Green hat looking for some recommendations.

[Shotglasspeppa]

After lurking for a while I figured it was time to make my first post. I'm looking for some turret style camera recommendations for my driveway. They will be mounted in the soffits using PFA130 junction boxes where the arrows are in the picture and will be PoE as I have Cat6 drops at each mounting location. They'll be positioned slightly diagonally to provide reasonable coverage across the driveway and in to the street.

The cameras will be about 10ft off of the ground. There are pot lights in the soffit that are on timers to run nightly. That being said the cameras would be exposed to this light. The street is about 35 feet away from where the cameras will be mounted. I also live in Canada and where I am temps can get as low as - 40C. There are street lights but they aren't always on (new subdivision, not sure why). I would like to be able to read licence plates if possible and motion detection would be nice too.

I've read enough to know the 2mp Starlight cameras are the go to for many people but I'm looking for something with higher resolution. What would be considered a newer version or step up compared to the 2mp Starlight. There will also be some daytime footage that will be of use to me.

Thanks

 

[sebastiantombs]

Ten feet is kind of on the high side but with the brick I can see why the soffet mount. The "go to" camera at the moment is the Dahua 5442 series. 4MP with a 1/1.8" sensor and excellent night vision. Hikvision has a similar line of cameras. At the moment, only fixed focal lengths are available, but a varifocal should be available around the middle, or end, of the month, June.

 

[Shotglasspeppa]

Ten feet is kind of on the high side but with the brick I can see why the soffet mount. The "go to" camera at the moment is the Dahua 5442 series. 4MP with a 1/1.8" sensor and excellent night vision. Hikvision has a similar line of cameras. At the moment, only fixed focal lengths are available, but a varifocal should be available around the middle, or end, of the month, June.

I just measured, it's 9ft. After the junction box and the camera mounted probably closer to 8.5ft. I need a camera for the backyard as well, placed at a similar height so I might grab a 5442 fixed for now as I don't have a massive yard and that will allow me to tinker with it and learn BI. I'll wait for the variable to be released and for some reviews and order a couple for the front at a later date.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I would suggest a camera on both side, not just one. Just one will leave too big a blind spot on the opposite side. Remember, as looney2nes always says, you want to know who did it, not just what happened.

 

[Shotglasspeppa]

There's only 1 way into my yard. I have a nest hello camera that covers it from down low and this will cover it from above. That being said I will have 4 cameras that cover the way into the yard.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I meant the driveway cameras.

 

[Shotglasspeppa]

There are 2 driveway cameras, 1 where each of the arrows are pointing.

 

[samplenhold]

Even 9 feet is high. Will you have cars in the driveway or will they be in your garage? If you have a car in the driveway, nine feet high will give a good shot of the top of their head but it will be hit or miss on getting a shot of a face good enough for an ID. Since the driveway slopes away from the house, as a person gets closer to the cams, they will appear to be well below them. If you have to get one of the 5442 fixed lens cameras, it can be difficult to know which cam to get. I am currently replacing one of my 5231 varifocals with a 5442 6mm fixed turret.

The shot on the left is from the current installed Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-ZE (2MP on a 1/2.8" sensor). The other two are from the Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS (4mp on a 1/1.8" sensor), with the center cam having a 2.8 mm fixed lens and the right cam having a 6mm fixed lens. While the 2.8mm lens yields a fine image, it is not zoomed in enough to get a good face shot. These shots are taken at night and there are coach lights on the garage and a street light to the right of the driveway.



You could consider attaching your cams to the brick at about 6 feet off ground.

The shot below was captured back in April of a door checker that was hiding from a car traveling down the street. This pic was posted to the Police's FB page and someone ID'd him and he was arrested.



Another point: you will NOT get LPR from these cameras. The angle will be too high facing the street. The only plate caps you can expect would be if someone pulls into your drive. For LPR you need a dedicated cam that is focused on the street at the proper angle and FOV.

 

[CCTVCam]

The brick shouldn't be a problem. Just drill a hole straight through and run the cable straight up the wall on the inside to the roof. In fact better still, drill the hole through the cement line, that way if you ever remove the cameras, you can simply fill the cement hole with cement for a perfect match. Cable clipped it will look neat inside the garage and outside no cable will be visible at all. If you don't like seeing the cable in the garage, you can use trunking. You can get the cable in the corner by drilling from the inside out. Only warning here, let the bit do the work. Don't apply pressure otherwise you might spall the brick face off on the outside. Same applies drilling inwards but a spalled brick is less noticeable here. You can replace a spalled brick but it's all hassle than can be avoided with a light touch and patience. Going through the cement should be easy compared to brick. Water ingress should be non existent but if worried fill the cable hole with some brown silicone when you're finished. Again you won't see it from the outside as it will be behind the junction box. As for mounting a camera each side, classic setup but only if they point in such a way that they cross and cover each other. That might fox your aim of pointing them into the street as the likely angle will be too acute to see right down the drive. You might also hit privacy issues given the close proximity of your neighbours.

How about 3 cameras at the front? Possible options :

1. One by the front door (left hand side looking towards the house) pointing out covering the side of the garage and towards the street. A 2nd camera on the same side of the garage at the end at 6.5-7 feet pointing straight out down the drive towards the road giving the road coverage you wanted (and covered by the front door camera) and a 3rd camera on the front of the garage pointing down and across covering the garage door area and also capturing anyone trying to go down the the far side. You might capture some of your neighbours garden with this but pointed down it shouldn't encroach on their house and should allow you to protect a car on the drive depending on the lens chosen.

2. One by the front door (left hand side looking towards the house) pointing out covering the side of the garage and towards the street. A 2nd camera on the same side of the garage at the end at 6.5-7 feet pointing down and across covering the garage and the the 3rd camera, placed on the far side front pointing down the driveway but slightly back across.

If you're worried about asthetics, I believe some on here have sprayed cameras brown to better match brick before or hidden them in decorative objects.

 

[Shotglasspeppa]

Thanks for the replies folks. I really appreciate you taking the time to write out such thorough responses. We usually park in the garage and on the driveway. My work truck is too big to fit in the garage. We had an 8ft tall garage door installed which is why the soffits are at 9ft. Multiple cameras up across the garage is possible as I have 2 junction boxes, each with 2 separate cat6 lines. I also have 2 Junction boxes (4 lines)at the front door, 1 for a wedge for facial recognition and 1 above the front door to shoot down the walk way and toward the street. There's also a nest hello doorbell installed here which has worked surprisingly better than I had expected.

License plates are more of a want than a need. While drilling in the brick or mortar and running the wire down the wall is achievable, it's not wife approved, or HOA approved at that, so they must go in the soffits. I think I will wait for a review on the 5442 variable focus version to be reviewed then maybe order up one of those and play around with placement, then decide exactly how many cameras I'll need and where exactly they should be placed.

I've attached a couple of more pics of the house for ideas.

 

[spile]

My setting is very similar to yours. Mounting a turret onto a upvc soffit pointing diagonally across a front door but not as high as yours. I went for an Amcrest IP5M-T1179EW-36MM for front.