Garage Cam placement advice please

[nbstl68]

Would someone please take a look at the attached photo and let me know your thoughts on best camera placement.

I see three possibilities.

1. Above home entry door:
Looking out\down from house entry door.
This would get a direct view coming into the house and an angled \ side view of garage entry from outside on the side of the image, plus a partial view of garage content itself, but not a lot as it would be angled down to focus on entry.

2. Right wall, back corner:
Direct view coming into the garage back door from outside, picks up angle \ view going into house on the side of the image, partial view of garage content itself, but only back wall portion.

3. Right wall, forward corner:
Directed in between house entry and garage entry to cover both.
Picks up forward view coming in from outside and side view entering the house. No garage content view as it faces toward the doors and not out from the doors.


I think my primary concern should be for identifying an intruder breaking into the house, vs. garage content so I'm leaning toward #3.
It would be nice to know if stuff was being stolen from the garage too but none of the locations would give both good full garage coverage and the best chance of intruder identification.

I do not have plans for more than 1 camera in the garage.


Also, in any of these scenarios, given the camera height of about 10-12' up, (a little lower for option #1), what would be a recommended focal length to select?





Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[zero-degrees]

Honestly @nbstl68 IMO you need two cameras to do this properly.

Your first camera needs to be a turret that is placed outside the back door up in the corner. This will cover the back yard/door approach so as someone approaches the back door they are captured. I would then place another turret up above the top left of your house entry door in that corner. This will cover the majority of all your garage and the garage entry door when the door is up (Example you are working in the back yard with the garage open and someone runs up and takes something out of your garage). For this camera you will want another turret and something that has WDR so that when the over head door is open it doesn't wash the scene out. You could put both turrets in side the garage but that is really close to have two IR sources crossing each other - you might have some blinding of the other camera occur so I would advise against it.

You appear to be dealing in very tight places so without seeing it or knowing distances/measurements I would say 2.8/3mm for both of these. I'm not a huge fan of 2.8/3mm lens however these are larger yet tight spaces and a 4mm may restrict you to much.

Here are two links to some example cameras/lens measurements and examples of the areas they are mounted in and output image.
This one has a similar situation where I wanted to capture garage overhead/activity but also the outside side door
HIKVision & LTS 3 & 4mp Camera review/example

Here is another one
LTS 2MP Dome & Turret install

Good Luck

 

[Kawboy12R]

For a 1 cam solution that has the best possibility of catching faces for folks breaking into the house from the garage I'd put a 2.8mm 5' above the garage floor and to the right of the garage door openers. Angle the lens to catch all of the door into the back yard. The 2.8mm lens is to widen the FOV and catch as much of the rest of the garage as possible. 120db or greater WDR would be a big plus for when sun was shining directly in the back door or garage door. The low mounting height is to help defeat hats, hoodies, and looking down. IMHO, above the house entry door is a bit too high because of the steps and it'll be more of a bald spot inspector. The location will put the cam under 6' from anybody entering the house or garage from the rear and still cover most of the garage contents and anybody who steps very far into the garage from the front. Plus, like zero-degrees said, another one outside the back door looking out (probably 3.6mm) and a 6 or 8mm just above face height either just above or to the side of your garage car door presumably looking straight out the driveway. You could always use one or more Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z and dial in the FOV to what you need. Excellent versatile cams. This also work quite nicely but you'll have to pick and choose your lenses instead of having the luxury of varifocal- Aliexpress.com : Buy Dahua IPC HDW4231EM AS 2MP IR Eyeball Network Camera. free DHL shipping from Reliable network camera suppliers on BEC Technology Co.,Ltd

The 4mp HDW4431C-A turrets are a good choice if more than $70/cam seems like a lot of money but they like added light.

 

[Roman]

@nbstl68 is there anyway you can get say a 4mm turret on the other side of the garage that way you can have a view of all 3 access doors (door to the backyard, door to the house, and garage door)? Basically if you are standing in front of the garage door, mount cam on left side of garage (over near where the yellow ladder is pictured)?

 

[zero-degrees]

@nbstl68 is there anyway you can get say a 4mm turret on the other side of the garage that way you can have a view of all 3 access doors (door to the backyard, door to the house, and garage door)? Basically if you are standing in front of the garage door, mount cam on left side of garage (over near where the yellow ladder is pictured)?

A 4mm anywhere in that garage would be very very very hard pressed to cover all 3 doors (overhead, backdoor, house door).

