Another camera placement thread...

[Whoaru99]

With the detached garage/house layout I'm struggling a bit with camera placements Here's what I've started on so far and sure could use some coaching on this.

North is up. It is a 70ft x165ft lot. Distance from house to garage is roughly 65ft for scale.

The red lines from tentative camera locations are 30ft long, to scale.

The walk in doors and windows are marked with green lines (note I did not mark the garage overhead door on the N end of the garage).

I presently have two Dahua N44CB33 cameras I picked up to get my feet wet.

1. Inside garage, NW corner, placement and FOV in yellow. This one I will tweak the placement just a little but overall I think that one is OK.
2. Outside garage, SE corner, facing East toward the house, placement and FOV in yellow.
   • To all the points of reading, it would let me know what happened, but not who did it, unless they approach the garage. This camera almost certainly will end up inside a garage at another location.

I also have two of the Dahua 2MP "night color" IPC-HFW4239T-ASE cameras that are due in probably tomorrow. There is a street light on the corner of the block NW from my place (orange circle), and also a street light SSW from the garage (orange circle). With this light I thought it might be nice to try a couple of those night color cameras.

For the most part though, the rest of the cameras I'm considering (pending your opinions, of course) would be the 2231 or 5231 VariFocal turrets. Also of consideration for the long sides of the house might be the double Starlight minidomes PC-HDBW4231F-E2-M. On the East side it would be very well shaded, on the West side not so much so UV fade/fogging would be a concern over time. One of these might be the ticket for the South end of the house, watching the drive path between the buildings. The building to the South, BTW, is the County Attorney office. No cameras there.

I think I get the general concepts of covering entry and windows but your experience certainly would be helpful and appreciated for optimizing.

One thing I've learned from the overview camera facing East is that few people actually stop at the stop signs at the corners of the East-West avenue. LOL.

 

[mat200]

With the detached garage/house layout I'm struggling a bit with camera placements Here's what I've started on so far and sure could use some coaching on this.
..

Hi @Whoaru99

With the detached garage and your lot layout I would plan on more cameras, as I see the garage as a easier target for thieves.

I like to have anyone walking to the frontdoor or garage door to have to walk through at least 2 camera zones.

As your home can be approached on nearly each side it will be more challenging to get similar coverage as homes protected by adjacent homes.

 

[Whoaru99]

If that's a boat just south of the garage, a camera on the SW corner would be helpful when identifying the folks that borrow it.

Yes, I definitely want that area well covered since, as you see, I use that area for storage parking. That's where my snowmobile was parked that was recently stolen, trailer and all.

I'm hoping the boat won't go anywhere until I get some cameras set up. Presently I have a 3/8" grade 70 chain and big lock separately through each wheel and around the frame. Then, a Proven Industries shielding hitch lock, finally, another 3/8" grade 70 chain around the frame and locked to one of the clothesline poles that is set in concrete. I understand very few things will stop determined experts in thievery, but hopefully these measures at least give the amateurs due cause to keep walking, so to speak. Too bad I hadn't taken same/similar precautions before the sled got ripped off. One gets complacent in a small town where stuff like that typically doesn't happen.

BTW, if you happen to see a pretty blue 2003 Polaris 700 XCSP Edge-X sled for what seems like too good of a deal to be true let me know. LOL.

 

[catcamstar]

Hi @Whoaru99 - you did already a nice preparation with these drawings, and your experience with these two cams will already help you finetune your design. Maybe you already discovered this gem: IPVM Camera Calculator V3 (it's also in the Cliff Notes): it does a bit what you tried to do in your MS Paint (possible candidate for the MS Pain 2019 awards ) but it helps you for sure to identify the (theoretical) DORI distances, thus eliminating (or forcing) you to go to varifocal as there is a slight cost increase to have that capability.

Alternatively, I can advice to install a D.O.G. device:

(person not included just for reference)

 

[Whoaru99]

That camera calculator thing is pretty nifty. I'll play around with that some.

Far as what I did already, I put the Google Earth image into Siemens Solid Edge 2D drafting program and scaled to actual. So, when I draw a line or whatever, those objects scale to the actual dimensions. If I were to draw a line from the house to the garage and add the dimension line, it would show as 65ft which is the actual physical distance.

About the dogs, yes, I like dogs but the house is generally unoccupied so no doggies there.

I have a monitored alarm system in the house with motion detectors, entry sensors, cameras, temperature, water, etc., but that doesn't help with the outside antics; that I wasn't expecting.

 

[Whoaru99]

@dark current, yeah, that'd probably be a good thing to do to add an alarm switch on the boat.

Far as the lighting goes, it's not bad with the two street lights not far off. That's what's so surprising about the theft of the sled. It's not like it's pitch dark around there.

The HFW4239TN-ASE night color cameras showed to today. A day earlier that I was expecting. I quick mounted one on the garage next to the N44CB33 camera that was the first I put up. The image adjustments/settings are at the defaults on both.

It's not quite apples to apples since the N44CB33 has 3.6mm lens and I ordered the HFW4239TN-ASE with 6mm lens. I have the IR turned off in the N44CB33, seems better that way actually with the ambient light. Maybe when there isn't snow it'll be a different story. Anyway, here's the two from a side by side perspective.

 

[bigredfish]

Have you tested motion on both? Walk around in front of the cams, post video samples..

 

[awsum140]

My personal preference is cameras located at each corner of the house looking back at each other, overlapping coverage, but that takes eight cameras just to cover the perimeter of the house and eight more for the garage. On the other hand, it gives you the best overall coverage. Add in a camera at each entry door to make sure and you're good to go.

 

[Whoaru99]

Have you tested motion on both? Walk around in front of the cams, post video samples..

What's the best way and format in which to post the video samples?

I have a couple MP4 and a couple AVI. Presently they're large, like 75MB each, but I can snip out some. I've just never posted videos to a forum so not quite sure how.

 

[bigredfish]

Most of us upload to youtube and then you can embed them here with the filmstrip icon

If they look good to you with no motion blur then you may be good to go, just suggested as many will spend time dialing in a static image and then find out too late that it doesnt work well with motion.

 

[bababouy]

@Whoaru99 how are the dh-ipc-hfw4239tn-ase cameras working out? We ordered a couple of the 3.6 bullets which should be here any day. I am interested in the night performance and the alarm inputs and outputs that are built in

 

[Whoaru99]

They work great but for sure there is a fair amount of ambient light from city street lights. I can't shut off the city lights to see how the cams might work under lower light conditions.

As you see in the above photos, even a non-Starlight Dahua N44CB33 gives a reasonable image under the ambient lighting conditions (with IR turned off).

 

[catcamstar]

They work great but for sure there is a fair amount of ambient light from city street lights. I can't shut off the city lights to see how the cams might work under lower light conditions.

You could try to turn them off, but I'm pretty sure you'll end up somewhere not nice

 

[bababouy]

You could try to turn them off, but I'm pretty sure you'll end up somewhere not nice

The complicated part is turning them back on. Thanks for the input on the dh-ipc-hfw4239tn-ase camera. I am going to put them where there is some light. We met with the local Dahua rep last month and he was telling us that they are the cats ass.

 

[Whoaru99]

The only other thing I have to add right now is the size relative to the N44CB33. Don't have wide experience with lots of different cams but, physically, the 4239 bullets are a fair bit larger than the N44CB33 (4431) bullets I started with.