Camera on great horned owl nest

Terri Underhill said:
UPS just dropped off my camera! My Bailey boy always wants to be in the picture. He thinks the box is for him to play in. Silly cat, but he is right ;) Oh happy day :) And it actually says Dahua on the box! How cool is that ! I have three hours of sunlight. I wish I had the sd card already.
I have another question about mounting the camera on the bracket. Can I turn the camera a bit to the left before attaching it to the bracket since the nest is a bit to the left? Or is the camera able to turn all the way to the left on its own. I sure hope there won't be an issue with the camera aiming up a bit. Can ya'll tell by looking at my photo in the previous message if I'll have an issue with the mounting angle?
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You'll want to keep the mounting bracket level so the camera hangs plumb to the ground otherwise the image will look like it's going up or down as you pan.

It's a good idea to play with it a bit indoors before you try to mount. Given your picture where it looks like your arm has 2 elbows, I'd consider hiring someone to mount it and/or renting a lift.
 
I'd suggest you buy your own mounting hardware (anchors/screws) and don't try to use what's included with the camera mount.

Which model of cameras did you buy? With most of their PTZs the mounting bracket isn't included. If you bought the DH-SD49225T-HN, it includes a mounting bracket.
 
looney2ns said:
This would be one reason to record the camera, as you can't sit and watch it 24/7. So absolutely you will miss activity.
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I did order a sd card and it arrives tomorrow. I have never used an sd card in a ip camera. I hope it isn't complicated to set up. I have never set any alarms or triggers on my past cameras either. Maybe that is why I have never had any problems. After the initial setup I just let them run and watch them :) The more settings I use the higher chance of something not working right because I don't know what I am doing :( I have come to the conclusion I'm a slow learner in my old age and actually do better if the directions have good pictures I can follow. It is easy to get lost and get intimidated with the terminology. I'm the same way at a restaurant, I LOVE a menu that has pictures so I can just point and say, I want that :) I think all of the above is a pretty good sign that I am getting old.
 
I realize I need to mount the camera level. I just thought there might be an issue since my view is to the left not straight ahead and it's also slightly up above the camera. Which is the opposite of what most people try to view. Will it only tilt up 15 degrees or what? My camera is model SD49225T-HN 2MP 25x Starlight IR PTZ Network Camera. I have the two bolts I bought and used with the sibell. If the diameter of the hole is the same I'd like to use them with the dahua. The bolts are plenty long ( 5 or6" ) and go all the way through the brick. My sibell didn't come with an adapter either. We have a container full of adapters from routers, modems and old network cameras and other electronics. They are anywhere from 3 amp to 8 amp.
 
Yes upward tilt is limited to 15 degrees above horizontal. As far as powering the camera, I suggest using a PoE+ (802.3at) injector or switch.
What kind of ethernet cable did you run? Was is cable you had to terminate (put the ends on the cable) or were the ends already on the cable.
** Some preterminated cable uses unusually small wires and that can be trouble **
 
So can anyone here tell me if the nest is more than 15 degrees above the camera. I would hate to drill another hole and have it not be able to see my little owlet.
Yes I have a 100 ft cable with the clip already attached. What will it say on the cable for me to know if it isn't good enough. My panasonic camera is using poe. For right now I'm just going to run it to my router.
My owlet is getting really big!
Owl Cam « Okie Bird Cam Blog
 
Terri Underhill said:
Yes I have a 100 ft cable with the clip already attached. What will it say on the cable for me to know if it isn't good enough.
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The main thing to look for would be the wire gauge (AWG). Higher numbers are smaller, hopefully the cable is 23 or 24 AWG. This should be printed on the cable jacket. Where'd you buy the cable from / do you have a link?

Terri Underhill said:
For right now I'm just going to run it to my router.
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If you don't use PoE+ to power it, you'd need a different cable to supply power and a power supply. What are you using to supply PoE to your panasonic camera?
Terri Underhill said:
So can anyone here tell me if the nest is more than 15 degrees above the camera. I would hate to drill another hole and have it not be able to see my little owlet.
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You'd need a bunch of measurements to figure that out: Distance between camera and nest, height of nest, and height of camera lens. You could also attempt to use a protractor or angle guide and protractor once you're back on the ground to figure out the angle the current cameras is at. If you mount the PTZ in the exact same spot, it will end up lower because the camera and mount are significantly taller.

The safest thing to do would be to mount the camera as high as possible on that part of your house. It's easier to drill mortar than brick, so try to put as many of the holes as possible in the mortar.
 
