Camera Selection Advice (Multiple)

[Whiterat]

Howdy,

After a recent spate of car thefts in the area, I figured it's about time to take home security a little more seriously so would like to kindly ask for some suggestions from you knowledgeable folk!
I'm a network architect by trade (engineer in my earlier days) and general all around geek, so no issues in terms of cabling, network, storage, software, etc but cameras are not my forte.

There's 3 areas I'd like to cover:
Front - Doorbell (currently google nest - quite happy to see this go) and a focus on driveway area in front of garage
Side - Side gate, back door, garage side door (currently just a floodlight, no camera)
Rear - Enclosed garden

Front lighting is a bit hit and miss, there is an LED street lamp on the opposite side of the street which provides some light, but would still consider it to be a low light environment.
The side of the house currently has a floodlight which illuminates the backdoor and garage side door.
Rear has no lighting.




So ballpark I've come up with roughly the below:

Doorbell: 70-80° FOV
Front: 120-130° FOV
Side: 160-170° FOV
Rear: 90° FOV

Requirements:
4MP+
Colour nightvision
POE(+) - no Wifi solutions.
Support open standards (RTSP/ONVIF)
Must be able to operate without Internet / requiring cloud BS.

I'd be willing to sacrifice a little on the specs if it meant I could use one brand (except the doorbell perhaps, given limited choice)
I watched a few videos and the Annke NC800 fixed turret (I believe a variant of the Hikvision DS-2CD2387G2 ?) looked brilliant but looks like FOV might not be a great fit without expecting a little more from the doorbell camera.

Any advice / recommendations greatly appreciated!

 

[wittaj]

Welcome!!!

I have said this before in the forum, but it is worth repeating. Do not be sold by some trademarked night color vision (Full Color, ColorVu, Starlight, etc.) that is a marketing ploy in a lot of ways lol. It is simply what a manufacturer wants to claim for low-light performance, but there are so many games that can be played even with the how they report the Lux numbers. They will claim a low lux of 0.0005 for example, but then that is with a wide open iris and a shutter at 1/3 second and an f1.0 - as soon as you have motion in it, it will be crap. You need a shutter of at minimum 1/60 second to reduce a lot of blur from someone walking.

All cameras need light regardless of what any marketing claims. You cannot defy the law of physics. I can make a crap camera look like noon at midnight, but then motion is a blur.

Sensor size, F number, MP, quality of the lens and sensor and software running the cameras are the real determining factors. And then obviously dial each cameras specific software settings to optimize the image and video. A brightness of 50 for example will look different between two different brands, or even the same brand but different cameras.

It is interesting how many of us experience better camera images with the camera LED off, regardless of whether it is a Hik or Dahua! I personally don't think they cast a far enough light to be effective. They are blinding looking at the camera, but do not project enough light out far enough to be effective. I have 3 different cameras with the LED and I do not run any of them on!

Unless you know you have enough ambient light or can live with the camera's white LED on, go with a camera that can see infrared. The full color type cameras cannot see infrared, so you couldn't add external IR later. You can always run a camera with infrared in force color if you have the available light.

But in a completely black situation without any ambient light and without the white LED on, it looks like crap and you cannot add external IR as it won't see it.

I have a Full Color type camera and the LED light on it is a gimmick. It helps for a small diameter circle, but it is no different than going outside at pitch black and turning on your cell phone light - it is bright looking directly at the LED light, but it doesn't spread out and reach very far. Fortunately I have enough ambient light that I do not need the little piddly LED light on and it actually looks worse with it on, but it performs better than my other cameras when tested at the same location. But without some light, a camera with IR capability is the safer bet.


We have many members here from the UK and they purchase Dahua OEM from trusted member @EMPIRETECANDY who will be having a sale in a few weeks. Many of us feel Dahua has a better selection of cameras than Hikvision at the moment (Annke is made by Hikvision).

See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

The cameras in that thread meet your requirements.