Camera image whited out during the day, fine at night?

[bricor 0]

What would cause a camera image to look fine at night but to appear white during the day?

Cameras have been in operation for a couple years and worked fine. (Nuvico bullet, true day/night)

[Soundy 1]

If it's got an auto-iris lens, the iris may be stuck wide-open.

[bricor 0]

I was thinking auto iris or something like that.

Any idea how to "un-stick" it. Cycling power didn't work.

[rory 0]

If its been working and nobody opened it up and bent the piece the AI and IR Cut filter sits in (causing it to stick in one position), the mechanism is probably shot, need a new TDN AI Lens most likely - unless its not receiving a signal from the camera board. If the camera has a setting for Electronic Iris (EI or AES) then try that instead.

[Soundy 1]

If the iris itself is stuck, you'd need to replace the lens.

 

It's possible the iris drive on the camera has failed, as rory suggests, although in my experience they just stop supplying signal altogether and the iris simply shuts down. But you can always test that by unplugging the iris wire.

[rory 0]

Funny this thread came up as I had to goto a job today to check a whited out camera, powered off once, didnt fix it, powered off another time, still white ... 3rd time and it worked. Ofcourse wont know until monday if it sticks again, and then just going to replace it (its like 30' up need a fork lift to get to it which none was available today).

 

So, might want to power off and on a couple times to be sure.

The AI lens gets the signal from an AI controller on the camera, so if thats shot then it wont do anything.

 

Now, with most (not all) TDN Domes and Bullets the AI is normally teamed with the IR cut on the lens, where as the Iris is really 3 small pieces of black paper like material inside a metal enclosure, the IR cut, a small plastic like clear filter is also inside that. It can get stuck for example if any part of the metal enclosure gets bent just a tiny bit (I did that myself by taking the IR cut out of one camera). How that could happen other than physically putting ones hands on it I dont know, though Ive seen that on at least one Box camera where it switched too much back and forth every minute all night and somehow got stuck.

 

If you havent touched the camera and it hadnt been switching back and forth over and over then its probably best just to replace the camera. It would take some troubleshooting to determine if its the lens and you might not be equipped to deal with that, though those type of lenses are not expensive, but it might not be the typical M13 TDN AI Lens either.

[Soundy 1]

You can always try looking back at the video to see exactly what happened when things stopped working right. It's pretty easy to tell if the ICR is stuck, for example, because you won't see it move across the frame when the camera switches modes between color and B&W. Or you may find a day scene where it suddenly goes bright that could indicate the iris snapped open and got stuck, or discover that it was fine one day as it got dark, then gradually went white as the sun came up the next day.

[rory 0]

Soundy just explained this camera I looked at today, it worked the day before then the next morning it just got whiter as the sun came up, and been stuck in that position since then. Also, this camera is a driveway entrance camera, so although I didnt play back the entire night before it happened, it could have had issues from car lights the night before. Im my case this camera is on its own power plug separate from all the other cameras, just into a surge strip, so its possible it got hit as well. This is an old camera BTW installed by someone else. If it were MY camera, yes I would take it down, gut it, and find out whats up - but for the client, its easier to replace it.

[bricor 0]

Thanks for the info.

 

I actually have 2 different customers that are experiencing this. One has the issue on 2 of his cameras, Nuvico TDN bullets in service for a few years now.

The other is a neighbor and I was just over there jacking with this particular camera (CNB IR Dome, not TDN) that was starting to get IR wash out at night. I was playing with it during the evening trying to fix the IR issue (which got a little better) and then the next day, she emailed me to let me know the image was now whited out. Just can't win sometimes.

[rory 0]

The IR dome is probably a different issue, if its non TDN then its probably Electronic IRIS, so just need to adjust that level during the day time (if it has the adjustment). Adjust it to where it looks normal. not too bright or too dark, too dark and at night it would be black out instead of white out

[SEANHAWG 1]

If the camera has adjustable settings, also try checking the Gain Settings, and/or Shutter Settings, both of those can also cause whiteout during the day if not set properly.