ELP 2mp High Speed 3.6mm Lens USB Camera with Black Case 1080P Mini UVC USB2.0 Video Webcam CCTV Surveillance Machine Vision System Home Baby Monitor PC Camera for Laptop,Computer,Jetson Nano

This is a great little camera with few cons. You can easily find these ELP-USBFHD01 cameras on Amazon and eBay in a variety of bare-board styles, but when I saw this one in an aluminum shell for nearly the same price, I knew I had to take the chance. I'm glad I did.The camera itself is very similar in design to other mini CCTV type cameras commonly used for FPV flight or various security or hobby projects. It is a little bit bigger than most of those, but it's still quite small at just over 1 1/2" square. Also, like those other cameras, it accepts M12x0.5 lenses. The stock lens is held in place with a set screw and is easily removed. If you're planning to use other lenses in this, then there are two things you should know - 1) The IR filtering in this camera is part of the LENS, *not* part of the sensor/board assembly. This means that if you want to continue to use it without the interference of IR light, then any lens you use will have to have its own IR blocking filter. This is GREAT if you want to exploit infrared light, which greatly increases low light performance in most conditions. 2) The threaded lens barrel is a bit overly long at almost 1cm in length. While this is no problem for some lenses, others you might want to use may not be able to screw in deep enough to achieve focus. This problem can be solved by disassembling the camera and cutting the lens barrel down a bit. I used a Dremel cut-off wheel in a drill press to remove almost half the length and there is still enough to hold the lens securely AND I can achieve focus with all my many M12 lenses now. The only problem is, the cutting makes a lot of aluminum dust, and you really want to make sure that you clean it VERY well before reassembling the camera.The overall performance of this unit is very impressive on my WIndows 7 64-bit system with USB 2.0 ports. The only time the interface is a problem is when I try to cheat the cable length too much. I have however used this on an Amazon Basics USB extension cable (passive) and a Tripp Lite 50-foot active USB extension cable, with no problems whatsoever. Also, I tried to use an old Startech USB 2.0 addon card from many years ago to allow me to run two of these at once, and the output of the camera was full of digital glitches, which are probably due to insufficient power levels to the camera. Modern cards should work just fine. Also, you can't use two of these at the same time on one USB controller, but separate controllers work fine. You can connect as many as you like and use them one at a time, but never two or more at once unless you use separate controllers. A perfect work around for this is to get an addon USB card like the Rocket cards, the ones that have one controller chip for each port. Thusly, a four port USB 3.0 card like the Rocket 1144D or similar WILL support two of these cameras running at the same time (like two copies of VirtualDub running one camera each, for example), and theoretically will allow you to run four cameras at once.The color rendition and low light performance of this camera is what really impresses me. I own a Logitech Pro C920 camera modified to accept M12 lenses, and side by side this camera will outgun the Logitech every time for color and low light performance. For the tests, I used identical ELP lenses taken from two of these cameras, to make things as evenly matched as I could, optically. This camera will go as low as 1 frame per second for very low light situations, but even running at 30FPS in 1080p it still beats the Logitech for light sensitivity. It's not a huge difference, and it does appear to generate a bit more noise than the Logitech, but it's a significant improvement overall. And, overall, this camera can operate faster than the Logitech for the same resolution and color depth.Software installation was a no brainer - Windows grabbed the drivers from the Net and had it working in less than a minute. The camera works really nicely with Virtualdub 1.10.4 32-bit and works passably with Amcap (such a bitchy program anyway), and it works fine recording with the 64-bit version of Virtualdub 1.10.4, but the display preview for some reason slows down all the way to just 4 frames per second. I don't know why, probably something to do with 64-bit driver support. Anyway, it's an EXCELLENT match for the 32-bit Virtualdub, and time may rectify that problem anyway with better drivers down the road.Only one thing about this camera presents itself as a serious con - it has NO audio. None... no mic, no nothing. For almost all of my uses, I don't need it and don't care because onboard USB camera audio is usually terrible anyway. I can always run my own mic, so it's fine. For others, however, I can see how it could be a big problem. Just remember that before you charge into something you don't want. $40 for a USB camera this good is a great deal, but finding out the hard way that it won't capture audio can more than overwhelm all the good feelings you may have had up to that point.Bottom line? Great little camera, great price, and just the thing for my typical mad science uses. If you're looking for a good video-only 1080p solution for monitoring and/or recording, without spending a lot to get there, then this could be perfect for you.I do have some interesting video from this camera, demoing IR, IR+Visible and no-IR visible light, and soon as I get it into a good upload I'll add it here.Rick NR417

As received, there were two black spots on the image. Cleaning the lens did not correct the problem. I cleaned the sensor which is readily accessible with the lens removed. I used a Q-Tip and alcohol then blew it out gently with compressed air. That worked and the image is clear now. I suspect that the sensor is not all that well sealed from dust intrusion. I measured the angular field of view at 84 degrees which is less than it should be for a 3.6 lens with the sensor it is supposed to have. Image quality is OK.

Of this type of camera by ELP and others - this is the first to actually operate at 1080p/30fps and does it pretty well at a modest 2MP. There is a little grain present in the images, but it is not as noticeable as it is sort of translucent rather than being the annoying black static present on most CCD cameras of this type.My camera had no problem at 1080p/30fps (and is rated at f3.6) - it did a pretty good job of it. As mentioned it does have some graininess to it, but was not overly annoying. Most use case scenarios this would not even come into play unless you were blowing up the 1080p image to a larger size.Connectivity is plug and play on PC and includies a nearly 10 foot USB cable makes it suitable for anything from machine control/inspection to a "nanny cam." This camera lives up to its specs, for which we could always wish for higher better specs, but this unit is a nice compromise between cost and functionality. Unlike some of the other ELP offerings, this camera comes enclosed in a 1.5" by 1.5" by 3/4' thickness housing. The lens is removable, but not easily replaced since the IR filter is part of the lens, not a function of the CCD.This camera is quite versatile and a pretty good performer. The distortion in the images (graininess) is not overly noticeable but just about the only thing I can think of to grade less than very-good/ exceptional. The working parts of the camera come heavily protected with an industrious case and mount that should help it find itself at home in the living room or the floor of a manufacturing facility for machine reference for instance on robotics. The only other thing I can say detracts from this great camera is its auto color grading.adjustments. When presented with several diverse color mattes to adjust for, it tries to find a happy medium, which sometimes is rather good and sometimes not so good. It just depends on how one tries to "push" the camera in its color space.Keep in mind that all of the testing I performed were designed to push the camera to its limits and see how it performed. In that regard this camera does rather well, so more normal applications it will perform above the bar. In order to confuse the camera's color grading, I presented it with a partial blue frame and see how it handled the whites. This was an extreme not likely seen by this unit. All and all a good performer. I would have given it five stars, but I "know" there is a camera of this type that will exceed this unit's performance somewhere.

it doesn’t have a clear picture, lines run through it. At first I thought it was the monitor in a zoom call then I made it a smaller picture and the monitor look great but the image of the camera wasn’t. Disappointed, I thought this was a good industrial camera.