VIOFO RTC300 TELEPHOTO CAMERA FOR A229 PLUS/A229 PRO

[TonyM]

Is this compatible with a CPL? I see indents on the housing.

 

[LateralNW]

That additional line wasn't there when I posted! However, maybe Viofo are still getting the page ready for public viewing....

Perhaps they heard you and fixed it.
It is the public page that's how I found it.

 

[Karagandinez]

Is this compatible with a CPL? I see indents on the housing.

Yes. CPL500

But you can use CPL300

 

[Dashmellow]

Is this compatible with a CPL? I see indents on the housing.

Hope so, but as I've mentioned it really needs to be user adjustable.

 

[TonyM]

Looking at pricing, I see the RTC300 is now listed as an optional accessory for the A229 Pro 1CH. 10% off when bought with a main camera. That seems reasonable.

Wonder if there will be an A229 Pro front & telephoto package?

 

[Dashmellow]

The fact that the telephoto module has its own processor makes the price seem especially reasonable.

 

[VIOFO-Support]

Is this compatible with a CPL? I see indents on the housing.

The CPL-500 for the telephoto camera will be released soon.

 

[mentadent]

Will Nigel get a free one for inventing the telephoto dashcam?

 

[Nigel]

The telephoto camera was Nigel's idea I heard.

No, that was me six years ago and @TonyM presented the first viable DIY prototype with his A139 Pro mod.

Hmm, I was not the first to implement a telephoto dashcam, doesn't appear that Dashmellow was either, @kamkar fitted an 8mm telephoto lens to a dashcam back in January 2015, that is 9 and a half years ago, much longer than Dashmellow's 6 years ago!

Here is Kamkar's thread, unfortunately missing its images after all this time:

Long range plate reading, a little lens experiment.

As a experiment i put a 8 mm megapixel lens on the 0806 to see how far off licence plates are readable. I have no exact specs on the lens other then what is above, got the lens off a 1080p IP camera so i assume its a 3Mpix lens. Here is first some pics so you can see how narrow the FOV is...

dashcamtalk.com

Nigel has actually been against telephoto cameras for a very long time and has no experience with them,. He claims that 4K camera resolutions allow you to zoom into the image, so you don't need a telephoto

Back in the time of Kamkar's thread, there were no 4K dashcams, and telephoto lenses made a lot of sense. Once 4K+1K dashcams became available, at about the time of Dashmellow's thread, fitting a telephoto lens to the second camera of a 4K+1K dashcam did not produce great benefits. If you used a lens with enough magnification to beat the 4K front lens then the field of view was too small. It was not until we got 4K+2K dashcams that a telephoto lens for the second sensor really made sense again, and now with 3 channels so that you can have front + rear + telephoto, it makes a lot of sense, and with good DOL-HDR as well, the RTC300 telephoto is working really well, until the 8K+2K dashcam arrives, at which point the 2K telephoto will not show much advantage over the 8K front again!

TonyM was using a 2K Mobius with telephoto lens for his thread, paired with a separate 4K front camera, so his telephoto works OK, not much different to the RTC300, although it doesn't have Starvis 2 and DOL-HDR so has more motion blur, and he eventually opted for less magnification.

So I think it was Kamkar that started the telephoto dashcam idea, I think it was Tony's thread that really influenced Viofo to produce a telephoto, and it is the introduction of 2K secondary cameras for the telephoto lens and a third channel for the rear, plus Starvis 2 and DOL-HDR that has brought it to production. It wouldn't have happened before the 3ch A229 Pro/Plus arrived.

We also shouldn't forget Mtz, for his work behind the scenes, he has had a significant input to the RTC300.

So, no, the telephoto camera was not originally my idea, and I am not "against telephoto cameras", at least not until Sony implement my request for a higher resolution Starvis 3 21:9 aspect ratio image sensor that will make telephoto lenses more or less obsolete again, which I suspect is going to take a while!

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

I'm quite interested in this but I don't want to lose my rear camera so I can use this for the front. Do you think it's a good idea to use this as a rear camera instead?

 

[Nigel]

I'm quite interested in this but I don't want to lose my rear camera so I can use this for the front. Do you think it's a good idea to use this as a rear camera instead?

I don't think you want to replace the rear camera with this, the field of view is too narrow to use on its own, you need both.
Normally, when you want to view a recording of something distant, it will be at the front.

So this takes the rear camera socket, and you either use the interior camera as the rear camera, or use an independent rear camera such as the Viofo VS1 or A119 Mini 2.

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

I don't think you want to replace the rear camera with this, the field of view is too narrow to use on its own, you need both.
Normally, when you want to view a recording of something distant, it will be at the front.

So this takes the rear camera socket, and you either use the interior camera as the rear camera, or use an independent rear camera such as the Viofo VS1 or A119 Mini 2.

Thank you.

