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Weather Related Organizations => WeatherUnderground => Topic started by: dids04 on August 08, 2019, 07:29:36 AM
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Hello Everyone.
I'm looking at adding a webcam to my weather station and looking for recommendations. (Had a cheap china one that was difficult to setup and lasted only 2 months.)
Ability to post on WU, Ecowitt & Weathercloud and the like, send stills or video (would like to chose between both) via ftp etc.
Also, a bonus if this can be sourced in Australia.
Thanks in advance.
Steve
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I have been looking too, so far the Reolink RLC-511 was a waste of money, $94.00. So if anyone has some suggestions, I also am looking for a reliable camera for FTP upload.
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Check both Dahua and Hikvision. Both make low light capable cameras, StarVis or Star Light for Dahua and Dark Fighter for Hikvision. Don't go chasing megapixels, 2MP is the "sweet spot" for low light performance. In either case, be sure to buy "International" versions. Most of the stuff on FleaBay and Amazon is hacked firmware, Chinese to English by a third party, and the firmware can't be upgraded easily. Read that as you risk "bricking" a hacked firmware model when updating firmware. Stick to turret, or eyeball, style cameras. Bullet cameras are spider magnets if you use the built-in infrared for night vision. A Dahua or Hikvision can be bought for under $150, USD, and both perform quite well. A little more and you can get a varifocal, but keep in mind it's a varifocal and not a zoom. In other words you set the focal length at installation and leave it alone. Either are capable of FTP or streaming without much of a problem. For a weather only camera I'd suggest a 6mm lens rather than the usual 2.8-3.4mm if you decide on a fixed lens.
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I'm a big fan of Hikvision. I prefer bullet type but some people prefer their dome type. Each has pros and cons. The biggest being that bullet has glass lens and dome is plastic and can turn color over time. But dome is not as susceptible to spider webs. I don't mind going around my cameras with a swiffer and cleaning the webs every few weeks.
BUT... don't just buy Hikvision from anywhere. You should only buy from authorized reseller or your warranty will not work from Hikvision USA. You might have a warranty but it will be a card that the seller puts in to contact them for support and warranty.....like who are they and are they going to be around in a year??? So don't buy Hikvision on Amazon nor on eBay. This may seem like a difficult thing to then not get screwed on but it isn't If you go to Hikvision's website you can see a list of authorized distributors. My favorite from the list of authorized distributors is B&H Photo www.bnh.com. They have good prices and they are wonderful to deal with.
Here is where this matters. When you contact Hikvision USA they are not going to help you unless you provide serial number. If the number doesn't check out then they tell you what you have is grey market and not supported. No technical support, no warranty. Don't even try to flash firmware from Hikvision USA website onto a grey market device...big risk, it has not turned out well for many.
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I should have clarified, further. A turret/eyeball camera is not a dome camera. The lens is not covered by a plastic dome and is, indeed, glass. A dome camera is covered with a plastic dome which works fine for indoor use or in areas outdoors where it is not exposed to sunlight. The plastic of a dome tends to cloud over, with time, from the UV and IR of the sun. The plastic dome can also reflect IR light from its' own IR light sources which ruins the night time vision. Since a turret/eyeball has no dome that is not a problem with turrets.
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Awsum140,
Ah okay. I always thought the choices were primarily only bullet, dome, and PTZ. I now see that there are fixed "turret" that are not PTZ. I just thought that because they looked like that, that they were all PTZ. They do look interesting. They do look more like a camera though. One interesting thing about bullet type is that people think that they are spot lights often and not cameras. So it depends on what you are going for if used for security. Some people believe in warning with prominent cameras other want to be more inconspicuous.
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I got lucky and found an excellent supplier for Dahua although I'm very tempted to try a Hikvision. Capabilities are very similar between the two but having a quality supplier of Dahua, with very competitive pricing, makes it a little tuff to jump to Hikvision. I've switched to turrets more for their resistance to spider problems, my system is primarily for surveillance and I live in a rural area so bugs are problematic. I do have some bullets, in fact my weather camera is a bullet, but I don't use the onboard IR in them. Instead I use external IR sources and keep the bugs away from the lenses.
PTZ stuff, assuming a decent low light capability, is kind of pricey for a weather camera. I have seen a video of a train camera, I think it was a 75 or 120mm zoom with auto tracking, that could capture a train at a mile away. A camera like that is well into the thousands, way to rich for my pocket book. Even a 25mm PTZ is pushing the upper hundreds, price wise.
