Cameras on 6 foot light post?

[Plasman]

I'm wondering if this idea might work. Physical security for the camera aside, would a Hik turret camera at about 5 feet give me a good enough image of my drive and house entry from the street? I'd be covering about 75 feet looking back at my drive/house.

 

[nayr]

light posts tend to be wobbly in wind, and that will destroy your night image.. you'd want to ensure its nice and sturdy, solid as a rock.

75ft is a long way to see, what optics and how far away are you hoping to ID someone? is it going to be near a choke point so you get good close up shots as people pass by?

 

[Plasman]

Thanks. I was going to see if I could use a a 4 or 8mm Hik 2335-i. What do you think? There is a 20 foot wide drive area where anyone would need to pass.

 

[nayr]

if the post is set back far enough from the traffic I'd say the 8mm, but its still only got an ID range out to 30ft so as long as thats within your driveway area it'd be workable.. now getting enough light/IR to see out the rest of the 75ft for basic overview will be a trick in its own (hint it will require external illumination)

http://ipvm.com/calculator

 

[Plasman]

That is a great link. Thanks. After installing the lamp post, I will try both the 4mm and 8mm and see what I find.

 

[Kawboy12R]

It'll probably be sturdy enough, although I expect you might get some sway in a stiff breeze. That'll probably set off your motion alerts unnecessarily in really gusty conditions, but if you know in advance and haven't installed the pole yet you can take a bit extra care to avoid shaking/swaying. Some higher end Hiks have anti-shake compensation in the firmware that you can turn on for cams stuck on actual poles (long pipes). Not sure how far down the camera line that feature goes (don't remember seeing it in the cheapo 3345-I firmware but it's in the 4X26 Darkfighter firmware), but I bet it's more useful on cams mounted on long pipes than short stiff poles like the one in your pic so I wouldn't bother popping big bucks just for that feature.

If it's staring back at the house you might consider lawn floodlights, say 1/3 of the way back to the house from the camera pointed at the house instead of house-mounted floods for extra light. They don't give good results staring into floodlights. Also, the cam should preferably be mounted a bit over the roof level of any cars routinely parked in the driveway or you won't see much on the far side of the cars. 5' might be cutting it close to being too low if you depend on the view behind the parked vehicle. That's nothing that a cam mounted on the house pointed out won't solve, but then you have to decide which way to point your floodlights- help the house cam, hurt the lamp cam.

It might require some experimentation. Floods mounted high on the house out of direct view of the lamp cam wouldn't blind the lamp cam but would throw some shade on any detail it might see. Best solution is cams on the house pointed out with additional lights pointed out. Lamp cam is a good idea but I'd point a camoflaged lampcam outwards in addition to house-mounted cams unless there's part of the cam-on-the-lamp scenario that I'm not seeing from this side of the screen.

 

[Plasman]

I have the lamp post being installed tomorrow. I placed a 4x4 in the spot and mounted a Hikvision 2235i with 2.8 lens up at 5 feet.

As a total noob, can I get some opinions on my image below? The camera needs to be tilted down a bit to get the full entry/driveway but I wonder about:
Is this too broad a shot to be of any value?
Should I bother trying to include the street?
Would 2 cameras be better? I have 2 Cat6 cables run in the underground conduit.

 

[Kawboy12R]

This is the dilemma of camera placement and lens choice, particularly with a large yard to cover. What job do you want it to do? It's great for showing what's going on but pretty wide angle for detail and facial ID shots. You should be able to get daytime plates and decent face shots of pedestrians on the driveway in addition to a good overview with your current placement though. I'd probably keep the view of the street in the shot unless there's something valuable or a place of interest to the right of that FOV rather than just lawn or a bit more driveway.

And two cameras are always better than one. If you're on a dead-end street, put a 12mm cam there and point it towards where the traffic has to come from. If not, then a 4 or 6mm and point it in the opposite direction from the one that's on there. Having an unhidden cam out near the street pointing away from your house might annoy some neighbours though. Angling the current 2.8 to the left a bit and adding a 6mm pointing up the drive towards the house might be better if you're worried about that. Perfect camera placement is always more obvious when watching where the crooks travelled after they cause trouble.

Apart from not being a perfect location for an end of driveway light, a better location for a camera post might be 25' or so to the right of that shot on the same side of the drive and closer to the house. One cam towards the horse paddock, house, etc and the other pointing straight out the driveway. That cam would definitely give better shots of folks coming and going rather than mostly side-on while moving.

 

[Plasman]

Thanks very much for the ideas. I'm going to try to hide the lamppost cameras a bit with a house number plate provided it doesn't cause glare or IR reflections back to the lens. I'm going to try two cameras at the lamppost tomorrow before drilling

 

[Plasman]

I'm making progress. I've picked two 4mm cameras which can be mounted on the back of the lamp post to conceal them from the street. Can I mount them one on top of another like this? Or will they interact in some way?

 

[nayr]

if they are looking at the same area, the combined IR COULD be too much and cause over-exposed images up close.. you'd have to check and see, if they are looking at different areas then it should not be a problem really.. other than spiders/bugs potentially being attracted to so much IR.

all that moulding/trim could be prime spider-web material.. try not to have anything extend further out than the lens that they can attach webs too.. or they will.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I can't say for sure but you might get some IR reflection at night from either the other cam or the protruding trim with them so close to each other and those white bulges. Less chance of that if each cam is mounted in the center and maybe have a corner of the post pointed at the street so they're both half behind the post. Turrets are less prone to that kind of reflection than domes and aren't nearly as bothered by rain and dirt film when the IR is on. Experimentation might be required, particularly if you'll be pointing the lens near the extreme point of allowable adjustment. Internal IR interference is more likely when some of them are blocked by the base of the dome.

 

[Plasman]

Here is a quick pic of the install. You might have to blow it up to see the 2 cameras. The nice thing is the cameras can't be seen from much of the street. I used two 4mm cams and split the panorama between them.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Awesome. Looks good. Now maybe put a white birdhouse on the top with a hidden cam tuned for license plates...

 

[Plasman]

Thanks again. The daytime and nighttime performance was good yesterday without any noticeable interaction. The light from the lamp post itself and my landscape lighting gives me a reasonable nighttime view - see attached. Now I need to learn the ropes with BI as I'm getting too many triggered emails. I lowered the sensitivity in BI but now pedestrians walking up to the house don't trigger. I am also getting emails at night since any headlights or taillights on the street trigger the camera even with sensitivity way down.


.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Try using two setyings for motion detection and your email alerts. I started mine before blue Iris had multiple motion trigger options so I cloned my cams and had the second one set really insensitive and whenever somebody comes to my door it emails me. The normal motion detection just records everything when there's minor motion but doesn't send me any emails so I don't get many false alert emails at all. The latest versions of BI can do the same thing but without cloning the cam.

 

[Plasman]

To wrap up this thread for anyone who may be interested in doing a similar install, here is some info:

See pics below of lamp post from front and from side and the images they capture. I'm happy with the stealthiness from the street after adding a number plate. The number plate does not interfere with day or night images BTW.


Details:
Cameras are Hikvision DS-2CD2335-i 4mm
Lamp Post is a New England Arbors Sturbridge 72" Vinyl Post
Lamp is a Gama Sonic Solar Victorian with replaceable battery. So far, ample usable light lasting all night. Light is cool white and clashes a bit with my warm landscape led lights but not too bad...