Night Glare

[xiongguoy]

Very bad night glare, is this normal?

A129 Pro Duo
V1.2ACC.T Build 20191101
WDR Off, EV 0, 1440P60 + 1080P30.

Spoiler: Sample Stills

 

[Paul Iddon]

Clean your windscreen. That should help a lot.

 

[Nigel]

Yes, the light is coming through some dirt somewhere.
It doesn't help that the rear camera is rather lower than in a normal car, appears to be low enough to be in the headlight beam of the car behind even when dipped.
Don't expect to read license plates at 146 Km/h, too much motion blur on any camera at that speed in the dark!

 

[kamkar]

Don't expect to read license plates at 146 Km/h

Well if the car is right behind doing 147 km/h it might be possible.

 

[xiongguoy]

Clean your windscreen. That should help a lot.

I will try this.
Could it also be the tint that is causing the glare?

It doesn't help that the rear camera is rather lower than in a normal car, appears to be low enough to be in the headlight beam of the car behind even when dipped.

My car is only 1.2m high, camera is mounted as high as it can go, even that it is barely a meter above ground.
Sucks to be me right?

Spoiler: Photos of the setup:

 

[Nigel]

Your photo of the rear window appears to show the dirt? It is not too bad, but you will see an improvement if you clean it with some detergent to remove the grease/oil, a tiny bit of what you use in the kitchen, and then again with clean water. Don't use a car polish, that can leave a residue.

Not much you can do about the height, although it may be possible to mount the camera upside down, may give a better view over your spoiler as well as moving it slightly out of the headlight beams. The cable wouldn't look so good and it may not adjust the angle low enough, not sure.

What sort of car is it?

 

[xiongguoy]

Your photo of the rear window appears to show the dirt? It is not too bad, but you will see an improvement if you clean it with some detergent to remove the grease/oil, a tiny bit of what you use in the kitchen, and then again with clean water. Don't use a car polish, that can leave a residue.

Thanks for the guide/tip

What sort of car is it?

Toyota MR2 MKII SW20 1991 JDM Rev2

Spoiler: Photo of car:

 

[sam duyvejonck]

hello guys , I have the A129 pro now for about 2 weeks and still changing settings and using it with now without cpl filter ( best for summertime I suppose) ... like others I'm also a little disappointed about the image quality compared to the earlier footage of the A119 V3 ( with modified firmware ) I've seen on youtube by blackboxmycar ? If a rear cam would't be necessary I would have bought the A119 V3 for sure...
Added snapshots at night with some road lights . Think WDR is of and also no cpl filter , drive a ford with heated windscreen ( you can see the dark lines in the daytime picture.
During daytime ( winter time for now) EV set at 0 is also a little dark , see third picture.... but they are raw footages , so always better a little too dark compared to blurred out for video editing.
cheers

 

[Nigel]

like others I'm also a little disappointed about the image quality compared to the earlier footage of the A119 V3

I think this is because it is now only 1 month from mid-winter, both A129 Pro and A119 V3 are not looking so good now, in summer they both look much better, and you can use the CPL without worrying, there is a huge difference summer to winter.

In your first image, the license plate is very overexposed. It can help to use EV -1/3, but I think in this case it would not help, your headlights are too bright! If you really want to capture a license plate while waiting at traffic lights, you can turn off your headlights for a couple of seconds, your side lights and their number plate lights will be enough for it to read the plate. You could also fit some less bright headlight bulbs to your car, obviously keep the brightest main beam bulbs, but the dipped lamps do not need to be that bright.

Interesting pattern in the starburst on the streetlights, I guess that is from the heater wires, normally I would say that the glass could be cleaner and recommend a little detergent.

In the last image, looks a very good image for this time of year, not sure any other dash camera would beat it.

 

[sam duyvejonck]

Last ride I've also tried H.265 setting , strange It's not mentioned in the users manual ..... and roads are very dirt , I will have to attach a sponge to a selfiestick to constantly clean my windshield ....

 

[Nigel]

Last ride I've also tried H.265 setting , strange It's not mentioned in the users manual ..... and roads are very dirt , I will have to attach a sponge to a selfiestick to constantly clean my windshield ....

I don't think the H265 officially exists, seems to work fine though, and if your computer can handle it then it does give longer recording times on the card.

You don't need the sponge, there is a legal requirement for cars to have a windscreen cleaning function, normally you press a button and it squirts detergent and water on the windscreen, then the wipers do the job of the sponge More seriously, the dirt that causes the problem is normally a build up of oil/grease on the inside, that does need the sponge or cloth and a tiny amount of detergent (not polish that leaves a residue), but it only needs doing occasionally.

 

[sam duyvejonck]

some shots of today , part cloudy and low sunlight but optimal conditions for photography... No CPF , EV=0 , WDR= on , recorded at max res and compression with H.265 ! I'm really pleased with the unedited result ,
if you don't mind the reflexion of the dashboard.... ( subject isn't about nighttime anymore , but just to compare with my previous picture during daytime, if I should post these results at an other thread please let me know... )

 

[Nigel]

I'm really pleased with the unedited result ,
if you don't mind the reflexion of the dashboard....

There are not enough pixels to do any better, so I can be sure it has done better than the A119 V3 in this image. This shows why even with a 4K sensor you don't want the field of view too wide, we need 8K before we have really wide field of view.

Reflections are not too bad, but probably worth putting the CPL back sometime in February unless you drive mainly in the dark.