Shall I buy the viofo a119v3

Pardon my ignorance but once locked in how does it rotate if needed?
 
Pardon my ignorance but once locked in how does it rotate if needed?

If it were necessary to adjust the CPL you would carefully turn the glass filter inside the plastic housing using your thumb and index finger and then re-secure it in its new position.

The best glue for the job would be a tiny dab or two of UV curing cement. (which is likely what was used at the factory)
 
"If you're not willing to take the approaches being recommended to you, then nobody can help you in any way"
My opening question was " Anyone else having poor image problems with the A119 V3???"
So I was expecting a wealth of experience of instances of poor image quality, as after that is what I was asking.

I was asking for possible causes, not asking for a testing procedure as I am quite capable of devising my own testing procedures for any cause I was to investigate.

To your credit you offered the 'left field of view issue', one that I actually was aware of. Unfortunately the rest of the replies were all about the car speed being too high and light level too low, both of which I dismissed as I have pulled great images off my A119S at more than double the speed of the cars in this instance, and that the lighting was not low although people have obviously mistaken the lack of washed out highlights (due to exposure at -0.3ev) as evidence of low light while ignoring the blue sky. Ironically none of them actually knew what the car speed was, nor the light level.

So instead of offering other suggested causes of poor image, people instead for some reason wanted to insist I carry out "their prescribed testing procedure" and submit the results to them for perusal, presumably in the hope of proving my dismissal of speed and low light as being wrong and them being correct, or they would take their bat and ball..
It's time for you to eat humble pie my friend. I fixed it!!

What I have discovered is that the focus from the factory is rough, really rough. That's why some of their same model of dashcam are better than others. I have tried 3 of the same model dashcam

So the fix??? Pull it apart and refocus it. It took a few attempts and there is still a difference from one side of the frame to the other, obviously inaccuracies in the CCD, so I had to find a sweet spot where all the frame was a reasonable focus.

As they say the proof is in the pudding, and here are the photos taken with my car and the oncoming traffic both doing 60kmh (faster than the photos I previously posted, in fact nearly double the closing speed) and a similar light level, probably more cloud than the previous photos.
 

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I had a Nextbase 412 and I was offered a free 422 on release to review. Having seen the specs (battery and ball joint) I declined and glad I did. I started with a A119 V2 and got a V3 shortly after release.

Never regretted it and this latest HD @ 60fps is proving superb. Sample shot in normal conditions, very sharp:

iMN6qzU.jpg
Actually having fiddled extensively with readjusting the focus on my A119 V3, I can see yours is focussed too short. The light sensor and vents on your dash are in perfect focus at the expense of focus further away eg the car ahead of you has a soft focus.
 
and a similar light level, probably more cloud than the previous photos.
It is no longer winter, my guess is that you have far more light now and that is a significant factor.

The left-right focus difference can probably be sorted, either by tightening one of the lens mounting screws, or by reseating the lens mount - take it off, use some fine very flat sandpaper on the bottom to remove any lumps, then put it back 180 degrees rotated from the original.
 
Thanks for the input but I won't be fiddling with it. I'm quite happy with the video output for my needs.
 
  1. It is winter.
  2. The sky has lots of thick clouds in it; there may be a little blue sky, but not in the direction of the sun.
  3. The shadows are hard to see - indicating low light level.
  4. You are driving under trees with thick leaves blocking light from the direction of the sun.
  5. The time is well gone midday, not sure how long the day length is there at this time of year, but light levels will be well below midday levels.
  6. The issue looks like motion blur.

Maybe everyone except you is wrong, but you don't have another explanation otherwise you wouldn't be asking for possible causes, so I suggest you do a quick check on some stationary footage just to check who is correct, if you are correct then given more evidence we will consider alternative causes, if everyone else is correct then you have your answer - there is motion blur when driving under evergreen trees on a day with thick clouds in the middle of winter.
Actually none of the above. Just poor focus adjustment from the factory. So I have adjusted the focus now, and centred the focus for about 15 metres away and the difference is chalk and cheese. Look at the new photos I have posted.
 
It was reasonably good sunshine. Not dull by any measure.

I wasn't driving fast, about 50 kmh, and the oncoming car was slowing to turn.

The crux of the issue is, my old A119S took better photos on the right than this A119 V3. Why should my old A119S take better video clarity than my new A119 V3???
Nope, the unit was just out of focus. Fixed now.
 
OOF ( Out Of Focus ) from the factory are not something we see often, but OFF after being hit by high summer temperatures have traditionally not been uncommon, but even heat related focus shift are also much more rare nowadays.
Customers should not have to deal with focus either way, but of course if you have the tools and some DIY skill it is a easier way of getting a result VS sending your camera off to god know where you got it from.
Also why i always recommend to buy locally as that should make the RMA process simpler.

