Camera/location thoughts, please

[aristobrat]

I'm looking to add a camera that will cover my driveway, which is 45 feet long.

Most houses in my neighborhood have mini-domes in the soffits for this purpose, but my house came with soffit lights in this area, so that seems like not-a-choice for a mounting location.

I'm looking for a camera that isn't too obvious when people look at the front of the house, and was thinking of using a turret-style mounted vertically where the red arrow indicates in the picture. That's a height of about 16ft, and there is CAT5e pre-run to that area.

Not sure if this matters, but at night, this driveway isn't entirely dark. The light in the center of the garage is on from sunset to sunrise. The soffit lights throw a good amount of light, and they are on from sunset until 9PM. After that, there is an Insteon motion detector under it that will turn on the soffit lights back on for five minutes when motion is detected. There is also a street light on the other side of the street, about lined up with the front door.

Playing around with the IVPM calculator, it shows (if I did it right) a Hikvision DS-2CD2342WD-I (6mm) mounted there would give ~58 pff at 45' feet away. I'm confused about if this camera can be fully adjusted if mounted vertically. because with a 6mm, I'd have to do some angling to get everything in. This camera's stats show adjustments as: Pan: 0° to 360°, tilt: 0° to 75°, rotation: 0° to 360°.

From reading other threads, it seems like a Dahua Starlight turret would probably be the best camera, but I think it would be a harder fit into my existing setup. I have two Hikvision cameras already in play, with a Synology as the NVR. Event detection on the Hikvision cameras (motion, line crossing, intrusion detection) can trigger recordings on the Synology (as well as things like doing a HTTP GET, which can notify my home automation setup that an event occurred). The Dahua IVS features look awesome, but they can't trigger events on my NVR which is a major argh. Also, the family currently uses the iVMS-4500 app on their phones to get a live view of the current cameras, .. I'm guessing they'd have to use a separate app if I got a Dahua. A Dahua isn't out of the question, but it seems like a rough fit for me. Trying to figure if the pros of it outweigh the cons (in my setup).

I'm curious to hear what others would do in this situation.

Any comments/suggestions/advice would greatly be appreciated!

 

[nayr]

thats far too high, I'd put it above that light and under the window on that white trim, or remove that light and put the camera there, looks like you have other lights on driveway.. you want to be able to see down that center isle on your two lane driveway as thats where the night prowlers will hide; and you seem fond of big tall jeeps that would be easy to duck behind

too high and you just see the tops of heads and you cant see any distance, the angle is looking down so you wont get full view of driveway w/any zoom and you need zoom..

down lower and you can zoom in more and still see activity occurring up close and personal and far away across street at same time.. you need >100PPF around the car doors to get what you want, people messing about w/your vehicles.

check out the Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

 

[aristobrat]

Thanks for the advice!

I'm definitely with you on the locations you suggested, I'm just not sure I can get the buy-in on them from my other-half. I'll plead the case and see how it goes. lol

Would the horizontal surface here (more towards the garage door) be an option? That spot is about 8FT high. Not sure if the light shining down would be an issue. It's a 60w bulb -- nowhere near as bright as the picture makes it seem.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I can't see your first pics (links are broken) so I won't comment, but I like the location for the driveway cam in the above pic. You can do a bit of double duty by putting it over to the side of the garage door a bit though. Angle it across the driveway a bit and you can get a cross angle across the property as well as shoot more or less straight out the driveway. That's what I do with my garage door cam. It overlaps with my front door cam which is angled towards the garage. The lower driveway cam overlaps the coverage of the upper driveway cam at the road but angles in the same direction as the upper driveway cam to give me some coverage down the road as well. My apologies if my assumptions don't match your actual house but all I can see is the garage door pic.

 

[nayr]

thats a much better spot; just make sure that none of your tall vehicles are capable of knocking it down.. my VW Bus wont fit through he garage doors with the tires fully inflated heh.

 

[aristobrat]

I can't see your first pics (links are broken)

Sorry about that. I changed it to just one pic and uploaded here vs. linking to it.

You can do a bit of double duty by putting it over to the side of the garage door a bit though. Angle it across the driveway a bit and you can get a cross angle across the property as well as shoot more or less straight out the driveway. That's what I do with my garage door cam. It overlaps with my front door cam which is angled towards the garage.

I like that thought, as well as @nayr's "idiots will likely hide in the center aisle" thought. I'll probably end up doing a camera at my original location (for a general cross-angle view of the property), and another camera at the location marked in the second picture (for a clear shot straight up that aisle).

thats a much better spot; just make sure that none of your tall vehicles are capable of knocking it down.. my VW Bus wont fit through he garage doors with the tires fully inflated heh.

I feel you there, same deal at my old house with my Wrangler! This house came with a taller garage door, so it fits, but yeah, watch my hi-lift jack smack the camera when I'm not paying attention. LOL