Camera placement question

[ramdaspadhye]

New to the forums. Been doing TONS of reading and have a specific question about my camera placement. Attached is an aerial of my house and property (mostly).

I have flood lights on both the northeast and southeast corners of the house and also northwest and southwest corners of the house. The northern protruding section of house is a covered patio (with a door) and the southern portion where the sidewalk ends "into the house" has a 5x12' "porch" that is covered.

All eaves are approx 10' give or take above ground level. The tree line east of my driveway, the mowed section to the north to the tree line, and the tree line immediately to the west of the back yard privacy fence are the property lines.

My question is since I have the flood lights, where would you guys suggest placing cameras to get the best views of the property? The floods are literally at the corner so I can turn them in whatever direction would be best.

Thank you!

- Chris

 

[samplenhold]

Welcome Chris to the forum.

Really the best/only way to answer that question is to mount a cam on a test rig and move it around to see the coverage.

One thing you do not state in your post is 'what are you trying to achieve'? Are you looking to get face shots of folks at your door(s)? Are you just interested in getting an expansive view of the property? How may cams are you going to use?

See test rig photo. Some use a bucket with rocks or sand.

 

[mat200]

New to the forums. Been doing TONS of reading and have a specific question about my camera placement. Attached is an aerial of my house and property (mostly).

I have flood lights on both the northeast and southeast corners of the house and also northwest and southwest corners of the house. The northern protruding section of house is a covered patio (with a door) and the southern portion where the sidewalk ends "into the house" has a 5x12' "porch" that is covered.

All eaves are approx 10' give or take above ground level. The tree line east of my driveway, the mowed section to the north to the tree line, and the tree line immediately to the west of the back yard privacy fence are the property lines.

My question is since I have the flood lights, where would you guys suggest placing cameras to get the best views of the property? The floods are literally at the corner so I can turn them in whatever direction would be best.

Thank you!

- Chris

Welcome Chris @ramdaspadhye

What do you want to accomplish with a security camera system?

Recommend starting with one camera and learning a bit more first before jumping completely in on a system.

Where is your mailbox?

I would probably trench out to the mailbox if it is on the road and place 2 pvc conduits in that trench ( one for power, one for cat6/5e data ) and setup a couple of cameras over the mailbox .. also would run an alarm there of some sort on the mailbox ..

 

[sebastiantombs]

Basic question, where's the north pointing arrow?

 

[ramdaspadhye]

North is up in this illustration. Sorry for the lack of clarification.

My mailbox is approx 800 feet from my house and I'm ok with not having a camera on it.

General surveillance, making out people and vehicles that get close (~50 ft) to the house. My neighbor on the east side is being petty and built a 10' chain link fence with privacy screen attached, so I'll be dropping a 30ft pole in the back yard with a ptz on it eventually. The I have (2) 5422's ordered from Andy (Empire) to start out with. 2.8mm so they'll probably cover the front and rear entry.

Any and all suggestions are accepted! I look forward to learning more hopefully with your help!

Thanks!

- Chris

 

[sebastiantombs]

2.8mm is kind of a wide over view lens and not good for identification unless it's a short range, as in 15 feet maximum. That also assumes a good angle with the camera no higher than seven or seven and a half feet.

The best way to determine lens size is to buy a varifocal camera and use a test rig at each proposed camera location. Test it with someone playing bad guy both day and night, hoodie or ballcap included to see if you can actually get a good ID shot. The varifocal lets you zoom in, optically, to get the best focal length. The zoom level is easily converted into a focal length with this calculator -

Focal Length Calculator

Focal Length Calculator

Calculate the focal point of a camera to help determine the best size lens to order. Save & view your results later.

ipcamtalk.com

 

[ramdaspadhye]

Excellent. Thanks for the info.

With regards to lighting direction, do you have any recommendations with reference to cameras and flood light pollution?

 

[wittaj]

When you dial in the cameras at night (ie do not run on auto shutter), you will see that flood light pollution isn't a problem.

It is also best to not have them be motion sensor because the camera can get temporarily blinded when they kick on and you lose the money shot of the perp.

 

[sebastiantombs]

More important than floodlight pollution is to get light on the side of the target that is approaching the camera That means lighting located either behind or fairly adjacent to the camera and facing the same direction. This applies to visible floodlights and to auxiliary IR illuminators.

 

[wittaj]

You need to identify the areas you want to cover and pick a camera designed to cover that distance. In some instances, it may be a 2MP or 4MP that is the right camera. Unless you go to a PTZ, a 4K camera to get clean IDENTIFY captures at a distance is not on the market yet...

To identify someone with the wide-angle 2.8mm lens that most people opt for (and what is in most kits), someone would have to be within 13 feet of the camera, but realistically within 10 feet after you dial it in to eliminate motion blur at night.



My neighbor was bragging to me how he only needed his four 2.8mm fixed lens cams to see his entire property and the street and his whole backyard. His car was sitting in the driveway practically touching the garage door and his video quality was useless to ID the perp not even 10 feet away. Meanwhile my 2MP varifocal optically zoomed in to the public sidewalk provided the money shot to the police to get my neighbors all their stuff back. Nobody else had video that could provide anything useful, other than what time this motion blur ghost was at their car. That neighbor with the the 2.8mm 4k cams started to replace with 2MP models based on what he saw my do compared to his.

Here are my general distance recommendations, but switch out the Dahua 5442 series camera to the equivalent 2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor or equivalent Hikvision works as well.

• 5442 fixed lens 2.8mm - anything within 10 feet of camera OR as an overview camera
• 5442 ZE - varifocal - distances up to 40-50 feet (personally I wouldn't go past the 30 foot range but I like things closer)
• 5442 Z4E - anything up to 80-100 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 60 feet but I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - anything from 80 feet to almost 200 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 150 feet because I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - for a license plate cam that you would angle up the street to get plates up to about 175 feet away, or up to 220 with additional IR.
• 49225 PTZ - great PTZ and in conjunction with an NVR or Blue Iris and the cameras above that you can use as spotter cams to point the PTZ to the correct location to compliment the fixed cams.

You need to get the correct camera for the area trying to be covered. A wide angle 2.8mm to IDENTIFY someone 40 feet away is the wrong camera regardless of how good the camera is. A 2.8mm camera to IDENTIFY someone within 10 feet is a good choice OR it is an overview camera to see something happened but not be able to identify who.

One camera cannot be the be all, see all. Each one is selected for covering a specific area. Most of us here have different brands and types, from fixed cams, to varifocals, to PTZs, each one selected for it's primary purpose and to utilize the strength of that particular camera.

 

[ramdaspadhye]

Awesome! I will definitely try that! I was worried with the lights pointing around the camera if it would effect it. No the lights won't be pointed directly at it but wasn't sure if light crossing the path would effect it much. Thanks so much