 

[Roman]

A 4mm anywhere in that garage would be very very very hard pressed to cover all 3 doors (overhead, backdoor, house door).

Without knowing the "exact" dimensions of the garage it's really hard to say...I have a 4mm in my garage and I see both garage doors and my personnel door right next to it. So a 4mm can work depending on layout....I find that a 2.8 is way to wide and gives you limited viewing distance at night.

 

[zero-degrees]

Without knowing the "exact" dimensions of the garage it's really hard to say...I have a 4mm in my garage and I see both garage doors and my personnel door right next to it. So a 4mm can work depending on layout....I find that a 2.8 is way to wide and gives you limited viewing distance at night.

That's why I posted the two links in my first post. It truely shows 2.8mm cameras used in a garage environment. Also a turret should light an entire 2 car garage no problem - even with a 2.8. I'm not a 2.8/3mm lens fan however there are a time and place for them.

This is why I always encourage people to post example pics - simply saying I use X to do X doesn't always help - show the forum so users can say "that's almost exactly what I have, this will be perfect". Again, This is why when I have time/opportunity to throw a few install pics together I do.

 

[nbstl68]

Wow, thanks for all the direction.
Sound like I'm really going to have to do multiple cameras eventually to do this right.
My garage is a lot bigger than that photo suggests as it is over-sized 3 car, so fairly long.
Maybe a camera in the far left corner looking across the garage from the other direction and out the car entry doors, but it would need a pretty wide angle FOV. I could only get the whole thing in using the wide setting on my Go Pro...not sure what angle FOV that would equate to there or what camera would suffice for coverage and recognition.


I think trying to capture an intruder and content with one camera would do neither well.
My initial priority of course is on that back door, house entry and good facial recognition as that would be the most immediate possible entry point threat IMO vs garage car door entry or viewing contents of the garage.


I agree, maybe one on the outside back door coming in as well.
Think I should place it above the door or on the other wall\soffit looking at the door and down the stairs?

 

[nbstl68]

Fisheye Solution...

Well, I decided to put one decent cam (Dahua 5321Z) inside the garage facing the two entry\exit doors as a choke point but just was not sure how to cover the inside of the garage and windows...It would take a few more cameras.
Then I happened upon a "deal" , (a hundred bucks) for a used American Dynamics Illustra 5MP fisheye and decided to go with that.

It has internally processed de-warping so it gives 6 different camera stream views (4 at a time + fisheye or just fisheye and a spilt de-warped 180 deg view called "ceiling panorama" 1920x1080 max).
So that took care of any multiple camera angle needs!


It is pretty cool and shows me the entire garage corner to corner but that said, there are downsides to the fisheye.
The multiple de-warped video streams are NOT 5MP streams, (960x540 max). They are pretty low resolution with just the fisheye view (shows as a max 1936x1936...that's not 5MP) supposedly being 5MP...and the quality of that is pretty questionable IMO.
Also you have the other usual cons of most fisheye cameras

• The higher quality 5MP fisheye view is, well, a fisheye...kinda useless really for perp identification. They are good for people counting in a mall or for motion trigger notification in general but not sure what else.
• Not going to identify many criminals by a video of the top of their heads unless they have a distinct bald spot or skull tattoo I imagine.
• Break in at night, forget it...No IR. My garage is set up with motion sensor switches so at least the lights come on if someone were to break in so video and a motion alert would work, but the camera has a little bit of an adjust from dark to light time.
• Not sure how they can call it a 5MP camera?
• The 180 deg view looks nice cuts out a huge section directly below the camera...You can almost hide a whole car out of view.

Anyway, what it gives me is motion alert coverage, so while I would probably not know who was in there I'd still be alerted that something was going on or if someone was trying to walk out with my snow blower or motorcycle or power tools and call the cops, (or head in there with my .44? Yeah, probably not the best idea but sounds manly or stupid).
I can check to see if I left a garage or side door open or forgot to take out the trash or be alerted when the cat comes in...or a raccoon when I was expecting a cat....or when a cat climbs to the top of a ladder I forgot to put away and can't figure out how to get back down in the case below.

While it has on board motion capture tools, I use Blue Iris so I can do the usual line cross stuff and such for detection and notifications from any of the camera views and record each separately as desired.

Here are pics of the various views if you are interested since I did not see a lot of sample fisheye stuff here.
These are screen shots from my phone's BI app. The actual video is better quality but not a lot.

While this is still useful to me, I'd never spend full price for one and even kinda wish I'd not spent $100 bucks on it but kind of fun to have.