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I had planned on hooking up the dahua the same way the sibell is hooked up. I think I have cat 5 cable. I'll look and see what is written on it. I bought it about 5 years ago. Not at Amazon. It was someplace where everyone buys cable when not at amazon. I'll see if I can find it in my favorites. It is hailing right now but tomorrow I'll do some measuring. I thought I measured the distance from the house to the tree and came up with 32 feet. And I should be able to measure the ladder rungs on the tree and get a measurement of how high the nest is. I'll see if I can come up with the measurement for the height of the camera on the house. I should be able to count bricks and figure joints. I think the dahua camera will be three bricks higher. And yes I did drill through the mortar but with a 1" bit it bites into a bricks on each side. I hope you can tell me what I need to know once I get the LxWxH. My poor little owl needs an umbrella :(
Thanks for your time Tangent.
Terri
Owl Cam « Okie Bird Cam Blog
 
If you use un-terminated cable you don't need as large of a hole. You put the cable end on yourself, which isn't that fun up on a ladder but beats drilling a 1" hole in brick. Up on a ladder in not the place to learn how to to this / practice doing it.
monopice is a popular source for cables.

Hopefully your bucket has some drain holes.
 
tangent said:
If you use un-terminated cable you don't need as large of a hole. You put the cable end on yourself, which isn't that fun up on a ladder but beats drilling a 1" hole in brick. Up on a ladder in not the place to learn how to to this / practice doing it.
monopice is a popular source for cables.

Hopefully your bucket has some drain holes.
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I just found my info on my cable and it was monoprice. Of course I see you new that already. The cable has lots of writing on it. It says cat5e, 24 awg, patch cable, verified ISO/IEC E18860.. I thought about buying what I call a crimper like I use to use on the phone lines to plug the line into the wall and the phone but I was afraid to order a cheap one online for fear it might not hold well.. And I hated to spend 40 bucks at home depot, best buy or lowes for something I'd never use again..I wasn't worried about the cat5 cable it was the plug that the cat 5 plugged into. So you are saying all the cables can stay dry within the bracket and I'd only need to pull the adapter cable and cat5 through the hole from the attic? I noticed it had a bracket hanger like they have on a ceiling fan. That would be much easier to only run the cable wire and the adapter wire from the attic and into the bracket. Now that I think about it I believe my panasonic ptz had a hanger for easier wiring. I didn't have any problems doing it myself, but that was 10 years ago. What size mortar bit do I need for the cat5 to pull through from the attic? If it's a 1/2" bit than I know I can do it with my small cordless drill. It was cutting through the brick that made it problematic. I won't take my sibell down until I get the dahua mounted. I think my brother-in-law can tell me what the camera angle will be. He's an electrical engineer and a whiz with numbers. I'll ask him tomorrow.
So what do I need to do about the micro sdxc card ? Do I format it in the camera or in my computer?
I'll have to see what the roof is like tomorrow after all this rain. I don't have asphalt shingles and my roof is slicker than snot when it's wet.

Yes I do have at least ten 1" drainage holes in the bottom of the barrel and even more along the sides. I even put a few peak holes around the top edge as well so they can peak out without anyone knowing. I didn't want them to feel trapped since it is so deep.
I am excited about this project now and can't wait to get the dahua camera hooked up. From what I have read here the view at night should be better too. I hope my friend doesn't have issues getting it on my web page.
thank sooo much! I am feeling better about this already. Terri
Owl Cam « Okie Bird Cam Blog
 
It's relatively easy geometry / trig that any high school grad would be expected to do today. Apologies for the drawing but it's the best you're going to get this time of day.


upload_2019-4-18_0-1-30.png
All you really need to know is how much the nest is above a level line from the camera and the distance from the camera to the nest.
You can use the calculator I linked above if you don't want to do it. To solve for the green line at an upward angle of 15 degrees, it's just :
tangent(15 degrees) * length of blue line. In other words 0.268 * length of blue line. You could probably sight a level line without measuring up from the ground In this example you're just solving for how high the maximum upward tilt is (green line), you'd need to think about where the nest is relative to that.
Terri Underhill said:
So you are saying all the cables can stay dry within the bracket and I'd only need to pull the adapter cable and cat5 through the hole from the attic? I noticed it had a bracket hanger like they have on a ceiling fan. That would be much easier to only run the cable wire and the adapter wire from the attic and into the bracket. Now that I think about it I believe my panasonic ptz had a hanger for easier wiring. I didn't have any problems doing it myself, but that was 10 years ago.
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Yes you can keep the other cables in the bracket, but it's a good idea to wrap some self sealing waterproof tape on them and put dielectric grease in the network connector before you plug the cable in.

There's a good chance your brother in law has a cable crimper and knows how to crimp rj-45 connectors, but he may not.
orange-white, orange, green-white, blue, blue-white, green, brown-white, brown; tab down.