I just saw a video in YT today about the RTC300 and you're right. It's footage is sooo zoomed in that it won't be able to capture anything else.

 

[kamkar]

ooo zoomed in that it won't be able to capture anything else.

Yes you can not run such a camera alone, it need to be paired with a regular wide angle camera

 

[Dashmellow]

Hmm, I was not the first to implement a telephoto dashcam, doesn't appear that Dashmellow was either, @kamkar fitted an 8mm telephoto lens to a dashcam back in January 2015, that is 9 and a half years ago, much longer than Dashmellow's 6 years ago!

Here is Kamkar's thread, unfortunately missing it's images after all this time:

Long range plate reading, a little lens experiment.

As a experiment i put a 8 mm megapixel lens on the 0806 to see how far off licence plates are readable. I have no exact specs on the lens other then what is above, got the lens off a 1080p IP camera so i assume its a 3Mpix lens. Here is first some pics so you can see how narrow the FOV is...

dashcamtalk.com

Back in the time of Kamkar's thread, there were no 4K dashcams, and telephoto lenses made a lot of sense. Once 4K+1K dashcams became available, at about the time of Dashmellow's thread, fitting a telephoto lens to the second camera of a 4K+1K dashcam did not produce great benefits. If you used a lens with enough magnification to beat the 4K front lens then the field of view was too small. It was not until we got 4K+2K dashcams that a telephoto lens for the second sensor really made sense again, and now with 3 channels so that you can have front + rear + telephoto, it makes a lot of sense, and with good DOL-HDR as well, the RTC300 telephoto is working really well, until the 8K+2K dashcam arrives, at which point the 2K telephoto will not show much advantage over the 8K front again!

TonyM was using a 2K Mobius with telephoto lens for his thread, paired with a separate 4K front camera, so his telephoto works OK, not much different to the RTC300, although it doesn't have Starvis 2 and DOL-HDR so has more motion blur, and he eventually opted for less magnification.

So I think it was Kamkar that started the telephoto dashcam idea, I think it was Tony's thread that really influenced Viofo to produce a telephoto, and it is the introduction of 2K secondary cameras for the telephoto lens and a third channel for the rear, plus Starvis 2 and DOL-HDR that has brought it to production. It wouldn't have happened before the 3ch A229 Pro/Plus arrived.

We also shouldn't forget Mtz, for his work behind the scenes, he has had a significant input to the RTC300.

So, no, the telephoto camera was not originally my idea, and I am not "against telephoto cameras", at least not until Sony implement my request for a higher resolution Starvis 3 21:9 aspect ratio image sensor that will make telephoto lenses more or less obsolete again, which I suspect is going to take a while!

Yes, @kamkar like a few of us here on the forum has been experimenting with dash cams since before commercial dash cams became available, originally with cctv cameras ans some of us with camcorders. I do recall his posts about that. The implementation wasn't so great as I recall and for some reason he deleted all the videos but he was early into the idea and deserves the credit for it. I came along in 2017 using a varifocal lens which I refined and spent a lot of time documenting and I promoted and advocated for the concept to be commercialized in a dual chanel camera now that two channel cameras had become available.

You did indeed claimon numerous occasions that you don't need or want a telephoto if you have a 4K camera. I can't find all your dismissive remarks about telephotos, but here are some of them which are technically incorrect on every mark and miss the whole point of telephoto lenses and their many advantages including better exposures and ability to eliminate motion blur at a distance.

A 4k camera with with normal FoV could capture all those plates too.

No.

If we are comparing a 4K "normal" sensor/lens with an FHD x2 telephoto sensor/lens, then you should be able to use the digital zoom function of your video player to zoom in to the 4K video and get exactly the same field of view with exactly the same detail.

No.

If you are sitting still at the lights in bright lighting, as in Dashmellow's images, then motion blur isn't much of an issue. If you are driving on bendy UK winter roads, with trees alongside the road and roundabouts instead of lights, so instead of stopping you sweep your telephoto around an arc, with it pointing at the wrong lane, then motion blur is definitely an issue. For my driving, I find that motion blur is most often the limiting factor, for me it is the most important thing to improve. I rarely want more magnification than I can get by zooming into a A129 Pro 4K video.

Again, you show that you have no personal experience here, just speculation presented as facts.

We also shouldn't forget Mtz, for his work behind the scenes, he has had a significant input to the RTC300.

TonyM was using a 2K Mobius with telephoto lens for his thread, paired with a separate 4K front camera, so his telephoto works OK, not much different to the RTC300, although it doesn't have Starvis 2 and DOL-HDR so has more motion blur, and he eventually opted for less magnification.

