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Anyone know if it’s possible to replace the camera? Can’t get over how crappy the image quality is and this weird fish eye effect which makes it even worse. My prior MY2013 BMW 3 - series camera was infinitely better.
I totally agree with you. The rear view camera is distorted and difficult to visualize while backing up. My Tesla and BMW offer much better rearview camera accuracy when backing up.
It's a sports car.
Porsche clearly hasn't made the same level of investment in parking cameras as Mercedes and BMW. I'm fine with that. It's entirely functional and that's enough.
If it wasn't required by law (2018), Porsche would have continued to make it an optional feature as it was on the early 991s. I don't recall it being available as an option on the 997.
The rear camera does distort, but its purpose is to show moving and stationary obstacles and provide proximity alerts. It does this as well as is needed, and in combo with the front and mirror housing cameras (Surround View) let's me see everything around me, from multiple perspectives. Coming from an AMG it took me a while to get used to the Porsche cameras, but don't even think about it anymore. All 4 cameras do get dirty quickly...the rear camera especially gets dirtier faster than I expected given its relatively protected location.
I doubt that replacing the camera would be a simple swap. I view the 992 camera implementation as one of the car's quirks that take a bit of getting used to.
I back both of my vehicles, equipped with current model Porsche back-up cameras, into my garage and like to keep them really close to the side walls. I find the most useful aspect of the back-up camera to be the grid lines. While there’s distortion, the grid lines account for it. With some practice I found them to be useful and reliable. I’m able to back into my garage so ably my neighbor who used to race Porsches gets terrified. It is important to keep the cameras clean and have adequate lighting. So I clean the cameras regularly and have the garage lights on Homelink so I can turn them on if necessary as I’m backing up.
I’m not sure what you’re hoping for in terms of clarity/resolution. Even though in your photo I suspect the lens was a little dirty, I can clearly see the grid lines and their relationship to surrounding objects. We’re not looking to get Christmas card photos off that thing.
I will add I have surround view which is really useful in determining a vehicle’s relationship with things to the side once the rear view has passed them and the position of the front of the car. I find the combination of surround view and the back-up function with grid lines to be so effective, the only time I look at my mirrors while parking is in very low lighting conditions or if the camera lenses got covered during the drive, both of which are rare.
Last edited by Russian Mafia; 03-26-2021 at 03:13 PM.
I made it a point to take a close look at my rear view camera image today in a fairly large parking lot. While there is certainly the fish-eye effect, northing is distorted in any way like the OP's. In fact it's a remarkably clear and crisp image.
Anyone know if it’s possible to replace the camera? Can’t get over how crappy the image quality is and this weird fish eye effect which makes it even worse. My prior MY2013 BMW 3 - series camera was infinitely better.
Or is my camera just defective?
Maybe it's got some transparent sticker stuck or not removed?
It's a sports car.
Porsche clearly hasn't made the same level of investment in parking cameras as Mercedes and BMW. I'm fine with that. It's entirely functional and that's enough.
If it wasn't required by law (2018), Porsche would have continued to make it an optional feature as it was on the early 991s. I don't recall it being available as an option on the 997.
By "Sports Car", did you mean like the ones from the 1980's which had no A/C, no radio, no automatic windows, no power steering and so on???
Anyone know if it’s possible to replace the camera? Can’t get over how crappy the image quality is and this weird fish eye effect which makes it even worse. My prior MY2013 BMW 3 - series camera was infinitely better.
Or is my camera just defective?
It's worth asking your service department to investigate the camera clarity the next time you're in. I had a defective front camera image that degraded significantly over 3 weeks and they replaced the camera module: https://rennlist.com/forums/992/1229...ot-blurry.html
For comparison, here is my (replacement) backup camera view. I have surround but I think the backup camera image is the same as without. As others have said the fisheye effect is normal. At first I thought your image was more distorted, but notice how the fisheye compresses everything horizontally (to bring into view any side dangers). In your image you have a lot of narrow tree trunks so those are going to look particularly bad squished. However, the green parts of the trees in your image look blurrier than the housing details in mine.
Try viewing a comparable row of houses, i.e., wider objects, and then compare your backup image to see if it is more distorted.
03-25-2021, 11:36 PM
Rear camera
