Looking for advice on my install locations.

[Ri22o]

I would try lowering brightness and gamma below 50.

And then if that doesn't help, try backlight WDR at a very low number like 4 or 5

Sorry, just getting back to this.

That made it a little better, but still a bit shaded. This is a 5MP, would a 2MP be any better during the day? I ordered 2MPs as well, they just won't be here until Sunday.

 

[Ri22o]

I am looking for some advice for inside of my garage.

I had a 2.8mm 5442 next to my entry door and just replaced it with a 2.8mm 2mp wedge. My thought was to move the 5442 down the wall and have it look across the garage, but I don't think this is necessary since all it really does is look at the side of the car. Yea, I can see the service door now, but that (in my opinion) is the only thing this other view is giving me and I don't think it's a deal breaker.

The main purpose of the camera next to the door is to see faces coming in the house. Secondary to that is being able to see if the garage door is down and just a general view of what else it lets me see in the garage.

Notes:
1. I expected better low light out of the 2mp wedge. The IR from the 5442 being mounted on the wall provides a lot of supplemental light for it. If I remove the 5442 I will likely need to add an IR emitter in the garage.
2. The above being said: if the garage door is up and someone comes in the garage then the garage door opener lights will come on and give supplemental light. The motion sensors on the controls are usually pretty good at getting all motion.

Options:
1. Leave the wedge and repurpose the 5442 elsewhere.
2. Leave the wedge and keep the 5442 on the wall looking across the garage.
3. Leave the wedge next to the door and move the 5442 to another location in the garage.
- If I did this I was thinking on the ceiling pointed towards the entry door; but what benefit is this going to give me?
4. Put the 5442 back next to the door where it was and move the wedge elsewhere in the house.


5442 next to the door:




Wedge next to the door:




5442 mounted on the wall:

 

[Jim I.]

I vote for option #4. Leave the 5442 by the door. That's the setup I have. I did have to enable WDR to account for all the backlight during the day when the door is open.

 

[Ri22o]

I vote for option #4. Leave the 5442 by the door. That's the setup I have. I did have to enable WDR to account for all the backlight during the day when the door is open.

That is the option I am leaning towards as well.

I am using SSA and it seems to be working the best for the light through the windows and for when the door is open.

 

[Mike A.]

I'd leave the 5442 where you show it. Maybe move the wedge to the other side looking from that angle. You do have kind of a long shot to the other side of the garage and that would give you a better/backup view from that side.

The biggest problem with the 5442s is they make most other cams look like crap. Once you see how well they work, you can't unsee it. Hard to go back to something less.

 

[Ri22o]

I'd leave the 5442 where you show it. Maybe move the wedge to the other side looking from that angle. You do have kind of a long shot to the other side of the garage and that would give you a better/backup view from that side.

The biggest problem with the 5442s is they make most other cams look like crap. Once you see how well they work, you can't unsee it. Hard to go back to something less.

I agree. I almost don't even want to mess with wedges and use 5442s. They're just so much better.

The issue with putting the wedge on the other side of the door is the cabling has already been ran to this location from when the 5442 was there. The other side is also the hinge side and I prefer to have face cam angles from the knob side.

 

[Ri22o]

I have also been messing with my Front Door wedge. I decided to change the resolution to 1920x1080 and force rotate the video 90*. My thought is this would give me more of a portrait view and I would be able to remove some of the sky from the frame. It's a little better, but not much. Once you get all of the way up on the front door the camera is able to unshade the inside half of the face, but up to that point it is still pretty shaded.

With how much "head room" there is I might be able to lower the angle even more and remove more sky, but I risk covering the IR LEDS in with the housing. Any thoughts on what I am doing here?


Before rotating (2688x1520):



After rotating, same settings as above:

 

[looney2ns]

With front door cams, your goal is face ID's at the door, so, you adjust for best results for that goal.
If that means that the area away from the porch is blown out, so be it.
This falls under the idea of trying to do too much with one camera.

 

[Ri22o]

With front door cams, your goal is face ID's at the door, so, you adjust for best results for that goal.
If that means that the area away from the porch is blown out, so be it.
This falls under the idea of trying to do too much with one camera.

I don't feel I am trying to do too much with this. I would consider my before image to be "at the door". The middle image after rotating the video is the realistic position someone would be in when at my door and ringing the door bell. The last image is just past this point and, while possible for someone to go that far, not a likely position as it is very close to the door.

 

[looney2ns]

You have a back lit subject, so you must adjust the settings for capturing a good face shot in the area of the door without concern for the areas off the porch.

 

[Ri22o]

You have a back lit subject, so you must adjust the settings for capturing a good face shot in the area of the door without concern for the areas off the porch.

You have a back lit subject, so you must adjust the settings for capturing a good face shot in the area of the door without concern for the areas off the porch.