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Don't forget to look at camera ambient temperature rating if you live in cold country. Many are rated at just -4F (-20C) which would be a real problem for mountains, northern plains, upper midwest and inland areas of NE.
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My favorite Dahua reseller right now is Amcrest. I have experience with both Dahua (several reseller brands) and Hikvision. In my experience I see better technical support from Hikvision and their firmware is released more frequently to patch bugs. There is much less or almost no Chinglish with Hikvision compared to Dahua resellers. Both are almost copies of each other...that is amazing. I have experience with many systems as I manage them for my clients. I wouldn't say my preference to Hikvision is enough to say I wouldn't recommend Dahua (Amcrest)...especially because of a the price difference.
Most interesting to me is what is going to take the place of both Dahua and Hikvision given the government ban for government agencies that takes effect in less than a week? The ban is because they use Huawei chips. Which is the reason you don't see Huawei cell phones in the US anymore and cellular companies have been banned from using Huawei cellular infrastructure equipment.
For personal use I really am not concerned. But I do wonder how these companies will be affected by the ban and loss of revenue and if a new company becomes the new favorite because of new government use. I just haven't seen anything with the features and capabilities of Dahua and Hikvision yet.
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I was always a Hikvision fan with POE bullet cameras where (2) somehow have survived the harsh elements going on 3+ years now. Recently purchased 3 wireless Amcrest units after a move where I didn't want to punch holes into the house.
They seem to work okay. 1 is a 4mp bullet I use for weather cam and 2-3mp ptz units for security (indoor garage and backdoor).
I'm not having any bandwidth issues with 3 wireless cameras plus stream everything (no cable TV or Sat) including youtube TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime. Frame rates are smooth enough.
I was afraid cameras would run into a bandwidth issue but using the wifi 5 GHz and router Netgear R7000 everything is fine so far. I'm going to add 1 more Amcrest wireless for website snow stake cam this winter.
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One other comment regarding cameras. Make sure the sensor size is 1/2.7 or larger IE 1/2.8 or even bigger. A 1/3 sensor will not perform well at night. All of the cameras I have purchased, both Dahua and some junk stuff from before I knew better, have performed for at least three years with no real problems. That's a total of ten cameras at the moment. I thought the Reolink 4MP I bought early on was great, then I bought a 2MP Dahua StarVis and threw the Reolink in the trash.
The other thing that drive me nuts, generally, about video cameras is that the general public believes everything they see in a movie, like "Enemy of the State" for example. When using digital zoom there is no way to increase the pixel count to achieve what they show being done. There is some cutting edge stuff available that can "interpolate" more pixels to improve digital zoom resolution, but it is expensive and in terms of being valuable for surveillance purposes it just isn't. Any "enhancement" of a video, or photo renders them useless as evidence. I know that doesn't mean much for a weather cam, but the expense just isn't worth it.
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I see a lot of good replies, do you all have some links to these preferred cameras or model numbers I can search. Not needed for surveillance, I have that covered, just need for weather.
Thanks in advance!
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Here's a 2MP Starvis turret that works quite well -
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HDW2231R-ZS-Starlight-Eyeball-Network/dp/B07DRC93S8/ref=sr_1_1?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565447441&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-1
Here's a 2mp Starvis bullet that works well, too.
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HFW2231T-ZS-Network-2-7-13-5mm-Varifocal/dp/B07QDLYSQV/ref=sr_1_36?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565447596&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-36
Both are varifocal, not true "zoom" so you st the focal length at installation and leave it alone.
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Thanks, first one was in stock and on it way, appreciated. [tup]
Here's a 2MP Starvis turret that works quite well -
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HDW2231R-ZS-Starlight-Eyeball-Network/dp/B07DRC93S8/ref=sr_1_1?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565447441&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-1
Here's a 2mp Starvis bullet that works well, too.
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HFW2231T-ZS-Network-2-7-13-5mm-Varifocal/dp/B07QDLYSQV/ref=sr_1_36?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565447596&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-36
Both are varifocal, not true "zoom" so you st the focal length at installation and leave it alone.
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Great thread guys.
Those of us in the "Webcams for Dummies " category really appreciate it.
Any suggestions for a decent camera with an optical zoom that won't break the bank.
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Optical zoom is more expensive, but not all that bad. When you get to full pan-tilt-zoom the price goes up substantially though.
