Camera choice

[emin-j]

Hi Guys, I’m needing some help choosing a camera for looking from the front of the house down the driveway which is around 10m in length x 7m wide , there are two cars parked side by side on the drive plus one more car parked on the road at the end of the drive, I’ve spent hours looking at dome,turret,zoom,mini,2.8 vs 4.0mm ahrrr ! I think my head hurts ! Going by the description above what camera would you guys recommend, trying to keep the budget to around £150. Thanks Guys.

 

[aristobrat]

It's probably going to be hard to cover the driveway and the car on the street (with enough detail to ID someone) from one camera. To get enough detail to ID someone messing with the car on the street, you'll need a camera with more zoom (i.e. much higher than 2.8mm or 4mm). The tradeoff for that extra zoom is that the image will not be as wide, so it'd probably not cover the driveway well.

I'd recommend starting with one camera and see how it goes, and maybe adding a second camera later if needed. Below are two are very popular models because they do well in low-light (because of their 2MP 1/2.8" low-light image sensor), they're varifocal (so you'll be able to zoom the camera in to get the best width image -- you can't do that with a fixed-lens 2.8mm/4mm camera), and they're the turret form-factor which usually has the least amount of issues for most folks.

HDW5231R-ZE
Review-Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231R-ZE 800 meter capable ePOE

HDW2231R-ZE:
Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal

The 2231 is less expensive but about the only difference the most folks notice is that the 2231 doesn't have a microphone. The 5231 has one.

Check out this online tool. Type in your address, let it pull up a Google Maps image of your property, "add a camera", change the camera model to one you're interested in (like one of the two above), then position it around your house. It should give you a good idea of what the image quality will be at various distances. If you do add one of the two cameras above, since they're varifocal cameras, be sure to play with the focal length slider to simulate the "zoom" this cameras offer.

IPVM Camera Calculator V3

 

[mat200]

Hi Guys, I’m needing some help choosing a camera for looking from the front of the house down the driveway which is around 10m in length x 7m wide , there are two cars parked side by side on the drive plus one more car parked on the road at the end of the drive, I’ve spent hours looking at dome,turret,zoom,mini,2.8 vs 4.0mm ahrrr ! I think my head hurts ! Going by the description above what camera would you guys recommend, trying to keep the budget to around £150. Thanks Guys.

HI @emin-j

I concur with aristobrat, you'll need more than one camera..

imho You probably will need 3 cameras for good coverage.

One - varifocal to focus on your car parked on the road ( see the 2 cameras he recommends )

2 cameras on the driveway, one on each side of the 2 car wide driveway - mounted low enough to get a good angle on anyone getting into the cars. ( the one watching the road can be mounted higher as the angle will be shallower due to the distance from the camera )

REMEMBER to test the positions you are considering mounting the cameras by having a friend or yourself act as a prowler / thief wearing a hoodie and cap - then ask another friend or your SO to ID that suspect.

 

[emin-j]

Thanks guys, any thoughts on Hikvision cameras ? I’ve recently purchased a four channel Hikvision DVR so would it be better to choose a matching camera, sorry I should have mentioned the DVR in my first post. I’ll have a play with the online camera tool

 

[aristobrat]

Hikvision and Dahua are both great brands and generally mirror each other in terms of camera capabilities.

I’m not familiar with their model numbers, might be worth doing a quick post in the Hikvision sub-forum here. Hik calls their low-light cameras “Dark Fighter”... hopefully someone can direct you to a good varifocal Dark Fighter model!