Low light performance of Stardot Cameras

[Strgazr27]

Part of putting my station back together will hopefully include a Stardot MP camera. I am more than impressed with it's daylight performance but I have seen little to no images of it's low light performance. I was spoiled by the LL performance of the Toshiba I had so I am hoping to find something that performs as well.

I have spent a fair bit of time searching for other cameras it's just hard to find fault with the Stardots daylight image quality. If you know of something that compares for the same price $1100 or less I'd be interested to know about it.

THANKS!!

[d_l]

The instructions for daytime outdoor use of a Stardot camera say to close the iris down to f16 or lower.  That is going to seriously affect their low light performance.

Your Toshiba camera didn't have an iris to be closed, did it?

[Feelgood Ranch]

The 3mp StarDot camera has a CMOS sensor chip and does not require auto iris or stopping down lens.  Software supplied with lens has provision for low light performance, backlight, etc.  Camera provides adequate image until almost dark, i.e. can see car and street lights in image.  Hope this helps.

[Strgazr27]

The instructions for daytime outdoor use of a Stardot camera say to close the iris down to f16 or lower.  That is going to seriously affect their low light performance.

Your Toshiba camera didn't have an iris to be closed, did it?

Dave the Toshiba did not have an Iris. Those instructions are for the SD that use a manual iris. I am looking at the Auto Iris version, 4mm lens option w auto iris.

[Strgazr27]

The 3mp StarDot camera has a CMOS sensor chip and does not require auto iris or stopping down lens.  Software supplied with lens has provision for low light performance, backlight, etc.  Camera provides adequate image until almost dark, i.e. can see car and street lights in image.  Hope this helps.

Ken, thanks for that info. I doubt it will be as good as the Toshiba was but the daytime quality will hopefully make up for it 

Here is what the Toshiba was capable of with both normal night conditions and when one of my neighbors halogen floods came on.

[Strgazr27]

And this was a daylight shot from the Toshiba.... Wish I could find another WB11A... 

[kray1000]

If you're looking for a good Stardot camera with good low-light capabilities, make sure you get one that claims to have night viewing.  The original Stardot Netcam/Netcam MP is worthless at night with the standard lens.

If you're satisfied with daytime-only viewing, though, they're great... extremely reliable.  They do have issues finding the correct exposure in changing light conditions though, especially prior to sunset.

[Strgazr27]

Kevin I have been visiting your site for quite some time. I see you made the move to a Stardot. Looks good! Your using the 640X480 version? If your running an outdoor enclosure, which one did you go with?

Thanks!

[kray1000]

Kevin I have been visiting your site for quite some time. I see you made the move to a Stardot. Looks good! Your using the 640X480 version? If your running an outdoor enclosure, which one did you go with?

I've had my Stardot camera since early 1995.  The enclosure I got from Stardot as part of a package deal (in other words, I'm too embarrassed to say how much I paid for it), but much cheaper options are widely available.  I'm using the Netcam MP, which supports resolutions up to 1280x960.

[Strgazr27]

Kevin,

Check your PM's 

[d_l]

Bobby, you know that there are special bundle deal offers from Stardot right now that are being carried by their distributors: http://californiapc.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=217  There is only one more day left in the sale.  They don't have the lens that you wanted in their bundles though.

[Strgazr27]

Bobby, you know that there are special bundle deal offers from Stardot right now that are being carried by their distributors: http://californiapc.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=217  There is only one more day left in the sale.  They don't have the lens that you wanted in their bundles though.

Dave I know and it's KILLING me! Gonna be a few weeks till all the funds are available. I'm hoping they still offer them around the end of September... We'll see! Thanks though for the heads up 

[d_l]

Bobby, just curious, why do you want the 4-8 AI lens?  Actually it appears that the 1 MP bundle does contain that lens!  For some reason I thought you might be focused exclusively on the 3 MP camera.  

Stardot rates their XL cameras at  .05 ~ 2 lux (with f1.2 iris).  I'm not sure if that range is across the three models with one model being better than the other or is something else.  

A full moon has about 0.2 lux illuminance.  So any camera that can operate at less then 0.2 lux should do pretty well at night. I wasn't able to find the specs on the WB11A, but the WB15A operates well under 0.1 lux at night. Edit: The WB11A operates at a fantastic 0.03 lux at night!!! So it is a little better at night than the best Stardot rating.