Turret style -
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HDW5231R-ZE-Starlight-Eyeball-Network/dp/B07B7K1P28/ref=sr_1_3?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565453804&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-3
Bullet style -
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-HFW5231E-Z5E-Starlight-Network-English/dp/B07B9PG251/ref=sr_1_14?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565447533&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-14
Keep in mind that these are ALL, even the ones I linked to previously, PoE cameras and will require a PoE injector or a PoE network switch to power them.
Here's a PTZ, just in case -
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-SD49225T-HN-Starlight-Network-English/dp/B07BDGX89J/ref=sr_1_27?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1565453978&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-27
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Didn't you guys say to NOT buy from Amazon and Ebay?
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Yes I did mention that most of the stuff on FleaBay and Amzon is hacked. I guess I should have added the caveat that it's not all. In this case I have linked to a known, reliable, supplier of International versions of Dahua cameras. I have bought multiple cameras from them and all have been exactly as advertised and I have upgraded firmware on them with no problems at all.
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One other comment regarding cameras. Make sure the sensor size is 1/2.7 or larger IE 1/2.8 or even bigger. A 1/3 sensor will not perform well at night.
Maybe that was a typo....but 1/2.8 is not larger than 1/2.7. Maybe you meant to say "make sure the sensor size is 1/2.7 or larger IE 1/1.8 or even bigger." [IE 2/3"]. Totally agree that a 1/3 sensor is inadequate but only if not sufficient IR.
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Thinking ahead of my fingers and not proof reading.
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My Favorite Hikvision at the moment: DS-2CD2035FWD-I-4MM
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1346621-REG/hikvision_ds_2cd2035fwd_i_4mm_3mp_outdoor_day_night_bullet.html/specs
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Nice camera, galfert. How's in do in low/no light situations?
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Nice camera, galfert. How's in do in low/no light situations?
It does incredibly well in no light situations because of built in good IR. The impressive thing though is that it stays in color all the way down to 0.008 lux...and below that switches to B/W with IR. It as a respectable 1/2.8 sensor. It is 3MP 2048 x 1536 so not to crazy bandwidth use...but you can set it to just 1920 x 1080 if you prefer. It has 3 separate streams so you can pick to record on highest and view remotely on lower sub stream. Best of all it has a good price.
The only thing I wish just about any IP camera would do better is to switch from low light situation to sudden bright light quicker or rather instantaneously. I've not found a camera at a decent price that does this though. This is important for security where a car driving down the road might temporarily blind the camera. For weather situation I would like a camera to capture that lighting flash better instead of just white out the screen. I'm probably asking for too much as that would probably require military level technology.
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The 4231 I use for a weather cam will hold color all night if I "force" it. It's a fine picture for a still, but because of the gain required motion tends to get blurry. I use a utility that switches all of my Dahua cameras at once to night or day mode as appropriate. I do see lightning as flashes of light, IE much brighter picture, but it doesn't blind them. Having most of them looking, more or less, downward may be a factor as well.
Getting really fast response for automatic dynamic range is expensive. Keeping it locked in to IR is probably the best solution. I haven't seen any camera, other than high end stuff, do a lot better than the "prosumer" stuff we use.
Switching from 3mp to 2mp won't help night vision. The size of each element on the lens is the key and what, how much light, comes through the lens. From what I can gather about reducing resolution, it is an electronic compression of the original size image. I could be wrong on that, but that's what I have gathered from watching a lot of video comparisons ad nauseum.
I recently saw a guy complaining that his video camera was "junk" because he could get a much better picture with his DSLR. All he needs is a video camera with a $100, or more, lens and a 1" or bigger sensor, oh yeah and IPC65 or better waterproofing and a really large drive array to store all that imagery.
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I have a streaming Hikie bullet here.
http://www.cospringsweather.com/Hikvision1.php
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What's your frame rate, cospringswx? I use 10fps for security cams and that looks a little slower, maybe eight?
The Dahua I use is at KNJSOUTH86.
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Hi, I have it set to the highest FPS. Its streaming through WC7. Its smooth here.
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Hmm, it displays here like 8fps. It may be network latency on my end, VPN.
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Dam nice looking storm on the horizon Ryan :thumbsup:
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Dam nice looking storm on the horizon Ryan :thumbsup:
I just saw that
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For weather situation I would like a camera to capture that lighting flash better instead of just white out the screen. I'm probably asking for too much as that would probably require military level technology.
