Best location for cameras - see pics

[joshwah]

I am looking for some advice from those who are clearly more experienced and knowledgeable than myself.

My house is currently sitting back 20 metres (65ft) from the footpath. I do have one LED street light as indicated in the picture below.

I am trying to accomplish the best ability to ID someone but also good night vision. At the moment, I've got 2 hikvision 8mp cameras which do not perform too well at night - I also made the mistake of mounting them too high at the front door.

My thoughts were two-fold...

1. Get a PTZ 4mp something like a Dahua SD49425XB-HNR for the far left corner where the arrow is, wil allow me to do auto follow of anyone who enters my property but also I park my caravan across the road where there is some vacant land, so i like the idea of being able to zoom in on that (40 metres/130ft away).

2. The front door (see below pictures), currently has one of the hikvision 8mp cameras mounted quite high... the problem is, because it is soo high I cant really get a good ID. Ideally from what i've been reading it's best to mount it just about head high (6ft-7ft) off the ground. Based on my pictures below, where do you think I should mount my camera... i am looking at going for one of the Dahua IPC-HDBW4231F-AS which has audio built in and good reviews for low-light quality and wont stick out soo much being mounted low. So where do you think I should mount them based on my setup?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3

Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras or if you need good low light cameras. There currently are no 8MP cameras that are any good in low light. More megapixel is not necessarily better.

The camera mounted above the door is nearly useless, you will get a picture of the top of there head, or there hoodie. If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 8ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened. For the front door mount two cameras in of near the porch lights, not sure how the light it self would affect the cameras. One person on the forum mounted the front door camera in the flower bed pointing up and out.

Not sure in Australia, put in the USA covering the porch with good coverage is necessary because of package drop-off, Amazon, FedEx, DHL.....

The problem with a PTZ is that it is pointing to the wrong place when the action is happening, it is better for home surveillance to use multiple fixed cameras.

I would mount 2 or 3 cameras on the garage, no higher than the top of the door.

Test do not guess, use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2

Look what happens when the cameras are not mounted correctly

"4K" cameras captures package thieves in board daylight. Can you easily ID the perps?

Here's what appears to be a good "4K" security system setup capturing a package thief and accomplish driving a nice car in good lighting conditions. Review the video on a "4K" screen and determine if you can ID the suspect and the car. hint - this is why I really like cameras at the front...

ipcamtalk.com