Anyone having this issue with DS2 Camera?

[dw886]

Part of this I know is due to the angle - but I imagine all "doorbell cameras" have to fight this.  I was hoping that after the snow was gone, this would get better (not all white in the background), but it hasn't gotten better with the weather.

Here's the problem: The DS2 video has the subject so under-exposed due to the bright background that you can only get an outline.  Not a huge deal, because I have 2 other cameras that cover this area and have a much better angle, but it doesn't make for a great Intercom Anywhere experience.  Is there some setting that you can tweak to over-expose the background and make the subject viewable?

There's not many options to manipulate the camera in Composer.  Is there a setting in the DS2 configuration web page that helps?  I see contrast - not sure if that will help, or if all of this is going to be fruitless anyway, and I should just use one of the other cameras for DS2 default video stream...thoughts?

 

[lippavisual]

Have any lighting under there??  That will help immensely for the picture.  Other than that, messing with the video settings to get a good picture for these conditions will result in the picture looking terrible again under different circumstances.

[dw886]

Yes, there's 4 lights under there, but they do very little for fixing the exposure problem when it's broad daylight.  They work well at night, and it's programmed so that if you ring the doorbell after sunset they come on.

[wnpublic]

Yes, sorry to say the DS2 camera is crap with bright light behind the subject.  I hate it.

It sounds like you've figured out a way to use a different camera for Intercom anywhere?  I can't seem to figure out how to do it.  I can get a different camera to display on the touchscreens in the house, but not in the actual Intercom Anywhere app.  Care to share how you did it?  thx

[lippavisual]

34 minutes ago, wnpublic said:

It sounds like you've figured out a way to use a different camera for Intercom anywhere?  I can't seem to figure out how to do it.  I can get a different camera to display on the touchscreens in the house, but not in the actual Intercom Anywhere app.  Care to share how you did it?  thx

You can't use a different camera feed for IA, at least not yet, if ever.  Only works for T3's/Navigator.

[lippavisual]

38 minutes ago, dw886 said:

Yes, there's 4 lights under there, but they do very little for fixing the exposure problem when it's broad daylight.  They work well at night, and it's programmed so that if you ring the doorbell after sunset they come on.

If the lights don't help, then you can log into thew ip of the DS2 and change video settings.

[dw886]

I ended up doing some experimenting.  I landed on a brightness level of 10, which blows up the background with overexposure.  If highlight compensation is on, it fixes the background but darkens the foreground (and the person that I'd like to see) too much. 

So in yesterday's lighting which was bright, the best setting is brightness of 10, and use Outdoor mode (not the Highlight Compensation one).  This makes for a visible subject, and an overly exposed background, which I'm fine with since I have multiple other cameras that capture these angles.

 

I'll have to test it again on a cloudy day and at night to see how it looks.

[dw886]

So I tested this again on a cloudy day, and the subject was too dark again.  I went into the DS2 settings, and saw it was set back to "Outdoor (Highlight Compensation)".  I scratched my head, because I had manually changed it to "Outdoor" a few days ago.  Well, it looked like the setting from Composer was overwriting what I was setting in the DS2 UI, so throwing this out there to warn others that are manually tweaking the settings.  If you change them in the DS2 web interface, you'll also have to sync up Composer, or the settings may get overwritten...