SG9665GC High Contrast/Dynamic Range Flaw and other Discouragements

[reverend]

Won't sand and snow reflect a load of light back up though which blinds the sensor?

 

[Dashmellow]

It would be interesting to see the AE tables - a7tool made it so easy with Ambarella!

Plus unlike your car @kamkar1 has a little girls car with hardly any hood showing in the front footage

Yeah, that @kamkar1, he's such a girly-man! Don't anybody tell him I said that!

 

[jokiin]

Plus unlike your car @kamkar1 has a little girls car with hardly any hood showing in the front footage

that does make life easier

It would be interesting to see the AE tables - a7tool made it so easy with Ambarella!

no tool for it but I'll be looking closely at the settings and how they can best be optimised

 

[Dashmellow]

Won't sand and snow reflect a load of light back up though which blinds the sensor?

That's the thing. On my Mobius cams, they would tend to go darker in the presence of very bright conditions as I posted about earlier in this thread yesterday.

 

[kamkar]

Here is a little footage i compiled today, for comparing i have the footage off the X cam

https://mega.nz/#!P9ZwxDIZ!0S2-C6RpKlcDuP6i7rHQH0jKseIk2ZTU5AMnfkT3kuY

https://mega.nz/#!y4hlmCIR!uD-5A7NnmlWzUm42HhHxQeRBP72oMuRqWc6I8XNVus8

In this last clips the SG camera is about 1:10 minute ahead of the x camera, so you have to FF a little to get the 2 to sync up.

https://mega.nz/#!qtgEFLwa!thi0fL5rIiaZO4edsf7LX4bLDkuIPX3N3JdcHR8lCLQ

Should any one like to see any of the footage just give a shout out and i will trow it up om MEGA for download.

 

[jokiin]

if you can upload the original footage when you get a chance would be good

 

[kamkar]

IL start uploading ( just the SG footage ) will update post above with those links.

Colorwise the SG camera is most true, the X cam is overdoing it like a Danish politician before a election painting a pretty picture.

If anything the SG might be painting a picture thats a little bit more bleak than the actual bleakness level in Denmark this time of the year

 

[Dashmellow]

Thanks for posting the vids @kamkar1. The third one down where you are adjusting the camera up and down is very interesting.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i figures since i had the best shot at the sun then, i would test the argument we had in here regarding camera allignment.

I will try to capture some more footage today since there should be even more sun to play with.

Now ppl can find out where my little sisters house is, if they bother with such things

 

[reverend]

Kamkar1 did that camera have a manual calibration done?

The one I'm not getting this problem on I use as the daily driver has never had one done from leaving the factory.

Was this with low facing sun in front of you?

 

[arcticfire]

What happens if you get a torch and shine it directly at the camera?

 

[USDashCamera]

I should explain that I bought this camera a year ago because I was in need of a reliable set-and-forget dash cam rather than the usual DIY experimentation and testing that I've so often engaged in for 6 years now with numerous other cameras. Instead, I've done nothing but hassle with this camera and have spent and wasted inordinate amounts of time dealing this issue, adjusting, testing, CPLing, dash matting, calibrating, documenting and corresponding, etc., for a full year now, including even the creating and posting of this thread which I've been wanting to do but don't even really have time to give proper attention to at the moment.

So forgive me if I'm a little burnt out and not quite so amenable to all the testing suggestions, such as taking it into the studio and running all kinds of further experiments. This has turned out to be the exact thing I was seeking to avoid when I bought it. As much as I usually enjoy all kinds of testing and DIY stuff I just need a front facing camera that quietly does its job and does it well. Since ONLY the SG9665GC has manifested this issue, unlike any of the other cameras I've owned or tested at this point, I'm more inclined to simply find a suitable replacement and perhaps do some casual testing in the future if I have the time and feel like it. Ultimately, @jokiin is the one who needs to analyze and resolve this and other issues with this otherwise excellent product. Indeed, I've wondered about some of the issues that appear to surround the way the firmware support for this camera sometimes misses the mark and updates that take what seems like a long, long time to come to fruition. But I'm not really sure that's the topic of this thread necessarily.

One can argue about the finer points of whether it is a tone curve problem or an exposure problem or both or which algorithm is causing the issue but there is clearly an issue that goes beyond which angle the camera is aimed at or the fact the my hood is dark blue. I've truly been surprised at the paucity of mentions or complaints about this problem but I've certainly seen it come up enough or show up in posted videos. Even in @USDashCamera's "Full review of the SG" on May 1, 2015 he says, "So next I'm going to show a clip of going through tunnels so it switches from dark to light several times. So you'll see the transition, it seems a little harsh at first but it quickly adapts to the light again and I think overall, it's at least as good as you can expect." Obviously, he's noticed this is an issue and felt the need to mention it in the review, even though he makes an effort to downplay the problem with the "as good as you can expect" comment.......whatever that means.?

My photographic background is long complex and is therefore not something I could easily offer a simple one sentence answer for to your question. I hope you understand, this is not the place for me to discuss that and I would prefer for now to stick with the topic.

whew that was almost a year ago. I suppose my statement is a little confusing. I believe at the time what I meant was it did seem harsh, but it adjusts pretty quickly. "as good as you can expect" definitely does come off as misleading considering I JUST said it seemed like a harsh transition. In my head I was just rationalizing the overall video quality (like its typically more superb night quality) out weighing this one issue I noticed. which is why i said "i think overall" its at least as good as you can expect. because while some cams like the mobius are just as good during the day during normal conditions, they are noticeably poorer at night. but as you said, I did feel the need to point it out.