I have a cheap ($49) Foscam 720p camera pointed out my kitchen window in Florida. It is certainly not a "security cam" and is almost blind at night since it has no IR or night vision capability. However...as a weather cam it has really surprised me. First photo is Hurricane Irma's outer bands and the other two are lightning over the Gulf of Mexico. You might want to consider having a second cam like this one which does the "beauty shots" while the main does the night vision work.
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IR wouldn't help much with the camera being behind a window. The glass would reflect the IR and blind the camera.
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It's also 140 feet up so all any IR would shine on is the occasional bird flying by. 8-)
My point is (was?) for weather cam duty it might be more efficient to have one low-sensitivity camera to catch things like lightning instead of trying to do it all with one that is blinded by lightning at night.
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It works for you, and that's what's important. I was just pointing out that windows reflect IR. Mine are not blinded by lightning at all. It just produces a well lit black and white image. Results can vary based on exact camera settings, exposure time and dynamic range for example.
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I have a cheap ($49) Foscam 720p camera pointed out my kitchen window in Florida. It is certainly not a "security cam" and is almost blind at night since it has no IR or night vision capability. However...as a weather cam it has really surprised me. First photo is Hurricane Irma's outer bands and the other two are lightning over the Gulf of Mexico. You might want to consider having a second cam like this one which does the "beauty shots" while the main does the night vision work.
Hi there, I am from Germany and I am looking for a new weather camera that is able of - PoE so LAN connected and able to upload easily via FTP to wunderground.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/IHESSENZ2
Right now the cam is attached to the balcony railing pointing towards the horizon. Therefore I need s cam that could be attached that way.
Since the assortment is huge I would really like to see what kind of cameras you use esspecially with the correct type description.
Thanks alot for your support!
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I'm a Dahua fan and would suggest looking at the IPC-HFW4231E. It's a 2mp, Starlight, 3.6mm fixed lens, mini bullet with PoE. I have an earlier, similar, model which serves as my weathercam, among other duties, and I can "force" a color picture at night because there is a street light about 200 feet behind it. I don't run color at night, though, because I also use it for security purposes and the color picture is a little noisy for that. Mounting it to a balcony railing shouldn't take much more than a couple of stainless steel hose clamps.
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Of the good cameras people recommended on this post, how many can I grab the image from my PC with wget, curl or other command line tool?
I saw many online that upload to the cloud only. No such thing as the cloud, it's someone else's computer, I want to store the captures on my computer. I'll upload to WU myself in the same script.
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I don't know if you can use a script to "grab" a file off of a Dahua for sure, but it would probably need an SD card to store the image file and serve as a target for the "grab" function. I imagine (guess) a script could be written to grab a frame of the RTSP stream off the camera as well. The easiest way would be to use the FTP function and upload to what ever site you want to, or just write the file, directly, to the local machine for later upload by a script.
The Dahua model I mentioned is not a "cloud" camera and will only store locally or FTP and are PoE. If you do buy a Dahua, or any other "name" brand quality camera be sure to by an International version and not one that has had Chinese firmware hacked to English.
Another one to look at is the IPC2231RZ-TS which is a turret. Again, a 2MP Starlight but with a variable focal length lens, ~12 mm max. Keep in mind it's a varifocal and not a zoom, there is a difference, mechanically and price wise. Both are under $150 from reputable sellers.
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Right now, I'm using my son's PS3 camera hooked up on a Raspberry Pi. I take an image every minute, store it on my webserver, then do a timelpase out of those images. Here's a sample: https://weather.patenteux.page/img/cam/2019-12-08/daily.mp4 It's not an illusion, the flow of the river reverses with the tide.
Right now, the camera is indoors in front of a window. I want to continue to be able to do capture every minute (or less) and do timelapse.
Any camera that does FTP though, I could FTP to my own server at a frequency of my choice, so no need to grab the image from the camera. More research necessary.
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Right now, I'm using my son's PS3 camera hooked up on a Raspberry Pi. I take an image every minute, store it on my webserver, then do a timelpase out of those images. Here's a sample: https://weather.patenteux.page/img/cam/2019-12-08/daily.mp4 It's not an illusion, the flow of the river reverses with the tide.
Right now, the camera is indoors in front of a window. I want to continue to be able to do capture every minute (or less) and do timelapse.
Any camera that does FTP though, I could FTP to my own server at a frequency of my choice, so no need to grab the image from the camera. More research necessary.
Page will not load for me, I was looking forward to seeing it.
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Dahua cameras and other IP camera brands pretty much all have URL APIs. It depends on the model as the to exact one (format) to use. You can pull images.
