have the "Out of Focus Problem".

The installation went fine and I thougt everything was going well until I decided to check out the footage on a bigger screen.
That's when I discovered that although the left half was perfectly in focus, the right half was out of focus. I contacted the Ebay
seller and explained the problem but so far have had no reply !
I think the problem could be fixed by rotating the lens about 90º but I'm not sure how to do this.
I am willing to open/dissasemble the camera and trying to rotate the lens myself to see if it corrects the problem but I don't
really know how easy (or difficult) it could be.
Has anybody tried it out or are there any videos or photos of the proccess ? Any info would be greatly welcome.

Also, does anybody know where one can purchase extra sticky-back windscreen mounting brackets in case one wants
use the camera on another car or on the rear screen ?

Many thanks :)
Click to expand...

I've contacted my ebay seller around 3 days ago and haven't heard back from them either, but I saw somewhere a Chinese e-shop had a banner saying they're closed for Chinese new year which will last till the end of this month I believe.

I found an extra mount for the A118 on foxoffer.com here:


And if you only need the adhesive I found something on ebay as well:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/231347883467
 
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Thanks for the info Kurt.
I have been waiting well over a week for a reply from the seller. We will see if he replies. If he doesn't I will just try and fix it myself.
 
However, due to the way the lense is housed within a rotating housing it may be a bit more tricky than you'd think. With regards to ebay, you're entitled ebay buyer protection even if the seller doesn't reply, as if you received a defective product it is out of your right to have compensation. So before opening it up it might be worth having a word with eBay.
 
I had my generic A118 apart to try to adjust the lens. It turned out to be glued so excessively it was impossible to unscrew it without destroying it.
 
Super6O said:
I had my generic A118 apart to try to adjust the lens. It turned out to be glued so excessively it was impossible to unscrew it without destroying it.
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Does anyone with any experience in electronic repairs/design/assembly have any clue as to what type glue is commonly used to affix a lense within a camera housing?

Knowing the type of glue one might think of a suitable solvent that would make disassembly of the lense possible without damaging the lense itself. Granted if the solvent reacts with the lense its not really helpful (eg. propanone with plastic lenses) but it might be worth a try
 
Hobbymat said:
I've now taken my "bad" camera totally apart (including the optics module) and I'll do some experiments soon. I have a feeling I've found the root cause of the "Creeping Focus During Warming Up" issue. Stay tuned for more information... :)
Click to expand...

Did you ever get this fixed?
 
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