Night Time Footage Question (Not whinging)

[Squid68]

So far, all is well with my new RC500S 2CH... I'm very impressed and happy with my purchase... The parking made works well, clear footage and continuous for the main, seems to want to stop after about 4-6 hours, but if you're shopping for 4-6 hours, perhaps take up indoor carpet/lawn bowls, or count the numbers of threads in 1 sq metre of your carpet in your lounge room at home... I'll wait... My question is about the night time footage I have captured so far.. Appears a little (still damn good) grainy and can still pick out detail from both front and rear camera footage, but there must be a simple explanation why I picked up this plate at 60kph with less light, than approaching the traffic lights with seemingly more light and it was just a blur at 16kph.... Apart from the meaning of life (and indoor bowling), what am I missing.... I have the front lens CPL filter on.. The rear camera is picking up plates and details clearly up close, and travelling slowly, quite nicely. Not sure what 'bowling' I'm talking about...

 

[kamkar]

I think a slight difference in speed between camera car and target car can produce such results, and as you can see in the stamp the ISO value for the 2 times are not the same, exposure timing might have changed also.

 

[Squid68]

Hmmm, fair call.. I've paused the videos at numerous spots and situations, still impressed, thought the rear camera may be out of focus and the front camera, I may not have adjusted the CPL filter correctly as I read somewhere this could also be a factor. I thought once fitted to the main body, it didn't matter where the CPL filter was turned.. Not sure on that one yet.. I think I'll go with the camera car and target car explanation, cheers for that one..

 

[kamkar]

CPL is true, if not turned in the right way it have no effect at all, but also a CPL filter do not cut all reflections.

I have often noticed that what appear to the human eye to be 2 pretty similar weather days, and one my dashcam capture just about any plate, and the other day it barley capture any.
I am not sure on this but i have a sneaky feeling that some times dashcams can choose to use a less effective setting ( ISO / exposure timing )
In a perfect world the exposure timing should have priorety and always be as fast as possible to fight motion blur, but then you can also end up with too dark footage as exposure timing are really fast, or you could get noisy footage as exposure timing are fast but ISo are thru the roof with often introduse noise in a image.

personally i just expect the bigger picture in low light footage, and most dashcams do that well, and plate capture is not a thing i personally bother with, but i do use it as a part of testing / beating on new cameras.

 

[Squid68]

Yes agree, I use the plate capture for clarity and focus.. Handy if you get hit and the other person/car tries to do a runner but that would be a rare case anyway I would hope. A couple of dusk captures below, can make out the plates in both, just, and the glare is crazy.. Image 1 is what I'm driving in to, glare city, Image 2 is a closer shot of the car just up in front of image 1, and image 3 is the rear camera, without CPL filter but looking away from the sun.

 

[Squid68]

Ok, my bad as explained in another thread.. Camera works perfectly, I wasn't using the gear as it should be used. Using the power magic pro for parking mode all day is dumb. Just switching the switch on for parking mode then back to ignition when not in use or for driving mode and it all works well.. Great camera..