Hello! I'm a new member to ipcamtalk, currently have an old PC running XProtect with some Reolink cams I set up a few years ago (yes yes I know, hindsight is 20/20) which are mostly acting as a cheap deterrence from funny business on our quiet close -- most notably one time we had a carpenter round whose lunch mysteriously left his van and ended up in a bush up the road! Funnily enough no other strange stuff has happened since the cams went up 
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Recently we have had some hedgehogs in the garden and set up some houses and a feeding station, and we'd like to be able to monitor the hedgehogs inside the feeding station (e.g. making sure it's not rats/cats/etc eating the food). I can get a cable from one of my PoE switches to it easily enough, but I'm not sure whether there are any decent cheapish small close-focus wide-FOV cameras that would be suitable to go inside to monitor the hedgehogs. The space inside is around 40x50cm and the roof of the station around 30cm off the floor so I think it'll have to be something with a short focal length (<2mm maybe?). My plan was also to order a PoE splitter and get a junction box to also run a CMVision IR40 illuminator and turn off the built-in IR to mitigate spiderwebs on the lens. My thought was to set up this cam on dumb motion detection rather than constant recording since there should be nothing moving inside except for the occasional hedgehog!
I am looking to keep it on a fairly tight budget if possible, I did wonder at one point whether to get one of the cheapest Reolink models (520A?) to pull apart and try to refocus but knowing their night performance when it comes to moving stuff I think I would be better off with something else. I saw TonyR recommend the Sercomm RC4551 and OC432 as bird-box cams on some threads but it looks as though these are nigh on impossible to get here in the UK, otherwise ideal. I think I should be looking at outdoor cameras really since I don't have 100% confidence in the waterproofness of the feeding station!
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated! Cheers.
.Recently we have had some hedgehogs in the garden and set up some houses and a feeding station, and we'd like to be able to monitor the hedgehogs inside the feeding station (e.g. making sure it's not rats/cats/etc eating the food). I can get a cable from one of my PoE switches to it easily enough, but I'm not sure whether there are any decent cheapish small close-focus wide-FOV cameras that would be suitable to go inside to monitor the hedgehogs. The space inside is around 40x50cm and the roof of the station around 30cm off the floor so I think it'll have to be something with a short focal length (<2mm maybe?). My plan was also to order a PoE splitter and get a junction box to also run a CMVision IR40 illuminator and turn off the built-in IR to mitigate spiderwebs on the lens. My thought was to set up this cam on dumb motion detection rather than constant recording since there should be nothing moving inside except for the occasional hedgehog!
I am looking to keep it on a fairly tight budget if possible, I did wonder at one point whether to get one of the cheapest Reolink models (520A?) to pull apart and try to refocus but knowing their night performance when it comes to moving stuff I think I would be better off with something else. I saw TonyR recommend the Sercomm RC4551 and OC432 as bird-box cams on some threads but it looks as though these are nigh on impossible to get here in the UK, otherwise ideal. I think I should be looking at outdoor cameras really since I don't have 100% confidence in the waterproofness of the feeding station!
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated! Cheers.
