- Nov 11, 2009
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My two LUMIX cameras have an anti shake mode. Good job as having an Essential Tremor in my right arm any shots would be fuzzy to say the least. Notwithstanding, I have to really try and support the camera too.
- Nov 11, 2009
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My question was specifically related to the dash cam in hot weather when it may be covered by a sunscreen which would significantly increase the temperature that the dash cam is subjected to.
Mine fell off twice when the adhesive pads failed. The second pad that failed I had left in place for 24 hours to allow the bond to cure before fitting the camera to the mount. So I then opted for a suction mount which has been in place for a year now.
My smartphone has good electronic image stabilisation for videos and it works very well. However, that's only part of the issue as there are other parameters that will affect image quality.
Videos are more about capturing fluid motion and as such there's probably a better chance of reading detail i.e number plate, when running the playback than there is in capturing a single frame.
Frame rate is important for fluid motion but if you want a single frame to capture detail then shutter speed is important. The typical rule of thumb for video capture is that the shutter speed is linked to the frame rate as follows - 30fps 1/30th sec; 60fps 1/120th sec - and so on.
At these shutter speeds individual frames may well appear blurred. If you increase the shutter speed then you need more light. Apertures on dashcams and smartphones are fixed so the only other option is to increase the sensitivity - ISO speed. Which may well introduce more noise.
Then of course there's the compression of the resulting image data to produce a manageable file size - important in dash cams which may need to run for a long while. This is not a lossless process and detail often gets lost or aritfacts become apparent.
Quality of the lens is yet another factor. There's no point in packing more pixels onto the sensor if the piece of glass or plastic in front doesn't have much resolving power.
Taking into account all of the above I think it would be fair to say that the cheaper the dashcam, the less likely it is you'll get a good quality image.
Videos are more about capturing fluid motion and as such there's probably a better chance of reading detail i.e number plate, when running the playback than there is in capturing a single frame.
Frame rate is important for fluid motion but if you want a single frame to capture detail then shutter speed is important. The typical rule of thumb for video capture is that the shutter speed is linked to the frame rate as follows - 30fps 1/30th sec; 60fps 1/120th sec - and so on.
At these shutter speeds individual frames may well appear blurred. If you increase the shutter speed then you need more light. Apertures on dashcams and smartphones are fixed so the only other option is to increase the sensitivity - ISO speed. Which may well introduce more noise.
Then of course there's the compression of the resulting image data to produce a manageable file size - important in dash cams which may need to run for a long while. This is not a lossless process and detail often gets lost or aritfacts become apparent.
Quality of the lens is yet another factor. There's no point in packing more pixels onto the sensor if the piece of glass or plastic in front doesn't have much resolving power.
Taking into account all of the above I think it would be fair to say that the cheaper the dashcam, the less likely it is you'll get a good quality image.
- Jul 18, 2017
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Plus the suction cup is not so fiddly to fix the dashcam back especially when you have no available spare pads.
My dashcam is secured using the supplied suction pad but falls off from time to time - usually my fault for forgetting to deploy the blind for the panoramic sunroof in sunny conditions.
- Nov 11, 2009
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My 3M bonded pads have held steadfastly for 9 years since the Golf's screen was replaced and the 9 years since we purchased the Disco.
On buying both these vehicles I decided I would side step my earlier issues with suction mounts, once and for all.
Both rear cameras are also using 3M's pads but they have only been there two to three years, again trouble free.
On buying both these vehicles I decided I would side step my earlier issues with suction mounts, once and for all.
Both rear cameras are also using 3M's pads but they have only been there two to three years, again trouble free.
My solution with our two vehicles is to use repurposed, secondhand 212 and 312WG units, not as designed but placed on the rear windows. 2 K, 1920 x 1080 30 fpm units.
These cost me circa £20, on respectively Gumtree & eBay. In both cases I replaced the inbuilt batteries as these were decidedly tired, I recall these cost me about £10 each. The SD cards I got another eBay deal on decent new Samsung 64 GB, a job lot costing me effectively under £1 each.
The set up works well but has the typical direct sunlight glare issues these low spec units are prone to exhibit. I have not tried any polarising filtering.
My thinking apart from minimising the spend was that any rear dashcam has to be rear mounted to get any meaningful wide enough field of view,
A warning label of "camera recording", helps them being as needed as the tailgating did that motivated their adoption!
Last edited:
- Jun 16, 2020
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I use a rear camera on my 522. It works really well. A 64gb card does enough recording on hi res. I cannot speak for the internal rear view as I thought the rear window option to be better.
Installing is not for the faint hearted. Getting through to the rear window and behind the head linning.
If I find the time I will post pictures.
John
I have a Nextbase GW522 with the optional front-mounted rear-view camera - I don't recommend this rear view option as the rear passengers block the view - even with no rear passengers, the rear headrests still block a lot of the view.
- Nov 16, 2015
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That was my thoughts, I was thinking more of the small round one.
I like JTQ's idea of a 2nd hand smaller Nextbase.
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