Is the rear view camera usable at night?

[Anonymous]

During the day, the rear view camera on the mirror is sometimes useful, especially if you have people or cargo in the back. The main disadvantage of the wider field of view is that objects appear much further way than they actually are.

At night, however, I have found that the camera is useless. On a dark street, illuminated by street lamps, the view from the camera is actually quite good. But let a car come into the picture with its headlights on, and the image acquires a greenish tinge and seems to blur out. On a freeway or busy street with many cars, you lose all ability to tell which lanes the cars are in, and how close they are to you. Is this a common problem or does my video system need some readjusting?

 

[SeanNelson]

I've found that the extreme brightness range of bright headlights and almost pitch black asphalt overwhelms the camera system's ability to present a faithful view, and there's a lot of flare from the lights which causes them to bloom and create artifacts around them. Nonetheless, it still seems better to me than the optical mirror, which dims at night anyway to the point that all you can see is headlights and nothing else.

 

[BoltEV]

I am in "camera" mode 98% of the time.

I sometimes switch to "mirror" mode when the rains obscure the camera.

 

[EldRick]

I've come to like the camera mode, and I use it at night, because all I really want to know is whether there is someone in back of me. It is pretty useless in the rain.
The mirror mode doesn't dim enough or quickly enough to make me happy, and it has the 1/4" of non-dimming area around the edges - it's just not a good mirror-dimmer.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I miss using the camera mode. It is completely useless during the winter unless you basically hold the stalk for a constant stream of washer fluid. Junk gets kicked up from the road and obscures the screen within 30 seconds of cleaning it.