Is their better at a reasonable budget ?

Night-Owl

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pop the front cover off with a small flathead screwdriver, remove 4 philips screws, front comes off exposing lens. scrape glue off to unscrew lens, replace with new lens and screw it in till focused the way you like, then re-glue (with superglue or bondic) so it doesn't move again, re-assemble. easy-peazy... as for which lens, the stock 2.8 gives you a very wide FOV ~110degrees, 4mm a bit less maybe 90', 6mm a bit less yet, perhaps 70'... depends on what you need.
Thank you
 

Night-Owl

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Hello All,

Just an update, I have ordered another IPC-B5442E-Z4E from Andy to put it on the edge of the property pointing towards the road at an angle to try and get in as many of the 3 cars as possible. I am thinking as this camera is a beast the IR light from it may even help out the other 2 cameras on the front of the property. This means that I will have 9 cameras with only a 8 camera NVR, so am planning on updating the NVR to a 16 cam version also.
 

EMPIRETECANDY

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Hello All,

Just an update, I have ordered another IPC-B5442E-Z4E from Andy to put it on the edge of the property pointing towards the road at an angle to try and get in as many of the 3 cars as possible. I am thinking as this camera is a beast the IR light from it may even help out the other 2 cameras on the front of the property. This means that I will have 9 cameras with only a 8 camera NVR, so am planning on updating the NVR to a 16 cam version also.
Yes,the 54xx is the most powerful camera we have. The z4e Can have powerful lens, MAIL BOX around 110ft, totaly dark place.
1609839017608.png

1609839048448.png
 

Night-Owl

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I am just trying to get authorisation from the powers that be (the wife) to order a 16 Port 4K NVR and a 8 Port POE switch, I don't use the ports at all on the NVR as all ran by POE switches but need a NVR that can handle up to 16 Channels. :)
 

Night-Owl

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You could also just insert an SD card into the camera, and view both your Lorex and Z4E through an app or SmartPSS.
I purchased a $100 Dahua NVR and continue to use my Lorex NVR for the Lorex cams.
I am thinking of work arounds myself as currently I was going to upgrade the NVR at a cost of £250 and update a switch from 4 to 8 port at a cost of £90 just to add one more camera. I was even thinking to go to Costco and buy a couple of Ring CCTV cams to see if they are any better at catching night images of people on the street. If they was, I could just swap out one Lorex for the Dahua as I already have a Ring backup plan for the doorbell and as Costco is great with returns, I could always take back if no good. I use gDMSS for viewing, so sticking an SD card in would work also I guess. Any idea on size required for approx 14 days of backup ?.
 
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looney2ns

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I am thinking of work arounds myself as currently I was going to upgrade the NVR at a cost of £250 and update a switch from 4 to 8 port at a cost of £90 just to add one more camera. I was even thinking to go to Costco and buy a couple of Ring CCTV cams to see if they are any better at catching night images of people on the street. If they was, I could just swap out one Lorex for the Dahua as I already have a Ring backup plan for the doorbell and as Costco is great with returns, I could always take back if no good. I use gDMSS for viewing, so sticking an SD card in would work also I guess. Any idea on size required for approx 14 days of backup ?.
Blue Iris, just saying.
 

Night-Owl

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Hi All,

Latest update, I bought a managed 8 port Poe Netgear switch GS308EP-100UKS for £89.99 which was as much as I was going to pay for a unmanaged one, so happy with that. My IPC-B5442E-Z4E should be with me soon as so badly needed as have had no crime in my street for many years and in last week 2 incidents :(. This brings me to something I find strange. I have seen from messing about that the best night settings are manual where the best day ones are auto. Which means I need to handle accordingly, which I have. However from what I am seeing the only way to have this operate is to go into profile management / schedule and manually tell it when is day and when is night so it uses those 2 profiles at the times you give it but why ?, why no tick box that says 'use inbuilt sensor' to decide night and day. Otherwise I need to go into cameras a few times a year and change the times a little as the days grow longer / shorter etc. Am I missing something ?. I must be surely as I thought such a simple tick box would be standard on CCTV camera's ?
 

saltwater

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I have several 5442 fixed cams; do you not see something like this in the Camera GUI?

2021-01-09_8-51-02.jpg

As you can see, I have Day/Night selected.
 

Night-Owl

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Hello saltwater

I confirm I do on the 5442 and a Lorex LNB8105X but not the Lorex cameras E891AB which is a newer Lorex I believe some of the forum members have. At least I know now where issue is, the feature seems to have gone walkabout from this model, which unfortunately is the ones that I need the feature working on as the 5442's are excellent and work fine in auto all the time.

Thanks for pointing your 5442's have the feature as it's now helped me identify this missing feature on the Lorex E891AB
 
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Night-Owl

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I have a script to switch my E891AB’s from day to night. I trigger it from WebCore which makes it easy to schedule an offset from sunset and sunrise.
Very flashy brainegge :). Hopefully a firmware update will fix going forward, even though I know very little chance of that as Lorex only supply such on you actually calling them and complaining and that's obviously if they actually have one and so far no one has found a Dahua one that works.
 

