Mini 0803 focus/sharpness

hollandog

hollandog

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Hi,

I got my mini 0803 from Foxoffer few weeks ago and has been testing it.
Everything is working well except that the video quality is not what I'm expecting.

It seems like the side and corners of the lens have extremely soft focus. Things look blur mostly on the right side. It get worse if hitting by direct sun light with a lot of reflections on the glass.

below are some samples and comparing to my rear mounted Mobius B.

Mini 0803
Full res vid: http://www.jimmyqiu.com/files/mini0803.MP4

Mobius B to compare
Full res vid: http://www.jimmyqiu.com/files/mobius_b.MP4

Some screenshots.

Mini 0803
mini0803_ss1.png

mini0803_ss2.png


Mobius screenshot to compare.
mobius_ss.png



Not sure if clear to see. mini0803 mostly looks alright on the left side and middle, where right side often looks soft. It gets worse if the reflection is bad, the reflection would seem to be the focus and the road will look out of focus and kind of soft.

I had the cheap ebay CPL on the mini but took it off. Quality seems to be worse with it.
Recording with 1080p WDR on, lane departure off, g sensor off, motion off and GPS on. iTracker firmware.

anyone getting great quality with mini0803?
 
The lens is fixed focus so it can not focus on reflections, to me it looks like you have a nice sharp very well focused lens.

Some of your problems are from the WDR, if you turn it off then you will get less "motion blur" towards the sides. The reflections in the first image are not helping but again it could be the interaction between WDR and reflections. WDR is a trade off between positives and negatives, more blur is one of the negatives.

A CPL normally helps, if correctly adjusted, a lack of reflections makes the encoders job much easier when encoding the movement.

What has happened to the colour of the sky in the last image? Have you got darkened glass?

The different firmwares do show different behaviour, you could try some others, you may find one you prefer.

If you want to easily read licence plates off the video then I think you are living in the wrong country, but given your small plates, why don't you use the highest resolution mode?
 
Thank you for the explanation. I will try turning WDR off.
 
Hey mate,

I looked at your video, so much better than mine. I bought two units from Fox Offer, one is ok and one is so blurry. Even my ok unit is still not as good as yours.

Both tested with same settings.

Blurry Unit

Ok Unit
 
It does seem like your units have worse sharpness than mine.
 
hollandog, have found that turning WDR off has helped?
 
Yen said:
hollandog, have found that turning WDR off has helped?
Click to expand...

Hello,

Not exactly a lot of difference on the sharpness. I found the sharpness is worst when the reflection is very bad on the windshield. Otherwise it's acceptable but not as sharp as my Mobius.

I like the color with WDR off much better.

Now my new setting with the Custom 18Mbps iTracker firmware.

1296P
Image: S.Fine
Meter Mode: Center
WDR: Off
EV: +1.0
Flicker: 60hz
White Blance: Auto
Recycle: 3 Minutes
Auto Power Off: 1 Minute
Screen Off: 1 Minute
GPS: On
LDWS: Off
Motion Detect: Off
G-Sensor: Off
 
I haven't tried the custom iTracker firmware yet (although I'm tempted to), still on the firmware that came with the camera (20140918 V1.0) and gonna test it a bit more. However I've found that the left and right sides of the field of view has been blurry quite often. I also have quite a bit of reflection on my windshield so that may be causing it.

Does having WDR off affect quality at night on your firmware?
 
I have the same sharpness issue with the right side of the view. Left side seems better. Middle is the sharpest of all.
WDR off does make the footage darker at night. Especially if you don't have a lot of street light. To me it's acceptable and the color looks a lot more natural.
 
to jpl: I have the same problem. Did you solve this blurry problem??
 
I´m very sad - I have really bad experience with Shenzen Givoe Technology Co., Ltd. :-( I tried to send back 2 cameras, which are with blurry effect, but seller didn´t accept it. He don´t anwer me any email few days, didn´t send me his address - nothing. He has 200USD from me and I have 2 unuseable cameras :-(
This is the sample of image from the camera:
http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=0803mini.jpg
 
Last edited:
ridicBOB said:
to jpl: I have the same problem. Did you solve this blurry problem??
Click to expand...

Hey ridicBOB,

I filed a PayPal dispute after 40 over days of frustrations. Why not you file a dispute with your credit card company or PayPal?
 
ridicBOB said:
I´m very sad - I have really bad experience with Shenzen Givoe Technology Co., Ltd. :-( I tried to send back 2 cameras, which are with blurry effect, but seller didn´t accept it. He don´t anwer me any email few days, didn´t send me his address - nothing. He has 200USD from me and I have 2 unuseable cameras :-(
This is the sample of image from the camera:
http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=0803mini.jpg
Click to expand...

They accepted my two bad 0801's back in early 2013, but they knew how vocal I was in the forums back then. Maybe they gave up on customer support these days.
I gave up on the Mini, never reliable long term.
 
jpl: I lost more than 300USD in my life. It is not about money, but about seller. I only would like to protect the others before this seller. He is fine till the problems start :-(
I really hope, that my 300USD will help him to better life.
 
If they won't reply or take the cameras back it's probably best to just focus them yourself as you should be able to get them working well after manual focussing?
 
yes, manually...but how to do it?
 
Mine is blurry as well. This is probably the clearest image I've ever gotten on mine. Usually you can't see any detail.
tah16Nc.jpg
 
Here's a standard night image on my Mini 0803. Can't really identify anything, not even signs. Huge green highway signs just have "stuff" written on them.

tSqd0pi.jpg
 
how do you refocus the lense, I thought they were fixed-lense cameras.

EDIT: I figured out how to open it and I see the threads for the lense. Right now I'm being thwarted by the glue.

Makes you wonder about the quality controls. The primary feature of a camera is its video quality, it should be high on the checklist for getting right. Mine is not only out of focus, but it has glue on both sides to keep it that way. And it has a QA sticker on the outside.

ZMnHtNG.jpg
 
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