[Feelgood Ranch]

You might talk with Anthony WAnthony Watts @

 StarDot Technologies

www.stardot-tech.com

anthony@stardot.com

Toll-Free: (888) 782-7368
Direct: (714) 367-2386
Fax: (714) 228-9283

I found him helpful.
FWIW, I went initially with cheaper (lower MP SD cam) and wound up with 3 MP model.  Image quality is unsurpassed and with CMOS sensor have no problems damaging chip in bright light.  You won't be sorry go for better megapixel cam.  Look at my image:
http://www.feelgoodranchweather.com/images/live.jpg

Ken



 





 

 

 

atts with StarDot.  I fround him helpful.

[d_l]

Ken, what lens do you have on your camera?

[Feelgood Ranch]

I tried 3 lenses; two from SD and one from elsewhere.  In my experience, I found the zoom lens from SD mated to the 3MP cam to be best all around lens with most versatility.  You can zoom from the incorporated SD software using your computer.  I also equipped set up with a pan/tilt mount.  I have varied image sometimes daily or less often and once had a cow moose bedded down on property about 30 feet from cam and pointed cam at him and left it there till he moved....know it was not a weather cam image, but makes life interesting!!

Ken

[Feelgood Ranch]

I need to clarify my earlier comments...My pick of lenses from SD is the motorized zoom lens.  Sorry for the confusion.

Ken

[sierraimpressions]

I've had the xl 3mp for about a year and a half.  I'd say your toshiba was much much better in low light than the 3mp.  As was said above, the 3mp has the CMOS sensor so they say the sun shining directly into the lens won't cause any damage to the sensor; I asked them this myself as i have mine pointed due west and it gets direct light on it in the fall/winter/spring.  So far so good.

[direland]

I have a Stardot Netcam 3MP. It is worthless at night. I have to take it offline 10 minutes after sunset. It also has about 50 dead pixels that show up at sunset. They use very low grade CMOS chips with lots of dead pixels. The dynamic range is also terrible. White clouds are blown out over exposed if the foreground is correctly exposed. They even tell you in the directions not to include sky in your frame. Color balance is also an issue you have to use manual settings for landscape, no auto or you pink sky or puples etc.. It also has an inadequate frame buffer on the board so it freezes up especially in low light .
I keep it only because of the resolution. I used to use an old Sony camcorder that can ten times better images but of course was only 640x480. I am waiting for the day I can get a HD camcorder with live full resolution output. Heard of one? I was considering a Luminera but I can never get an answer from their tech people about performance.
webcam http://www.drdale.com/cam
Dale

[d_l]

I've looked at a lot of on line NetcamXL 3MP images including my own and yours is the first I have noticed with dead pixels.  What did StarDot say about them?

Many of the exposure problems can be fixed by careful tweaking of the configuration settings, but there is no getting around the dynamic range problems that occur when aiming towards the setting sun.  I think an auto iris would be helpful in this situation, but I don't have one.

[direland]

They say it is normal to have dead pixels and I have seen them on plenty of stardot 3mp sites inculding their own looking at their parking lot. I know how chips are graded. You can save a ton of money by using low graded chips. I've done plenty of tweaking too and used 3 or 4 different lenses. I am not talking about just sunsets, you can't have bright white cumulus clouds in the image or they are blown out white or the land is black you have to choose. I have the exposure sensitivity area finely tuned to get the "middle road" but the dynamic range is the problem.

[kray1000]

One trick I use on my web pages to minimize the appearance of the dead pixels at night is to use a larger resolution in the camera and resize it smaller on my site.

[direland]

you guys have some nice web pages!!!

[Bluthunder2k]

around the dynamic range problems that occur when aiming towards the setting sun.  I think an auto iris would be helpful in this situation, but I don't have one.

In my case, the non motorized zoom - but dc auto iris did the trick for my cam, or at least brought it closer to what I wanted.

http://www.aprsfl.net/cam

If you watch the 28hour animation you can see how well it does at night.

(It's only the 1.3MP XL - not the 3MP)

[direland]

Yes that looks much better than mine. Mine is a grainy mess at the maximum exposure length even with the auto gain turned off. Mine is also peppered with hot pixels. The 1.3 does have better low light performance than the 3mp because of larger pixel size. I will keep experimenting.
Thanks