2N® IP Style comes pre-configured to work optimally in most scenarios, but there are plenty of settings you can tweak to achieve the best picture for your installation. To access all the settings listed in this guide, please update to the latest FW available, older FWs may lack some settings.

Available settings and default values

Image with default settings

This is what the camera image looks like by default. The image is well exposed, but your results may vary depending on where the intercom is installed.

Image with settings fine-tuned to personal taste

And this is what you can get with just a few tweaks... Notice the wider field of view and better shadow detail, no WDR needed. Keep in mind that the black corners you see here will be almost invisible in 16:9 aspect ratio but you'll get a wider view.

Available settings

Below is a description of each available setting, along with examples showing the lowest (left) and highest (right) settings for that setting, unless otherwise noted.

Brightness (Default: 8)

Brightness controls the overall image brightness. This may be useful if the device you are watching the camera feed on has a low brightness display.

Exposure Level (Default: 6)

Exposure Level is a camera setting that helps balance the exposure between highlights or shadows. Typical use case for this setting would be to compensate for outdoor light at the end of a dark hallway.

In situations where you need to select a really low Exposure Level to compensate for some bright part in your device's view, try adjusting the Brightness, Contrast and Tone Mapping settings to achieve the exposure you want. Make sure you have the Camera Mode setting set to any of the available Automatic or Outdoor modes, otherwise the camera may be unable to expose for bright areas properly, see the Camera Mode setting for more details.

When neither of these options help you expose highlights and shadows properly, you should try WDR.

Contrast (Default: 9)

Contrast reduces or increases the difference between highlights and shadows. Like Brightness, Local Contrast and Tone Mapping settings, this feature is particularly useful for improving image clarity on low-quality displays but at the expense of highlight or shadow detail loss.

Color Saturation (Default: 125)

Color Saturation is a post processing filter that mutes or boosts colors.

Camera Mode (Default: Automatic)

Camera Mode is a very important setting that changes the exposure characteristics of the camera and allows it to better adapt to indoor or outdoor use with flickering lights of different frequencies – 50 or 60 Hz.

Make sure you only use the indoor camera modes if you don't care about outdoor exposure, otherwise the device won't be able to expose properly for outdoor light and you may end up with something like the image on the left.

Indoor (50 Hz) | Outdoor (50 Hz) / Automatic

Day/Night Mode (Default: Automatic)

Day/Night Mode specifies whether the camera switches between normal and infrared view automatically or if it's locked in Day or Night mode. Automatic and Always Night modes allow the device to utilize its IR LED, see below.

You should only force the device to use Always Night mode if the device is installed in a permanently dark place.

IR LED Brightness Level (Default: 100)

IR LED Brightness Level configures the maximum infrared LED output level. Leave this setting at its default value to ensure the camera sees well in the dark. If you want to install an additional IR light to illuminate the intercom's surroundings, it should have a wavelength of 850 nm for maximum compatibility with the device's internal IR LED.

Infrared LED can only activate when the Day/Night Mode switches to Night mode, either manually or automatically.

Image Correction (Default: Enabled)

Image Correction is a setting that lets you switch between full fisheye and corrected image. Combine this setting with the Custom Image Crop to achieve maximum viewing angles. With corrections turned off, the image may look more natural, and the center of the frame will be larger, albeit bent in traditional fisheye manner.

We recommend selecting the preferred Image Correction setting before fine-tuning the other settings as it affects exposure quite significantly, see images below.

Please note that the following images are zoomed in by the default 30% Custom Image Crop value, reduce this value to reveal more of the image.

disabled | enabled

Custom Image Crop (Default: 30)

Custom Image Crop helps you zoom in on what's important, you can choose between 0, 10, 20 and 30% centered crop – the higher the value, the tighter the zoom.

By combining this setting with the Image Correction feature mentioned above, you can achieve all these different views:

Red rectangle means 0% crop, green rectangle means 30% crop.

Image Correction disabled | enabled

White Balance (Default: Automatic)

Fixed white balance settings are useful in situations where the intercom is installed indoors and lighting doesn't change. This means that the camera does not have to estimate white balance based on the scene but keeps it consistent based on this setting. The default Automatic setting is usually appropriate for any situation.

Indoor settings are tinted blue as they compensate for the yellowness of the interior lighting. Outdoor settings are more yellow because outdoor light is cooler in color.

Indoor - Bulb | Outdoor - Cloudy.

WDR Allowed (Default: Disabled)

2N® IP Style has a camera with extremely high dynamic range which reduces the need for separate WDR function. However, there’s still an option to enable WDR for extreme situations such as a dark hallway with bright light at the end of it. WDR combines multiple exposures into one, further extending the already high dynamic range and reducing shadow noise so you can clearly see indoors and outdoors.

Please note that turning on WDR may cause artifacts, especially with fast-moving objects or flickering lights.

Below are uncorrected and uncropped images simulating extreme shadows to show the difference that WDR can make to the overall image exposure.

disabled | enabled

Local Contrast (Default: 30)

Local contrast determines the level of perceived detail in the image. On one hand, if you lower it too much, the image will start to look like an oil painting, but on the other, if you go overboard with this setting, the image will start to look like a comic book.

This setting can improve image clarity on smaller displays, but we recommend leaving this setting around its default value to ensure balanced image clarity across all types of displays.

Tone Mapping (Default: 50)

Tone mapping increases shadow detail by increasing their brightness. Like Brightness, Contrast and Local Contrast, this setting can help you improve image legibility on low quality displays. The default value offers a good balance on most displays and doesn't result in an unnatural image.

Exposure Time Limit (Default: 1/25)

Exposure time limit determines the longest possible exposure. This is important at night, when long exposures reduce noise at the expense of motion blur, and conversely, if you use a long shutter speed, you avoid motion blur but increase noise. The default value is a good compromise between the two.

Have a look at this article if you want to know more about shutter speeds.

Last update

2022-11-22

Devices used

2N® IP Style