Indoor Mid-High Quality PT w/ Night Vision

kappa7 said:
Yes thanks I've already read your great review. But I find that the distortion with the 4mm lens is quite noticeable, much more than with the foscam Fi9826w.
The 2432 should use a M12 lens,I've found here thats it should be possible to buy a generic one: http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36320
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I dont see the distortion, but it even if its there a bit, it seems over to top to mess with the lens for a baby monitor.
 
O M G !

I did not know NCC was selling direct through FunGee ! ;)

But seriously. I guess they have no shame. :hopelessness: At least the images still have his site address in them.
 
Then why are you buying it if distortion is too high? Lens are not changeable as they are glued in, but possible. I did a write-up on how to get to the lens somewhere here. I've done reviews on Foscam as well as other brands and they all have some form of barrel distortion. The few images I gathered on that Foscam, and it has very minimal barrel distortion, I'm impressed. There is plenty of perspective distortion but that's just where they have the camera installed.

Most sellers from China use my review photos, that's why I started putting networkcameracritic on the OSD .
 
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fenderman said:
I dont see the distortion, but it even if its there a bit, it seems over to top to mess with the lens for a baby monitor.
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I'm searching for a good quality cam because it will be used also to allow the grandparents (which live @10000km from here) to see the baby, so I don't want to show a "distorted baby" :)
 
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networkcameracritic said:
Then why are you buying it if distortion is too high? Lens are not changeable as they are glued in, but possible. I did a write-up on how to get to the lens somewhere here. I've done reviews on Foscam as well as other brands and they all have some form of barrel distortion. The few images I gathered on that Foscam, and it has very minimal barrel distortion, I'm impressed. There is plenty of perspective distortion but that's just where they have the camera installed.
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Ah ok didn't know that the lens weren't expected to be changed by the user, plus on the other link I've read that there isn't a standard on the M12 lens and it's not easy to find a compatible one.
It's possible that the foscam has less barrel distortion because it uses a zoom?
 
The barrel distortion I've seen on Foscam was from their non-zoom version, but the PTZ version you shown show little barrel distortion, pretty good. Another camera i get no barrel distortion with is the Mobotix, in my case the D14. Their claim to fame is no moving parts, so no PT or PTZ but the D14 has good image quality, no barrel distortion (at least not the 43mm lens (they go by 35mm equivalents, but basically a 4mm lens), also has audio and PIR motion detect built in but to some it may be considered pricey. Maybe it's because they are not M12 lens. Which brings me to, if lens quality is an issue, ACTi has a cube, with audio, that I believe has interchangeable CS mount lens, and those are much larger and more predictable than M12 lenses.

Update, just checked, it's the ACTi E11 - 14, all have mic built in and CS interchangeable lenses. The E11 is the most affordable, 1MP, the E12 is the 3MP.
 
I saw some sample video of the Mobotix cam (D15) and they are very good, unfortunately also expensive! (my budget is ~200$)
The Acti E series are also not bad, but they miss the wifi connection and IR. I see on this videothat there is some barrel distortion even if they use CS lenses.:
At the moment my favorite choice is the 2432: the image quality (barrel distortion apart) is very good, it doesn't seem to have relevant bugs nor build quality problems and have all the feature that I need.
By the way the audio quality (mic and speaker) is good enough to allow a chat with the remote user? And the IR LEDs are those visible (850nm) or invisible(900nm)?
Thanks
 
Not saying you won't get barrel distortion with the ACTi using the cheap lens it comes with, just saying you have very good CS lens choices available, some costs $10 and easily up to a few hundred, so the quality is up to your budget. For example, we use Fujinon lenses, reasonably priced, good quality.

As for WiFi, I tried that with that camera and to be honest, not that good. I got very choppy video and I was maybe 20' from the router. If you lower the resolution, frame rate and bitrate down, it should be fine with it, but I tried it in my lake house and in my main home, love the camera, but ended up hardwiring it. BTW, does not come with a power supply as it assumes you'll use PoE. You can get a PoE injector for it, $15ish, and use that just for power or get a 12V power supply for less with the correct connector and do it that way, worked both ways for me. The advantage of the PoE injector is if you decide to hardwire, you'll already have the injector. The best cameras I tested for WiFi were Brickcom, very strong radios, but a little pricier than Hikvision but nowhere near Mobotix.
 
Note that some barrel distortion exists with ANY budget camera, especially towards the outside and corners. The eye compensates for that really quick. And some people don't even really notice it ... Just like glare, reflections, etc on glossy computer displays don't bother many people. Or some people aren't bothered by dirty car windshields. Others are bothered the heck out that, like me, but I'm not worried about a bit of distortion on a cam. It is not something that is going to get published in a magazine or broadcast on national TV. It's fancy live webcam. If the distortion bothers the viewer, just center the baby.

And realize that in an indoor setting you will need to pay attention to the Field Of View and size of the room. If you go with 12, or all you will get is a ~20 degree wide cone. How will that work in the room? How will that work out in the long run? Right now the baby is in a crib. Ok. You can hang the camera on the ceiling, or set it on a shelf, and all they see is inside the crib. Then in six months the baby will be crawling, you want to show the grandparents the baby playing, ... well, the camera is too much telephoto and too narrow of a field of view to be useful. On a wider camera. You can always put the camera closer, or bring the subject closer. It doesn't matter much if the baby is moving around.

I have a small indoor 2.8 Foscam PTZ and couldn't be more pleased with it for what it does and its price. Little bit of distortion, maybe, I think it can't be avoided. Since indoor cameras are often used in small places, the PTZ tend to be 2.8 so that they give broad coverage. I think mine's about 90 deg. Not sure. Would need to check.

So you may want to just try an inexpensive foscam or similar PTZ and see how thrilled the grandparents will be!

If you want to verify the degree of image distortion indoors, I'd be willing to set one up in a room and let you login.
 
At the end I've decided to order the DS-2CD2432F-IW and I've found the 6mm version on Aliexpress. The angle with full hd resolution is 49° so not to narrow while the barrel distortion should be better than the 4mm lens.

@networkcameracritic:
About the wifi connection I've seen on others discussion that it should be quite good and much better than the foscam camera. I've seen in the review that the wireless network seen in the configuration menu are 54mbit(wireless g), do you have used a wireless g or n access point for the test?
In my case the router will be about 20ft with 1wall in the middle.

Thanks to everyone for the support!
 
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