If your focus have slipped and remain there, you are good to refocus it, if you can / want to, but if your focus go out during the heat of day but are fine at night or fine in the morning before it get hot, then you probably have a lens failure and that you can only fix by replacing the whole lens.
 
OOF ( Out Of Focus ) from the factory are not something we see often, but OFF after being hit by high summer temperatures have traditionally not been uncommon, but even heat related focus shift are also much more rare nowadays.
Customers should not have to deal with focus either way, but of course if you have the tools and some DIY skill it is a easier way of getting a result VS sending your camera off to god know where you got it from.
Also why i always recommend to buy locally as that should make the RMA process simpler.

If your focus have slipped and remain there, you are good to refocus it, if you can / want to, but if your focus go out during the heat of day but are fine at night or fine in the morning before it get hot, then you probably have a lens failure and that you can only fix by replacing the whole lens.
I didn't have the tools, it was out of necessity due to poor customer service from the manufacturer. I sent them the video and they claimed it was normal.
Having pulled it all apart multiple times and fiddled with it, I have a good understanding of its focus characteristics and can look at photos from other units and recognise exactly what the focus is set to. So with the knowledge I've gained, my unit was either completely outside the focus tolerance limits, or they don't care.
OOF ( Out Of Focus ) from the factory are not something we see often, but OFF after being hit by high summer temperatures have traditionally not been uncommon, but even heat related focus shift are also much more rare nowadays.
Customers should not have to deal with focus either way, but of course if you have the tools and some DIY skill it is a easier way of getting a result VS sending your camera off to god know where you got it from.
Also why i always recommend to buy locally as that should make the RMA process simpler.

If your focus have slipped and remain there, you are good to refocus it, if you can / want to, but if your focus go out during the heat of day but are fine at night or fine in the morning before it get hot, then you probably have a lens failure and that you can only fix by replacing the whole lens.
The focus cant slip from high temperatures or bumps as the barrel is on a very fine thread and it is glued so it wont move. The glue is like hot melt glue but 1000 times tougher. The greatest difficulty is actually breaking the glue so that you can adjust it. I had to rotate the focusing barrel between 1/6 and 1/4 of a turn to get it in focus. That's a lot

I had bought locally. Its that the warranty claims have to be approved by Viofo for an RMA, and what they call acceptable focus I call s**t.

You shouldn't have to take a gamble when you buy a dashcam of whether it is in focus or not. Their tolerance on focus should be so tight that to the user there should not be any detectable variation in focus from one unit to another.

Its called quality control or lack there of.
 
I think back in the day when heat related focus shift was more common, the problem was often sub quality lens mounts in poor materials.
But no matter the component quality and camera brand things can always go bad.

QC can always go bad too, and while i do hate QC, it have once saved me as i had pretty much bodged a whole series of axles on my grinding machine, now my tolerances was okay the problem was in the geometry.
My grinding machine had been misused, so changing some parts in it to be able to make those axles, i always had to adjust like a SOB ( this could take well over 1 hour for something that should take 20 seconds if the machine had not been abused by some idiot )
Anyway i forgot to do those adjustments, and so the geometry was off as outside tolerances did not match inside tolerances made by the CNC lathe, and these axles was pretty precise ones for gears going into massive MRI scanners for hospitals.
Still it was my fault, and after that the grinding machine was also attempted fixed but it never became good like it should be, so those axles was moved to another larger grinding machine that was able to do all 6 tolerances in one go, where as i had to do them one at a time on my smaller machine.

But once set up properly tolerances was no problem, the smallest ones i made had 4 / 1000 mm for me to do good with, and funny enough those little axles, they did not go into QC even though it was the tightest tolerance i worked with.
And i never messed up any of those axles, other than maybe 1 - 2 out of a series of 150, which was totally acceptable.
 
OOF ( Out Of Focus ) from the factory are not something we see often, but OFF after being hit by high summer temperatures have traditionally not been uncommon, but even heat related focus shift are also much more rare nowadays.
Customers should not have to deal with focus either way, but of course if you have the tools and some DIY skill it is a easier way of getting a result VS sending your camera off to god know where you got it from.
Also why i always recommend to buy locally as that should make the RMA process simpler.

If your focus have slipped and remain there, you are good to refocus it, if you can / want to, but if your focus go out during the heat of day but are fine at night or fine in the morning before it get hot, then you probably have a lens failure and that you can only fix by replacing the whole lens.
Heat related focus shift really should not be a problem as the camera tube that holds the lens is all aluminium. Any potential for permanent heat distortion would only be the circuit board and CCD that the tube bolts onto, and this appears to be quite robust.
 
No today wit metal mounts it is rarely there a problem will occur, but in the old days you would be surprised what people used for mounts.
Today issues in this regard are only poor mounting on PCB / poor PCB design, or the lens itself failing with a element gotten loose or crooked, but all in all things have moved forward nicely over the past years.
 
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