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Hello

Has anyone E891AB's and fixed 5442's pointing in roughly same place so it can be seen the difference. I have just had my orders when I mentioned the NVR cannot handle more than the 8 cameras we have and so I cannot record the new one on it plus the E891AB’s are not picking up good facial shots of people on pavement at night. The order said, 'Sort it now, I know it's going to cost money but 2 incidents in last week and neither we could supply good footage of'. I believe that means approval to upgrade the NVR and at least one front E891AB to a camera that would get good facial in dark from someone on pavement as well as still getting a reasonable wide angle view. Hence my question :). Below is what I get from E892AB at night with modified 1/120 Exposure and gain at 70.
 
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brianegge

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E891AB's and fixed 5442's pointing
I purchased three 5442 6mm from Andy during his Black Friday sale last November. I've mounted one and still need to mount the other two. I had my E891AB trying to capture my deck and backyard. I liked how I had it mounted because under the soffit was not very noticable. But, the soffit was over exposed and even though it's a 4k cam, you really can't make out much past my deck railing. I installed the 5442 a bit lower and use it to see past my deck rail. I'm less excited about how I have the 5442 mounted, but it provides the view I want. In part, the differences are between a 2.8mm and 6mm lens. The lorex still does a fine job covering the deck, and I've pointed it down so it only covers the deck, removing the soffit from the view.
 

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mat200

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I purchased three 5442 6mm from Andy during his Black Friday sale last November. I've mounted one and still need to mount the other two. I had my E891AB trying to capture my deck and backyard. I liked how I had it mounted because under the soffit was not very noticable. But, the soffit was over exposed and even though it's a 4k cam, you really can't make out much past my deck railing. I installed the 5442 a bit lower and use it to see past my deck rail. I'm less excited about how I have the 5442 mounted, but it provides the view I want. In part, the differences are between a 2.8mm and 6mm lens. The lorex still does a fine job covering the deck, and I've pointed it down so it only covers the deck, removing the soffit from the view.
Nice @brianegge

Make a drip lop on the wall mounted camera to drip the water away from the camera. ( even cameras under eves, fog will condense on the cable and drip down... you want to redirect those drips )

Remember di-electric gel in the connectors... and silicone tape or coax seal...
 
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Night-Owl

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I purchased three 5442 6mm from Andy during his Black Friday sale last November. I've mounted one and still need to mount the other two. I had my E891AB trying to capture my deck and backyard. I liked how I had it mounted because under the soffit was not very noticable. But, the soffit was over exposed and even though it's a 4k cam, you really can't make out much past my deck railing. I installed the 5442 a bit lower and use it to see past my deck rail. I'm less excited about how I have the 5442 mounted, but it provides the view I want. In part, the differences are between a 2.8mm and 6mm lens. The lorex still does a fine job covering the deck, and I've pointed it down so it only covers the deck, removing the soffit from the view.
Thanks Branegge, In desperation to try and capture the criminals who have started blighting my street and knowing the IPC-B5442E-Z4E will arrive soon, I started insulation today and mounted a retired IPC-HFW5231E-Z5 in the place the IPC-B5442E-Z4E will go, unfortunately even fully zoomed out it can only get in 2 of the 3 cars but I was expecting that but it also shows what it can do. Shown below, I believe fully zoomed out it would be at 7mm on a 1/2.8 lense, so I am thinking, a 6mm lense will indeed be ideal to replace the 2 * Front E891AB"s. I will talk to Andy and see what price he can do me for 2 x 5442 fixed 6mm.
 

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I would consider mounting a camera (s) on the fence itself angled looking down the sidewalk or maybe just inside the fence out of reach. I would think a turret on the fence post painted the color of the fence would go fairly unnoticed - my neighbor did that and nobody sees it. I will see if he still has a before and after screenshot showing the difference it made - the picture was a pixelated mess when he zoomed in over the fence - even though the fence wasn't in view, so much IR was lost on the fence that once zoomed in, you couldn't make out anything of the person on the sidewalk.

Any camera on the house with some zoom will probably suffer from the IR bounce off the fence once you zoom in PLUS the person on the other side of the fence will not be completely illuminated by the IR as the fence is going to block a lot of IR from getting to the subject. You can see just from your camera how much of the fence is being hit with IR which means a lot of it is not getting to the other side of the fence. Or add an external IR illuminator on the other side of the fence.

Plus, once it is known you have cameras, they will just duck and be below the fence and then you don't get them at all.
 
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Night-Owl

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I would consider mounting a camera (s) on the fence itself angled looking down the sidewalk or maybe just inside the fence out of reach. I would think a turret on the fence post painted the color of the fence would go fairly unnoticed - my neighbor did that and nobody sees it. I will see if he still has a before and after screenshot showing the difference it made - the picture was a pixelated mess when he zoomed in over the fence - even though the fence wasn't in view, so much IR was lost on the fence that once zoomed in, you couldn't make out anything of the person on the sidewalk.

Any camera on the house with some zoom will probably suffer from the IR bounce off the fence once you zoom in PLUS the person on the other side of the fence will not be completely illuminated by the IR as the fence is going to block a lot of IR from getting to the subject. You can see just from your camera how much of the fence is being hit with IR which means a lot of it is not getting to the other side of the fence. Or add an external IR illuminator on the other side of the fence.

Plus, once it is known you have cameras, they will just duck and be below the fence and then you don't get them at all.
Thank you ajwitt, unfortunately the fence is only 4ft, so not viable for a camera going on it. Perhaps I should have mounted the cameras higher, they are all mounted at around 4 metres of the ground. I will try and angle them higher though. below is photo from the IPC-B5442E-Z4E now.
 

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