You can use this reference to try them out.
https://www.ispyconnect.com/man.aspx?n=Dahua
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Page will not load for me, I was looking forward to seeing it.
My DDNS update was down, should be good now.
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Dahua cameras and other IP camera brands pretty much all have URL APIs. It depends on the model as the to exact one (format) to use. You can pull images.
You can use this reference to try them out.
https://www.ispyconnect.com/man.aspx?n=Dahua
I can adapt to format, as long as I can script it, I'm happy. I'll research those cameras further. Thanks.
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Here is better documentation that will probably work with most recent Dahua cameras. This documentation is from Amcrest. But once you realize that Amcrest is just rebadged Dahua you realize it's all the same stuff.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/amcrest-files/AMCREST_CGI_SDK_API.pdf
Dahua is one of the largest manufacturers of cameras. There are a lot of brands out there of company names you know that are really using Dahua as a supplier.
https://ipvm.com/reports/dahua-oem
Of course this may all start to change now with the government ban on Dahua and Hikvision (the second largest manufacturer also from China, also banned and was my favorite).
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That ban covers use by the government, not consumers. Whether or not it will be extended to consumer use is a good question for the, alleged, experts we tend to elect. As with any network aware device just be sure not to port forward, block it from accessing the internet in your router and give it bogus DNS addresses in its' configuration. Safest way is to have it on a VLAN that has no internet access. Of course, change the admin login and password right out of the box.
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DON'T use this Amcrest model: Amcrest 4MP UltraHD POE Security Camera, Outdoor IP Camera Eyeball Dome - IP67 Weatherproof, 98ft Night Vision, 118° FO V, Remote Live Viewing, 4-Megapixel (2688 TVL), IP4M-1055E (White)
In fact, think about whether or not you want to go through what amounts to a customer service nightmare with Amcrest if you have a warranty issue. You have to open the camera, clean it, put it back up, and see if it leaks again. If it does, they require you to perform a hard reset using a push-button inside the camera, only then will they think about sending you an RMA number.
The picture was great until this problem. I was flabbergasted when I heard all the hoops I had to jump through to get a new unit. THERE'S WATER IN IT!!! SMDH
Also, it's not an IP67 camera if this happens.
http://www.dsmt.com/resources/ip-rating-chart/
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I've seen that water condensation problem on many Dahua camearas (including several OEM brands). In my experience this is common when you first get them and install them. It may take a few days and you might get this problem. I think something happens in shipment or at the factory where the air is humid. Upon mounting as the temperature changes and probably the pressure equalizes for the new environment the condensation issue shows up. But the good news is that there is a silica pack inside of the camera. If you let it be after a few days it clears up. I've seen this issue a lot. At one location I had a couple cameras that would not clear up. I opened them up and I replaced the silica pack for a fresh one. I don't know if that did it or perhaps opening it up and letting new dryer air in helped. If you don't have extra silica packs you can bake them and rejuvenate them.
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The only cameras I've had that have had water ingress were a couple of SV3Cs. I think the model number was POS (piece of ....). The Dahuas have remained pristine since installation and I even had a non weather rated Hikivision sitting in an open shed for about a year, and operating, with no water or condensation problems. In fact that camera is still working inside the house as an overview camera for the kitchen and dining room.
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Nice video shot... Could you share what software you use to display the video?
Thanks
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Could anyone of you guys using a Dahua camera and uploading via FTP to Weather Underground pls let me know you on-camera config? I have followed the WU instructions but my camera has not come online with them.
Cheers,
G.
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I use Blue Iris when I bother to upload to WU, which I don't any more. My cameras are on a separate subnet and totally blocked from the internet since cameras are so attractive to hackers. There are several FTP programs available that will accomplish upload for you, free programs. I think the problem you are having is that WU requires a filename of "image.jpg" and Dahua is naming the file something else, which WU won't recognize.
What you'd need to do is save the image file locally, rename it to "image.jpg" then upload it to WU.
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Thanks for the quick reply.
Does Blue Iris have a feature that can be used for this? I use BI too.
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Ye, BI does. In the admin console click on the main menu screen, three bar icon on the upper left. There's a tab for "FTP" where you can set up the server address and test to make sure you're connecting. In the config of the camera there is also an "FTP" or "upload" tab under "record", I think, and you can set the image size and timing for how often the image uploads.
It's been a while since I fooled with that, but I think I've still got the configs. If you get stuck, PM me. I usually check in here in the early morning, East Coast time.