Backup camera quality

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

NYisles1

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Posts
274
Reaction score
162
My theory, could be wrong, but maybe the license plate light when dark out or in low light situations is muddying up the picture.

Could be...would only take some electrical tape to find out. Ill try it out tonight.
 

Kpwweb

Full Access Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2015
Posts
698
Reaction score
302
Out of curiosity, do you guys see a big difference in image quality between day vs. night? I upgraded my back-up camera, and even though it's a better camera compared to the OEM, it's still not great in low light situations. Though, it's fantastic during the day.

I find that the camera's that are being installed in most cars today, including my old 2011 Ford Explorer, are great during the day, but extremely poor at night. They just don't preform well in low light situations... not surprising considering the cheap sensors that are in these back-up cams.
Yes! Nighttime is horrible and "blocky".

I would also agree the license plate light hurts it.
 

WVCarGuy

TYF Newbie
Joined
Mar 5, 2016
Posts
6
Reaction score
0
I've noticed some people complaining about their backup cameras but I'm not sure if mine is worse. I came from an Acadia Denali which actually had very good image quality. I tried cleaning the lens but that didn't help at all. Do I have a faulty camera? Please see the attached image, I know it's at night but I promise you the daytime image isn't much better.

View attachment 59285
My 2015 Sierra had a great camera and my 2016 Yukon sucks. I don't understand why the same manufacturer would use a different camera
 

JohnC12

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2015
Posts
125
Reaction score
46
Location
Orlando, FL
As suggested, I did a test in my garage to see if the license plate light had an effect on picture quality. Blacking out the license plate lights with electrical tape resulted in the grainiest picture quality.

FYI - All lights garage lights were turned off, and this is not the OEM camera.

EDITED: PHOTOS REMOVED

This picture was taken with electrical tape on both license plate lights.

Taped%.JPG



This picture was taken with no electrical tape on the license plate lights.

NoTape%.JPG




This picture was taken with no electric tape on the license plate lights, but with the brakes applied. You can really see the red.

NoTape%Brake.JPG



This picture was taken in ambient outside light (gray cloudy day).

%Outside.JPG
 
Last edited:

JohnC12

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2015
Posts
125
Reaction score
46
Location
Orlando, FL
Uh..... this entire thread is complaining about the pure and utter garbage quality of the OEM backup camera. :confused:

My post earlier in this thread raised the question about low lighting being a possible issue with all low quality back-up cameras. My aftermarket cam happens to fall into this low quality arena. In fact, considering there's only a couple handful of image sensor manufactures out there, it's likely that my cam has the same exact utter garbage image sensor as the OEM.

Weber Dude asked whether or not our license plate lights impacted the quality. Considering my license plate lights are OEM, they'd have the same exact impact as anyone else with a similar cameras. Thus my results above.
 

Anzir

Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2015
Posts
33
Reaction score
12
My post earlier in this thread raised the question about low lighting being a possible issue with all low quality back-up cameras. My aftermarket cam happens to fall into this low quality arena. In fact, considering there's only a couple handful of image sensor manufactures out there, it's likely that my cam has the same exact utter garbage image sensor as the OEM.

Weber Dude asked whether or not our license plate lights impacted the quality. Considering my license plate lights are OEM, they'd have the same exact impact as anyone else with a similar cameras. Thus my results above.
Still not apples to apples. Doesn't look like a 2015 (+) either.
 

JohnC12

Full Access Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2015
Posts
125
Reaction score
46
Location
Orlando, FL
Still not apples to apples. Doesn't look like a 2015 (+) either.

Haha... It's not apples to apples - thus is why I provided the FYI. And what's not a 2015? My truck? LOL It's 2015 Tahoe LS.

At any rate, sorry for posting... I've removed the picture comparisons.

Perhaps someone with an OEM camera can do the test?
 
Last edited:

traymond

TYF Newbie
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Posts
1
Reaction score
0
So has it been determined on here that the 2016 Tahoe camera is just of poor quality? It is great during the day, but HORRIBLE at night...
 

Forum statistics

Threads
132,229
Posts
1,864,418
Members
96,778
Latest member
swt_wxw
Top