Looking for advice on my install locations.

bigredfish said:

I get it but good luck. Is that road heavily traveled at night? Can you not design a couple of MD blocks that wont "see" the road?

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Not really. The path and road are at the same level.

bigredfish said:

Here's showing plenty of IR and with a person, hit and miss with IVS and I've been doing this for a while

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When you watch live in the GUI, are you seeing the person lit up with a blue square, but not triggering the IVS rule? When I was testing, I would be identified and followed with the blue square, but it was about a 5% success rate whether it would trip my tripwire.

I finally decided to put the Path cam on the back burner and will re-visit it at a later time.

I did however make some upgrades. I swapped out the 2.8mm IR54-AS (5442) over the deck with the 2.8mm Color4K-T that I won in the last lottery. It was supposed to be a 3.6mm, but a 2.8mm showed up and I made the best of what I received. I don't have a lot of light around the house, so use cases were limited either way, but I do run the lights all night on the deck so it seemed like a good swap. I was surprised that the FOV was narrower with the 4K-T even though it was 2.8mm vs 2.8mm.

I lose coverage of the edges at night by going to color from IR, but I'm still not overly mad at it since I have other IR cams that cover where this falls off.

5442 vs Color4K-T at night


5442 vs Color4X-T during the day. You can see how it has narrowed from the 5442.



I then took the opportunity to replace the 5MP front door wedge with the 2.8mm 5442 from the deck and I couldn't be happier. I knew this from before, but the 5442 is better in every way. I can run it in color at night and also am not struggling as much with the backlit scene from the amount of sky in the FOV. I would have issues with the face darkening as they got closer to the camera, and then they would need to stall for a second for the WDR to help out. Also, since I can run it in color, I won't struggle with copious motion clips/alerts due to banding from the LED bulbs. (This may be a reason I have so many items in my records.)

5MP wedge


5442

Time for more advice. tl;dr at the bottom.

I have a tree by my front porch that needs to be removed because it was a horrible choice and never should have been planted there. I plan to redo the bed/edging and replace it with more of a shrub tree. Currently the tree will obstruct the view of both of the LPRs and PTZ if I don't keep it trimmed, but eventually I won't be able to trim it back anymore.

I am looking to take this opportunity to make some changes, get some opinions, and possibly de-Ft. Knox the look of my house at the same time.

This is the front porch corner of the house. On the left is a 4K-T that overlooks this section of the yard and my PTZ, on the right corner is the LPR. During this work I plan to set a post with a "Welcome" sign between the column and tree. This will have a birdhouse camera on the top to capture faces coming up the house walk. The bed edging will be 4x6, tall side up, and come out level, and above flush, with the house walk. So keep in mind this will add some elevation above ground level.


This is what I will need to deal with, over time, if I leave the LPR on the soffit. I am shooting the gap to the left of the tree, but eventually it will be in the way.


This is my other LPR and my spotter for the PTZ. (IR flood in the middle)


I am currently shooting the gap between the tree and the flag pole.


My plan would be to extend the bed out from the corner of the house and plant a tree shrub like this one. I would then move the PTZ to where the LPR was and relocate both LPRS to an enclosure in the bed, to eventually be hidden by the tree.


These are the current angles of the LPRs and spotter (orange spotter will not be moved) compared to the proposed location. I would probably re-FOV them so they are focused on the middle of the road and not just one lane.


This would then allow me to move the PTZ. The new location would give me more coverage up the sidewalk where it is parked, and also more time to swing and park when called to location by the spotter, especially as the tree in that direction grows. Old is yellow and proposed is orange.




Summary:

• I am removing a tree that hinders my LPR and PTZ FOVs. It also causes IR washout with the PTZ from the LPR IRs.
• I want to make my house look less like Ft. Knox with all of the Z12E bullets on the front.
• I want to move my LPRS to ground level-ish.
• I want to move the PTZ to the opposite corner of the soffit.

Questions:

• Will there be any issues or concerns with ground level LPR cameras?
• Does any of this sound like a horrible idea?
• Should I look to point the LPRs further down the street?

Concerns:
- People or other obstructions due to the LPRs being mounted so low.

wittaj said:

Keep Ft. Knox for the deterrent factor LOL

@samplenhold has his LPRs low to the ground and work without issue.

I have cameras low to the ground and work without issue.

You do bring up a good point with the LPR low is depending on where you put them, you could get a car parked on your driveway that blocks it. Or someone just happens to walk past it on the sidewalk at the same time the plate goes by.

Taking that tree out would give you much more range on the PTZs and better sight lines.

