Lets pick some locations and hardware!

Travis798

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Okay guys, I"m FINALLY getting around to putting up some cameras at my not-so new to me anymore house I've had for a year. I haven't had any issues out here yet but petty crime is picking up in the area and I want good footage for when it works it's way out here.

I've posted some pictures of my house, with a red x and approx direction camera would look with what I'm thinking. Once again, don't be getting jealous of my editing skills please. I currently have a 5442 LED looking at the driveway, which is circled instead of an X. I have one blue X, which is where I'm thinking I should put the 5214E-Z12E, zoomed in back towards the barn 100 ft away watching the doors. I have a 5442 vari focal that is not put up, and a couple 2.8mm Amcrest 4k cameras I could put up for some overview pictures as well. Anything else I'd need to buy.

After using a wireless bridge to send my cameras in town to my moms house to put on her NVR, my Blue Iris machine is freed up and will be brought out here, most likely working in conjunction with one of my NVR's like I had before, with the NRV doing the bulk of the work and Blue Iris recording movement clips.

All cameras will be mounted to the soffit, which is about a foot higher than I'd like but it's what I'm dealing with. With that in mind, the guttering on corners and some sort of grounding cables ran all janky from the roof to the ground on 2 corners factors into my camera placement. I used to have a cheap little PTZ at one corner but that cable.....

Please ignore the fact that I need to trim my grass, any old bundles of cable you see ran and lying around, and all the dead areas from where I cut down trees and dug some ditch. Also, I already know I'd have to make a cat comment (pretty sure some are in the pics) if it was me so I'll get ahead of it saying they are some rodent killing machines and very much needed at this house sitting right out in pasture land! Cats outside are better than rats inside!

Okay, with all that said, lets pool up some knowledge and expertise and get me to a decent starting point. We all know we never get to an ending point when it comes to camera security so we will get to a start and go from there. Oh, and the side of the house in the last pic, where I only indicated one X on that side, is about 400 ft of yard before the driveway and about 30 trees. I'm probably going to end up with some kind of PTZ over there to watch my driveway entrance but they've gotten really expensive and I haven't worked at all this year (for pay at least) so I'm trying for the basics first and the rest later.
 

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Stating where you are thinking of putting a cam by placing an 'X' on the pic really does not help one to give you an opinion. What are you wanting to get for a view from those locations? Wide area overview? Face ID of someone coming from where going to where? Those are the info that one needs to decide on cam selection and placement. What kind of light do you have at night in those areas? That will impact the recommendation also.

My suggestion is to take that 5442 varifocal that is not yet installed, mount it on a test rig, and place it in those locations and look at the video and decide if those placement fit your plan.
Test Rig.JPG

Another thing you can do is put that ladder at each location and get up on it with the cam you used to take the pics and see what a wide-angle view would look like. Is that what you want?
 

Travis798

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Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm looking to Face ID anyone getting into the house or the barn. I'm not too concerned about anyone stealing my trees so that area would mostly be overview for the driveway and wildlife. No need to face ID the deer though.

Lighting is simply a porch light in front and a solar motion light I'll probably take down at the driveway, which is why I put the 5442 LED there. The barn has a small light overhead that likes to burn out, and wasps like to build nests there keeping me from changing it. Otherwise, it gets DARK out here. I may end up replacing the wireless bridge I had running out there and installing another camera on the barn. The 5442 LED used to sit inside the barn, but honestly it was kind of a waste of a great camera.

Anyone stealing would be using their own light, hopefully helping my camera's get that "gotcha" shot, or be bumping into things. The reality is that when I'm working I'm gone for months at a time and won't be home to change a bulb so I will use external light as much as I can but want to rely on external light as little as possible.

The 4k cameras will be my overview camera's. One in front and one on back should give me most of the overview I need for the area I care about. Otherwise it's watching entry points to the house and barn.
 
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Anyone stealing would be using their own light, hopefully helping my camera's get that "gotcha" shot,
I would caution you relying on a perp's light to help with your cam's recording. You can't test it, and have no way of estimating its intensity.

Realize that putting cams that high and expecting to get a good money shot of someone coming up to your door, say in the pic below, will probably give you a good shot of the top of their head.

1650661254913.png

You can mount cams higher than face level, but then they need to be focused out further from the cam. See below.

Angle of attack.jpg

If in the pic of your door above, the cam would have to be focused fairly far away. You can use your varifocal cam to test this. What lens setting would you have to use to be far enough away to be level with the face to get a good money shot? Your FOV will be narrower then. Where would they come from? How would you place that FOV for maximum worth? Could they still come from a position that you would never see them?

See this thread for considerations about where a perp might come from.

 

Travis798

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I get what you're saying. I remember having my 4k camera there before and being pretty happy with it, so I just put it back up since I still have the plate I used to temp mount it in the soffit without making holes. I just realized I never come around the house from one direction. Someone coming from that direction could literally come around and kick a door in without me ever getting a shot of their face. I just moved the camera to the other side of the porch light, next to the 3 windows, and my front door angle is much better. I'm gonna play with it a little more. Of course, that means I'd have to keep the front porch light off, and any lights they might have could blind the camera anyway.

I'll keep thinking about it.

I guess my main point in posting if I think about it is that I just upgraded my mom's camera system for her, replacing her old samsung cctv cameras with amcrest and dahua cams, including a 4k/x cam that seems to be pretty awesome, and an IR blaster for a dark area, and now she's wanting me to get myself a camera for my birthday, but I don't know what to get. I just bought myself the 5214E-Z12E. Maybe I can have her get me a switch, as I'm sure I'll outgrow the Brocade ICX6430-12 I just picked up on ebay. Spending time here looking for her system is costing me money!
 
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