kenquad

Hi all: New to the forum, almost new to CCTV here, please bear with me I'm working on an exterior camera installation. The camera is an Arm C420 with an auto-iris Vari-Focal lens set at about 4mm, mounted in a weatherproof case on a metal wall and facing due west and slightly down (see attached picture of the camera setup). Even at good times, the picture is fuzzy and poor - nothing like my eastern-facing cameras of the same specs on the same building. But when, as now, the sun is high in the western sky, the situation deteriorates into what you see in the snapshot. I'm taking suggestions. What is wrong with this picture? I've focused and focused and focused, using test monitor, and *nothing*. Same problem with 2 other identical cameras on this side of the building, this fuzzy, dim picture that's very susceptible to glare. P.S. This camera shakes atrociously on windy days. Is there some kind of gadget to dampen that effect?

Good idea. Sounds easy!!!

I kept quite since so many said it looked like siamese... It doesn't look like siamese to me at all, composite maybe. It looks just like riser rated Cat5 to me, I thought that was the problem. Not really with the picture but riser Cat5 outside. Well, it's not twisted pair, that's for sure. What's riser Cat5?

No joy. Everything's properly terminated in the software. Un-terminating it will clobber the signal, but that doesn't prove much.

Well, I wasn't clear on that. I tried a test monitor at the DVR, using the same cable, and it was still better than the DVR's output. The cable's only about 30' long. I have the same problem with a run about 200' long. Duh, uh, what's termination?

Hi all: No joy. I tried wiring the cam directly into a 12v power supply. Absolutely no change, so we can rule out power transmission as the issue. I tried changing the angle. Again, no great change. Only thing I found out was what I dimly knew before: the signal coming from the camera is much better than the one I see on the DVR. Testing with a monitor out in the sun is tricky, so I tried bringing the monitor inside and got the real picture. I tried turning the DVR brightness setting down to -103, and that helped mitigate the wash-out effect a little bit, but the grainy and out-of-focus problem remained. I'm kind of stuck. The DVR (an Arm MPEG-4 16-channel model running embedded Linux) renders other channels, even the east-facing outdoor ones, OK. Yet it seems to be the culprit here. Again, I'm soliciting opinions. Thanks!

Wow, six helpful replies in one night! Yes, the panel flexes. I thought that might be it, but drilling more holes.... Thanks, I'll try that. But "rigid"? What does that mean? Yeah, the whole setup is split between three power supplies, and siamesed cable runs to everything. You know, I made a slight change in cable types and most all the troublesome cameras are on the new kind of cable. A good thought. Yes, I've checked the image with a 3' test cable and a small monitor. No joy. If there's a problem with the siamese it must be on the power transmission side. Is there a big risk of lightning damage to security cameras mounted less than 20' up on a 2-story building? What's building zap? Just a plain old siamesed coax run. Maybe that's my problem Thanks for the input, one and all. I test out these ideas and re-post with results.