i did recently test the gc, mobius, and joovuu x (although I am going to leave the joovuu out of this comparison because of some issues I need to figure out) and I did notice the mobius does transition quicker. but to be honest i had to try multiple times to get the exact frame I wanted (edit: because it goes back to normal within a few frames), where within a split second it seemed like the GC transitioned back to great quality. it is coming out of a tunnel. but can confirm that yes mine does this also as @Dashmellow describes. it might make it worse that the sky is completely white from clouds though.

this is what i got, you can notice the signs in the distance are completely washed out at this split second:

 

[jokiin]

A split second we can live with, @Dashmellow had been experiencing periods of extended washout though

 

[USDashCamera]

A split second we can live with, @Dashmellow had been experiencing periods of extended washout though

oh i only read his original post and his post that tagged me (havent been on in a few days and didnt read the entire thread) and I don't recall him specifying how long of a time it takes to recover from being washed out. sometimes people analyse down to such minute detail I just assumed he meant the split second difference. this was less than 2 seconds after my comparison above, mobius on top, gc on bottom (I cropped out just the cars and background to focus in on those details, but I did not enlarge anything, it was screened at native res):

 

[jokiin]

Yeah I think your results are normal and acceptable, dashmellow has been getting different results, more so on the V1 camera and its something we are looking to address so need samples from anyone that experiences the same

 

[kamkar]

@Dashmellow had been experiencing periods of extended washout though

Poor bastard, And i am saying that with a thick Aussie accent
I am sure the 9665 Just need a loving nudge by a tech guy and its back in line.

 

[Dashmellow]

I don't recall him specifying how long of a time it takes to recover from being washed out. sometimes people analyse down to such minute detail I just assumed he meant the split second difference. this was less than 2 seconds after my comparison above, mobius on top, gc on bottom (I cropped out just the cars and background to focus in on those details, but I did not enlarge anything, it was screened at native res):

View attachment 21533

@USDashCamera, I understand that you might not take the time to read each and every post in this lengthy thread but I would have expected you might peruse my first post in thread so you would have an accurate enough notion of what the thread is about and why I quoted you. Also, I think once @jokiin explained that there was more than what you describe as a "split second difference" might have been further incentive to find out what the discussion is all about before remarking that, "I don't recall him specifying how long of a time it takes to recover from being washed out." The title of the thread might have suggested a bigger issue as well.

In any event, to clarify for you and bring you up to speed, what I actually said in my opening post was, "Most dash cameras experience some challenges in bright conditions to one degree or another, especially when traveling from one dynamic range environment to another such as passing under a bridge or going through a tunnel the issue here is that the problem is far more severe than I have ever seen and no other camera I've owned regardless of cost experiences this flaw under identical circumstances. While most cameras that have an issue recovering from the glare of passing through a tunnel will recover very quickly, the SG not only manifests the problem more severely but takes much longer to recover. Also, as I've said, you don't even have to be going through a tunnel for this bright white-out glare issue to manifest on the SG9665GC."

That is why I felt your statement that, "it's at least as good as you can expect." was rather dubious considering that you noticed the issue enough to bring it to the reader's attention in the review.

 

[joss002]

Ive found a happy medium with the angle of the lens but there is still quite a bit of sky bleaching and buildings fade into the sky,if I take it up 1 click the sky is fine but the road is pretty dark,down 1 click and the sky is a white out and most buildings fade into it .
SG9665GC v2
Firmware is SG20160125.V2 and Ive fitted the CPL filter.

And a couple of raw files if they are of any help !.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7gx7kgf8gdoene/2016_0316_140037_059.MOV?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/efg9380z8janrnr/2016_0316_140338_060.MOV?dl=0

 

[USDashCamera]

@USDashCamera, I understand that you might not take the time to read each and every post in this lengthy thread but I would have expected you might peruse my first post in thread so you would have an accurate enough notion of what the thread is about and why I quoted you. Also, I think once @jokiin explained that there was more than what you describe as a "split second difference" might have been further incentive to find out what the discussion is all about before remarking that, "I don't recall him specifying how long of a time it takes to recover from being washed out." The title of the thread might have suggested a bigger issue as well.

In any event, to clarify for you and bring you up to speed, what I actually said in my opening post was, "Most dash cameras experience some challenges in bright conditions to one degree or another, especially when traveling from one dynamic range environment to another such as passing under a bridge or going through a tunnel the issue here is that the problem is far more severe than I have ever seen and no other camera I've owned regardless of cost experiences this flaw under identical circumstances. While most cameras that have an issue recovering from the glare of passing through a tunnel will recover very quickly, the SG not only manifests the problem more severely but takes much longer to recover. Also, as I've said, you don't even have to be going through a tunnel for this bright white-out glare issue to manifest on the SG9665GC."

That is why I felt your statement that, "it's at least as good as you can expect." was rather dubious considering that you noticed the issue enough to bring it to the reader's attention in the review.

I did read your first post but you said "much longer time" which I took as a relative not objective statement. But then since you had referenced my video saying that I had noticed the issue also, I was using the lighting in my video as what I assumed you thought was matching your issue and that my sample was "longer" than what you expect. when you quoted me, I even said that "it quickly adapts" and then you claimed I noticed the issue also. so again I was getting mixed signals on how "much longer" means to you when in my sample I said it was quick. I may have seemed confused, but right off the bat I walked into this thinking my camera had the same issue you were trying to describe and that my videos showed the same problem because you said that I noticed it also while referencing my video upload. I went back and checked a bunch of my saved footage from my review (I never delete any raw footage I use in reviews) and did not notice any issues as bad as the last video you posted in your original post. I have some samples of driving directly at the sun going in and out of shadows and it did not seem anywhere as bad as what was shown in some other examples people posted. I will check more samples as I do use this cam every day.

 

[alexp999]

I was experiencing washed out footage so ended up tipping the camera up one notch which helped. I'd be happy to try out any software which might help this though as I still get it in certain scenarios.