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Yea, I knew he had his in a flower bed, but wasn't sure if he had any complaints.

I'll need to take a look and see how steep of an angle I can go to be between driveways, to lessen the chance of a parked car blocking the FOV. North to the neighbor shouldn't be bad, but I could see a random issue with the one crossing my driveway.

Well, it's been a minute since I have posted in here, but some happenings over the last couple nights have made me rethink my front coverage and my neighbors' opinion of me. This is a long, all-over-the-place post, so stay with me.

During my journey I have made efforts to move towards purposeful focal lengths and fields of view, but this has created a boundary line, pretty much at the sidewalk, where I can't really see what all I want to see at night. I put up a mini PTZ to help with this, but it really only does well during the day, but do-badders do bad at night and it's just not up to the task. I got lucky and was able to get some RECOGNIZE captures and pieced together the clues using brain power and other captures to figure out who it was. Luckily no damage was done, but this was a good test of the system and why we preach what we preach.


While I was sitting at my desk, at about 10:35pm, watching some Youtubes, I noticed the PTZ following some kids walking down the sidewalk, seemingly up to no good. One had on a balaclava and another was pulling his shirt up over his face. They then got a little further down the sidewalk and started stretching. I reviewed the footage quick to make sure I saw what I saw, and then went outside to follow them. We got a little ways through the neighborhood before they saw me and ran. I lost them at this point, but am guessing I scared them good and they went home as I walked the neighborhood for a bit longer and never saw them again.

When I got back to the house I started to pull captures to post on our neighborhood FB page, but I wasn't happy with what I was seeing. The PTZ425DB-AT just didn't have the beans to get me what I needed. I realized they had also been walking up and down the street the night before, wearing the same clothes, and I was able to get reasonable captures of them from that night which was pure luck. I am looking to upgrade the PTZ and care less about how crazy the neighbors think I am. No one complained about the images I posted, as expected, but look at the front of my house like I am a crazy.

Ultimately, they were being dumb kids and making bad decisions. They just moved into a house around the corner and, according to a neighbor's similarly aged daughter, were going around ringing doorbells and running. She said they had sent pictures out on Snapchat about it, but the funny thing is none of the neighbors complained about it on our FB page, so I am guessing I thwarted their attempt and scared them off before they even started... haha

This is the night I saw them. Walking down the street, and then stretching. I was able to pick up on the color of their clothes with my Color4K-X driveway overview cam. My front cams run in Cont+Sub during the day, but I switch most to Cont at night so I don't need to worry about missing any triggers.









These are from the night before. There is just too much noise to get a good ID capture. (IMO)









Previously I wasn't worried about outside of my bubble because if they came into my bubble, I would have the ability to capture them. However, I don't like not being able to see into the street, or just past it because it could become my problem later on. Since I have a second IPC-B52IR-X3 I have been messing with on the back path (a whole other story), I decided to try it out and see what FOVs it gives me. A quick install last night seemed promising, but I needed a tall spacer to get more upward angle under the soffit and wasn't able to design and print it until this morning. This is what I am seeing so far, and I think this will do it for me, with another one crossed the other way. I will likely be able to pull down some IR floods too, with as much IR as these things put out, making the front of the house look less like a prison (people think they are also cameras). My only concern is cars parked in the driveway blocking the line of sight, but that doesn't happen all that often.




I also now have mailbox coverage. @mat200


And a kid, at speed, in the street. (Yes, this is one of the kids in question.)

I'll grab a picture of the spacer I made. It's 65mm tall, and could possibly be shorter, but for me it allows the camera full upward tilt while also clearing my Z12E LPR near it.

I may design one that's shorter, but indexed and stackable, so you just stack as many as you need.

For reference, it's 75' to the middle of the street and 100' to the other side.

Of all of them, that was one of the better ones, but I think I got lucky with it.

Here it is with the spacer I made. It's still nowhere near dark, so it will be a bit longer before I can get some night captures.

It also bothers the hell out of me that this thing will not index to 0* on the rotate adjustment. My other one is the same way.

I considered Z4s for this as well, but had the 3X to test and figured why not give it a shot. I don't necessarily need 3 total overviews of the driveway..., but am liking the mid view (which seems longer than 12mm) that gives me additional coverage of my sidewalk at either side of the driveway apron. I also get coverage of my mailbox, too. I can use the extra IR in the front as well.

There are a lot of options/thoughts kicking around in my head right now. I may put both 3X over the driveway and try a Z4 for the path paired with the T54IR in 2.8mm I had there previously.