Your cable is fine. Strongly suggest ordering one of the PoE switches I l inked above if you don't already have an 802.3at switch.
 
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Is that spire or spike on your roof part of a lightning protection system?
 
Tangent,
It has been a few years since I graduated from high school and you know what they say, if you don't use it, you lose it. It has been lost for so many years I could never find it :( I should have never started using a calculator. I used to be able to figure problems in my head but now I am so visual I have to write everything down.

I think I might have a laser level somewhere. Our land is so sloped I thought it would be to complicated to figure out. It just seems like the sibell camera should be able to tell me what the angle or pitch it sees.
I'll see what I can get done tomorrow. I don't know when my friend will have time to get it streaming on my website. My brother-in-law worked for an oil company. He retired last year and now he golfs every day.

In the technical specs of my dahua under angle of view it says, H: 62.8 degrees~2.6 degrees whatever that means.
thank you for your time!
Terri
 
tangent said:
Is that spire or spike on your roof part of a lightning protection system?
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It's not grounded so I guess it is ornamental. Our roof is pretty steep. We had to add roof guards cause when the snow would slide it would leave a five foot heap on the ground,blocking off the garage door and back doors. It is better for the environment and 100% recyclable. If it is ever replaced they will deliver a dumpster to put it in and recycle it for free. Our world has become disposable. Everything goes to the dump.
 
hi Terri
Wow things have moved on a bit since i went to bed last night a new camera. it's a good choice you won't be disappointed. being in the UK i'm 6 hours in front of you. i cant view the owls this morning its saying camera offline. it looks like your planning on putting the new camera were the sibell is. is this going to be the best place for it. when the owlet leaves the nest that could be in the next week or so it will move onto the branches and when able to fly move away maybe 2 or 3 weeks time will they be other wild life that you can see or is the best place to put the camera were the other cams are just a thought. before you fix the camera in position as Tangent suggests fit the SD card plug the camera into your router power the camera up and play around with it in your house set it up indoors first so that when you do fix it outside you know everything works ok. Good luck with everything,,
 
jon2 said:
hi Terri
Wow things have moved on a bit since i went to bed last night a new camera. it's a good choice you won't be disappointed. being in the UK i'm 6 hours in front of you. i cant view the owls this morning its saying camera offline. it looks like your planning on putting the new camera were the sibell is. is this going to be the best place for it. when the owlet leaves the nest that could be in the next week or so it will move onto the branches and when able to fly move away maybe 2 or 3 weeks time will they be other wildlife that you can see or is the best place to put the camera were the other cams are just a thought. before you fix the camera in position as Tangent suggests fit the SD card plug the camera into your router power the camera up and play around with it in your house set it up indoors first so that when you do fix it outside you know everything works ok. Good luck with everything,,
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Here's what has happened. We had a hail storm last night and about 10:00 last night I lost connection to the internet for all three cameras. (unbeknownst to me at the time) I called my girlfriend today and she told me to unplug my router and plug it back in. No joy. So I went outside with a blow dryer to check the outlets for the foscam and panasonic and electric was fine. When I came back into the house my girlfriend said my panasonic (poe deer cam) was back on line. I can watch the deer cam live but I still can't see my deer cam on my web page. So I tried unplugging the cable on the hub that the cameras are plugged into and I still don't have an internet connection to the sibell or the foscam or the panasonic. I can watch my owlcam and my panasonic live but it isn't going out to the internet on my web page.
Can anyone suggest something to try. I can't get my new dahua working until my present cameras are working online. My husband's PC is plugged into the hub as well and I can get on the internet from his PC so I don't think it's a hub issue I can't watch my foscam live because of that plugin problem with chrome. We didn't have lightning and I didn't lose electricity last night either. I am baffled. Can anyone suggest something to try please? My girlfriend can't come by until after 5:00 today. But it looks like she will end up spending all her time with my issues and not have time to see if my dahua will work :(
Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. THANK YOU in advance.
Terri
 
tangent said:
The simplest way to see way 15 degrees of upward tilt looks like would be to get a clinometer and from the location of the camera lens point it at the nest and read the angle.

If you really wanted or needed to mount the camera higher you could always get a PFB303S | Dahua Technology + PFA111 | Dahua Technology adapter
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I hope this doesn't sound horribly stupid but I noticed google play has a clinometer app. Would that work for my phone?
I have looked at the extension for the dahua camera and it would no doubt become a perch for every nesting bird in my yard. Meaning it would be covered with white wash quickly unfortunately. So far I have been pleasantly surprised that the stench from the carrion hasn't been bad. And I haven't found any owl pellets laying around either.

Terri
 
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