Best 'Identification' Camera for Pavement

[machineage]

Hi all

Can anyone recommend the best camera for 'identification' in this location? I need to be able to provide footage to the police, with clearly identifiable faces, day and night. The house is a single story house, with a gable fronting the pavement / road. The gable peak is around 20ft. There is a streetlight across the road, but it's not too bright, nevertheless the street isn't in total darkness. Faces could be silhouetted at some locations I guess, but should hopefully be captured at some point along the pavement. I was thinking one of the dual lens cameras might be an idea, sited toward the peak of the gable, so it can capture faces heading towards the camera in both directions. It needs to provide coverage without breaks from both directions if possible.

I have no system installed at the moment. I am purely Mac / iPhone based, so it will need to be compatible with these platforms. I am planning to get more cameras to cover other areas, it's just that this is an area requiring immediate coverage. I'm also UK based, so ideally something I can acquire here pretty quickly.

Many thanks in advance.

UPDATE: just to add - the gable is actually around 12ft at the peak, I was guessing before, I just measured it now.

 

[wittaj]

Dual lens would only work if at head level and the people are within 15 feet of the camera. Most here only use dual lens for OVERVIEW and not IDENTIFY.

A 2.6 or 3.6mm focal length camera at 20 feet high loses all of the IDENTIFY in the vertical. You will get tops of heads and hoodies.

One camera cannot be the be all / do all / see all.

One camera will not get faces of people going in either direction.

At a minimum 2 cameras one pointing each direction placed around 6 feet high.

If you insist on going higher like at the gable, then you will need a varifocal like a Z4E and point/angle it at a spot about 40 feet down either direction to "flatten" the angle caused by the height of the camera.

 

[machineage]

@wittaj

Thanks. That's disspointing, I had hoped one of the dual lens cameras would have been suitable. I'm happy to install two cameras, but them being 6ft above ground level, and facing the pavement, will make them highly susceptible to vandalism. Do all 'IDENTIFY' cameras need to be no more than 6ft above the ground to capture usable images? Ideally I would like to site them so they are out of reach of people walking past. Here's a plan of the gable end.

UPDATE: just to add - the gable is actually around 12ft at the peak, I was guessing before, I just measured it now.

 

[wittaj]

I have 4 of the dual lens cameras - they make great OVERVIEW, but between them making people thinner, a middle "blind spot" where the two lens converge, etc. they just make for a difficult to IDENTIFY if too high, but that can said for any camera.

Putting the camera higher to prevent tampering or theft is silly. Most people are oblivious to them anyway and if they want to damage them, they will regardless of where placed. My neighbor has had his on his fence post that is less than 3 feet from the public sidewalk. Cams are only 4 feet high and nobody has touched them...most haven't even noticed them! They have been there for years. And if they do, then you have great video.

You can always paint them to help blend in as well. But at that distance if you lowered it, a turret would work well and be a lot harder to touch.

I'd rather they try to touch it and get good clean captures of their face in the process than have it 15 feet high and provide useless video other than what time they tried to doorcheck.

That is why most of us have overlapping coverage, if someone messes with a camera, you get them on camera close and from another angle LOL.

But if you put it at the gable 15 feet high, then you will want a varifocal camera and point it further away to lessen the angle. Now what that means is then a void in between the cameras on your property that would then require a third camera LOL.

 

[machineage]

Many thanks!

I'll steer clear of the dual lens in that case, and opt for a couple of cameras, I'm guessing facing toward each other for best coverage? A couple of turrets sounds like a plan. Just to mention - the gable is actually 12ft high to the ridge after I measured it, image enclosed. Would two at around 8ft off the ground work, or again is that too high would you say?

Many thanks.

 

[wittaj]

I think two varifocals at 8 feet in that criss-cross pattern would work well.

Something like this:

EmpireTech IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP IR Starlight 2.7mm–12mm Var

4-MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor, low luminance, and high definition image. Outputs max. 4MP (2688×1520) @25/30 fps. Built-in IR LED, and the max. illumination distance is 40 m. ROI, SVC, AI H.264/H.265, encoding after filter, flexible coding, applicable to various bandwidth and storage...

empiretech01.com

 

[Ri22o]

@wittaj
Do all 'IDENTIFY' cameras need to be no more than 6ft above the ground to capture usable images?

Not always. Focal length and angle can allow you to place the camera higher. The distance will help to make the angle shallower.

This is 11' install height at a distance of 65' to the gate. You could easily ID with this.

 

[machineage]

Great - many thanks

I'll reach out to Andy. I need them like yesterday!