This whole notion of sensor resolution with telephoto lenses within the context of this conversation is an irrelevant red herring and muddies the waters (something you are well known for in your arguments). If you are discussing the history of telephoto lenses in dash cams you can't dismiss the work with lower resolution sensors that came before 2K sensors because they didn't exist when early experimenters were first installing these lenses in cameras. As the technology advanced, all of us transitioned along with it, first with 2K and now moving into 4K.

A perfect example of that is Mtz, who merely made an almost exact copy of TonyM's camera mod but with a 4K sensor. He claimed never to have seen @TonyM's extenstive thread about this on the form which I don't find credible at all since he is a long time regular member here on DCT and Tony's thread was very popular and hard to miss during that time. In eny event Mtz had the audiacity to claim "I am the only one!" as he was the one who invented the concept after he copied others ideas now that the Starvis 2 sensor is available and dismissed all the work everyone else has done with telephoto lenses. her for years as "the old times" as if the pioneering develpments in any endeavor are irrelevent when someone inroduced a new enhancement.

TonyM and I spent much time engaged in private conversation trading ideas and design concepts about a dual channel wide/tele camera. At one point Tony sent me photos of an early prototype conversion but he never posted about it to the forum because it wasn't ready or fully developed as far as he was concerned. I too did some experimentation that I never published. I recall being very busy with work at the time and I thought TonyM would be the first the go public with a workable design and he eventually did. Meanwhile, early on I tried to convince jokiin to commercialize a wide/tele two channel camera but he declined. At one point he felt that it wouldn't sell enough units to be a good investment.

I do agree that Tony's mod was very influencial in helping bring the conceot to market. He not only demonstrated a workable dual dual channel wide/tele camera concept like I proposed six years ago, he brought it to a more mainstream audience and this showed how much interest the would be. The original telephoto work was done with Mobius cameras by a small group of us and these are enthusuiast cameras and not your typical dash cam buyer's cup of tea and those discussions are in part of the forum mainstream vistors and buyers may not even visit.

@TonyM picked up on this concept the last time we talked about this idea. He may well be the first to demonstrate this as a DIY project. I've thought for awhile now about converting my mini-0906 pre-production sample for this purpose but I just don't have the time this time of year. Hope to get to it eventually and see if I can make it work but I usually engage in projects like this during the deepest parts of winter.

So when do you think you can have a Street Guardian Duo wide/tele ready for market? You've already got the essential components! I'd buy one.

Would be a while before we'd have a chance to do that, too many other projects on the go already is keeping us busy

Nigel, it is funny listening to you lecture about telephoto lenses so often even though you appear to never have had any hands on expereince with them. You always present yourself as the ultimate authority on every subject but among many similar remarks I still recall how at one time you went so far as to claim that super-capacitors were no better than batteries in dash cams, probably worse and that they were dangerous.

 

[Dashmellow]

A laughing emoji, @Nigel. That's the best you got?

 

[mentadent]

He did underline

 

[TonyM]

Yes you can not run such a camera alone, it need to be paired with a regular wide angle camera

My only rear camera is a telephoto, but that's a personal choice

(it's a 6mm lens)

 

[joe384]

Gosh, I remember all the discussion back then and all the questions you asked and you even started your own threads about it, so now more than three and a half years later I'm quite amazed to hear that you never completed the project. I thought you were enjoying your modded camera this whole time. Well, you still have the lens you purchased so you could still make it happen. Since that time the 2K M1s was introduced and that lens would work on that camera with not too much effort.

Very busy, lots of incomplete projects.

Dashcams have moved up the prority list recently though as the car is currently getting more use, probably going to do some research and decide if I want to upgrade my main front to 4K as well.

Mobius 1S looks interesting, I will probably grab one and give that a test eventually

I don't think you want to replace the rear camera with this, the field of view is too narrow to use on its own, you need both.
Normally, when you want to view a recording of something distant, it will be at the front.

So this takes the rear camera socket, and you either use the interior camera as the rear camera, or use an independent rear camera such as the Viofo VS1 or A119 Mini 2.

I have been wondering how well the interior camera would work as a rear camera (after turning off IR)

I believe it is IMX307 which is apparently a "cut down version" (just what I found online, not my words) of the IMX291 used in the A139/A139 Pro.

I haven't seen any comparisons using the IMX307 as a rear but I suspect you would really would want a Starvis2 sensor at the rear. Most of the youtube videos seem to concentrate on comparing front dashcams not rear unfortuately.

 

[TonyM]

So this takes the rear camera socket, and you either use the interior camera as the rear camera, or use an independent rear camera such as the Viofo VS1 or A119 Mini 2.

So, we would need to use this 6m interior camera cable to use the interior camera at the rear?

https://viofo.com/accessories/338-1...cable_length-6m/189-cable_type-interior_cable

 

[PykeOPATHIC]

My only rear camera is a telephoto, but that's a personal choice

(it's a 6mm lens)

Would you be able to share some footages? I wanna see how zoomed in the video is. I hope you can. Thanks.