Camera Placement for Detect vs Identify - Just Some Thoughts

[H. Swanson]

I have seven new 5442 S3s installed around my house. I have them at varying heights depending on location. Something I've learned over the last month or so since installing them is that I'm definitely more about detection vs identification. Fact is, criminals are going to masked anyway so I want to detect suspicious human activity (via AI) asap so I can take action such wake up and get my gun, turn on lights, call the police, etc.

Knowing this, I would've likely installed a couple of cameras higher than they are so that I would have greater field of view and the cameras couldn't be as easily reached. I'm talking a height of 16ft vs where it is at 9ft.

Anything I'm missing here?

 

[wittaj]

There are way more instances people have posted here or we see on the news where they are not masked or don't attempt to cover their identity. Heck this thread here has very few masked perps in 34 pages of examples.

I assure you once you have been a victim, you will wish you had identify and LPR coverage.

Most of us started with the all-in-one box kits that are cheap and provide that overview only coverage. Then something happened and we improved our coversge.

A well defined system should have a blend of identify cameras and overview coverage. And the 180 camera now makes it very easy to add an overview component.

 

[Holbs]

As I have learned... if you want a video / picture of a face to give to the local authorities so that they have something to arrest or get a warrant for, the perfect angle is level with the face. Once you start going higher, now you have to factor in light shadows, baseball hat, lowering of the head, etc.
During my own security event (tire slasher!), the police were amazed at my Dahua cameras and how they identified the perp, even at night time with a ski mask on (can't hide walking gait, shoulder sway, hair, etc). The Police said they can't do ANYTHING with cameras that are up high, too wide of a angle. Those cameras only DETECT which leads to no arrest or warrant, but might as be Elvis or Bigfoot.
I have 1/2 of my outdoor cameras at 6' height.
I never worry of someone taking a bat to any of my cameras as I see them as taking one for the team.

 

[H. Swanson]

I recognize your points being made. Makes sense.

For me, I’d have to have a ton more cameras to comprehensively identify someone given there is a lot space to cover and a lot of potential entry points. I’m sure if I was robbed I would go down that path. Perhaps I’d do a phase two in the future but for now, I’m pleased with the coverage I have for detection or perhaps some identification

 

[samplenhold]

Most home intrusions are done during daylight when no one is home. If you can't get a face shot, you only know when it happened, which will not give you any help by the police. There is nothing wrong with having overview cams. But having only overview cams could potentially piss you off when something happens and you do not have any shots that can be used to ID someone.

 

[wittaj]

I guess one's point of view depends on when you start the camera journey.

Based on your firsts posts here, it sounds like maybe you didn't start with any type of camera system and dove straight in to the good stuff. As such, it takes a while to get used to the narrow field of view that comes with a varifocal. My neighbor has upgraded to several varifocals but he is still in the "I want to see as much as possible" camp so he has them set to their widest setting and then complains when he can't ID the person that stole mail from his mailbox.

As I mentioned, I started with the four 2.8mm camera box kit system and I was like "I can place one on each corner of the house and see my whole property and the whole neighborhood." A newbie loves the wide angle "I can see the whole neighborhood" of the 2.8mm fixed wide angle lens. I LOVED IT WHEN I PUT IT UP. I could see everything that would be blocked looking out the windows.

And like most NOOB, I put mine up on the 2nd story soffit to maximize the reach of the field of view, which meant the closer someone got to my house, the more I was getting tops of heads.

It is easy to get lured into the "I can see the whole neighborhood" mentality because you are watching it and you see a neighbor go by and you are like "Look at that I can tell that is Heather out walking." and "Yeah I can tell our neighbor 4 down just passed by". Or you watch back the video of you walking around and are like "yeah I can tell that is me...these things are great."

Little do we realize how much WE can identify a KNOWN person just by hair style, clothing, walking pace, gait, etc.

Then one day the door checker comes by. Total stranger. These overview cameras give you totally useless video other than what time the door checking happened.

Then you realize that this wide-angle see the whole neighborhood comes at a cost and that cost is not being able to IDENTIFY who did it. These 2.8mm wide angle cameras are great overview cameras or to IDENTIFY someone within 10 feet of the camera. At 40 feet out you need a different camera.

Even if they are masked, which most have seen isn't the case except for a bank, a good IDENTIFY quality camera can capture their eyes and that can help police make an ID, especially if they are a known perp, especially once you are able to identify those other features as @Holbs pointed out that helped him with his tire slasher. Further they may have tattoos, even on the face, that may be able to be seen even with masks.

Most of us here that have varifocal cameras end up maxing out the zoom over time as we realize how important that identify component is. But we still have a few overview cams to be able to detect and see around.

And that is how we start with 4 or 7 cameras and watch them multiply like rabbits LOL

But we also recognize that some are content with simple overview cameras. In that case, just about any consumer system will do.

 

[bigredfish]

Two things LE can do something with:
Face ID
License plate

it’s good to ALSO have color overview to match vehicle type/color, clothing etc. and potentially see other actions such as breaking into a car.

You need both

 

[H. Swanson]

Based on your firsts posts here, it sounds like maybe you didn't start with any type of camera system and dove straight in to the good stuff. As such, it takes a while to get used to the narrow field of view that comes with a varifocal. My neighbor has upgraded to several varifocals but he is still in the "I want to see as much as possible" camp so he has them set to their widest setting and then complains when he can't ID the person that stole mail from his mailbox.

There's some truth to that. I did follow the advice on this forum to not place my cams too high, which I complied with for the most part. I'm very pleased with the placement actually, I just realized that I like getting quick notifications of human activity around my house even if I can't quite identify who it is in all cases. I'm at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I could see the importance of getting an LPR camera hyper-focused on the ingress/egress to the sac. I live in a very safe neighborhood so I'm not too worried about going crazy, but I recognize all of the points being made. I realize my attitude could change if I was robbed or vandalized. At the end of the day, my level of surveillance is 1000x better than it was.

 

[The Automation Guy]

I'd argue that there is going to be very little gained by increasing the camera mounting height from 8' to 16'. The field of view is going to be nearly the same in the two locations. The only measurable benefit to the high mounting location is that it is going to create a smaller "blind spot" that typically exists close to the camera, but this is effectively nullified because the point of view would be pointing straight down on a subject that close to the camera which won't provide any useful footage. People will argue the higher mounting location provides better long distance views, it is really just a "depth perception" thing without any actual benefit in coverage/footage.

Of course this is dependent on any obstructions that are unique to your situation (landscaping, land contours, etc), but that is really outside the scope of this "generic" discussion.

 

[Ri22o]

I'd argue that there is going to be very little gained by increasing the camera mounting height from 8' to 16'. The field of view is going to be nearly the same in the two locations. The only measurable benefit to the high mounting location is that it is going to create a smaller "blind spot" that typically exists close to the camera, but this is effectively nullified because the point of view would be pointing straight down on a subject that close to the camera which won't provide any useful footage. People will argue the higher mounting location provides better long distance views, it is really just a "depth perception" thing without any actual benefit in coverage/footage.

Of course this is dependent on any obstructions that are unique to your situation (landscaping, land contours, etc), but that is really outside the scope of this "generic" discussion.

These are essentially the same FOV. Left is around 11' and the right is 20'?

Moving the camera down I really only lost visibility of the house fronts across the street. If the roof wasn't in the way you would have about the same scene where it actually matters.



I've also realized I have gone full circle.

I started with wanting to see everything and then learned I needed smaller FOVs and started deploying/changing for this purpose. This took away my ability to see anything at a distance and I have now added back the ability to see more than everything... I wouldn't be able to tell you what someone looked like though, but it helps paint the bigger picture.

 

[looney2ns]

Most newbs make the same mistake, trying to accomplish too much with one particular camera.

Regarding the "safe neighborhoods fantasy" once you put up surveillance cams, you may very well find that there is a lot more going on outside your house than you originally thought. Especially after dark. That was the case here in my neighborhood.
Neighborhoods are safe until their not.

 

[mat200]

Having watched many cctv security camera video captures .. at times getting even images of the shoes a masked perp is wearing has been useful ( example unique enough red Nike ) .. or tattoos on a hand ..


So do not give up on an attempt to get a good ID image ..

In terms of alerts .. look to also get a nice security alarm system ..