I'm not worrying about the areas off of the porch?

 

[CanCuba]

I'm looking at it as a technical challenge to find the right balance of solar capacity to handle what is a relatively small load of lighting. I'm trying to avoid 12, 18 or 24 volt panels because then a buck converter is needed to drop the voltage down for the 18650 chargers. That means more inefficiency in what seems to be a very inefficient system to begin with. Solar may have come a long way, but it has a much longer way to go to become anything close to a viable solution. My experience, so far, seems to indicate a solar panel needs to be three or four times the required capacity to even approach being able to meet the demand. The lights, being relatively cheap, make it a little less painful to experiment.

I've had good experiences with the solar reflectors that I buy in Mexcio. Anything I've bought north of the Rio Grande has been less than stellar and far more expensive than what I've found in Mexico.

Also, oversizing the reflector has solved some of the battery capacity/charging time issues. Example, if an area calls for 150W LED (1000W incandescent equivalent), I'll buy a 300W or even 350W reflector. Bigger panel and larger capacity batteries. I run the 300W reflector at 50% brightness. Battery doesn't drain as much and the larger panel allows for quicker charging.

This helps keep everything lit through the longer winter nights and shorter charging window. To be fair, I live in Cuba so lots of sun and the winter nights are just a bit shorter. Bur having grown up in Toronto, I can certainly relate to the northern winters.

The reflectors are available on AliExpress but shipping seems to be the issue. I've been using this style:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004355454580.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.35.723d3525TSesrw&algo_pvid=170ef66d-0fa1-408f-a078-4e7ba0fe848a&algo_exp_id=170ef66d-0fa1-408f-a078-4e7ba0fe848a-17&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000028879543650%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21CAD%2125.81%2117.8%21%21%2110.28%21%21%40212279b716713810384521216d0780%2112000028879543650%21sea&curPageLogUid=U7NcP9f2z0Oj

Not this exact manufacturer but this will give you can idea. The cable connecting the panel and reflector can easily be extended to mount the panel in the best location.

Going to pick up a few of these next trip to Mexico. Not my ideal style aesthetics-wise but I do like the functionality. Mounted on a 4m post will throw lots of light. Panel is on top of the unit. Wouldn't be ideal for a snowy location, though.

This product is no longer available.

This product is no longer available.

www.alibaba.com

I do like solar for the ease of installation and keeping areas lit during power outages without the need to install a separate battery. Like you say, it's a developing technology and batteries should be oversized. But that requires a larger panel and the batteries will deteriorate and require replacement.

But these reflectors have kept my property illuminated and my Color 4K/X has performed very well.

 

[wittaj]

^It helps you are in Cuba and get more sun than northern USA lol

 

[CanCuba]

^It helps you are in Cuba and get more sun than northern USA lol

I cannot disagree with that!

 

[The Automation Guy]

I don't feel I am trying to do too much with this. I would consider my before image to be "at the door". The middle image after rotating the video is the realistic position someone would be in when at my door and ringing the door bell. The last image is just past this point and, while possible for someone to go that far, not a likely position as it is very close to the door.

If the camera was located on the other side of the door, it's field of view would show more of the house and walkway instead of the yard and walkway (you might have to angle it inward a little). This would likely help with the backlight issue, but obviously you would loose coverage of the yard. Personally I think this is the better option however since getting good images of the primary subject (someone walking to the door) is more important than getting marginal images of the primary and secondary subjects (someone in the yard).

Hopefully that makes sense.....

 

[Ri22o]

If the camera was located on the other side of the door, it's field of view would show more of the house and walkway instead of the yard and walkway (you might have to angle it inward a little). This would likely help with the backlight issue, but obviously you would loose coverage of the yard. Personally I think this is the better option however since getting good images of the primary subject (someone walking to the door) is more important than getting marginal images of the primary and secondary subjects (someone in the yard).

Hopefully that makes sense.....

It does make sense, but moving the camera to the other side of the door is not an option; it is not very wide and the corner of the house is there. The entire wall from door to corner is studs and there is no room to run cabling inside of the wall.

I have gotten it adjusted to where I am mostly happy with it and it shows faces reasonably well as long as they stay in the "window" at the door long enough for the camera to make adjustments.

This is what I've accepted:
5442 > wedge, hands down. For the other locations I was going to use the wedge I will likely return the wedges and install 5442s unless the smaller form factor of the wedge outweighs the better performance of the 5442.
The front door overhead 5442 does a reasonable job of seeing faces as they approach the door regardless of where the subject is on the porch.
The front door wedge will be used as an extra angle for anyone approaching and wearing a hat and simply as an extra angle for faces.


My sister-in-law stopped by yesterday and was a good test case as she acted normaller than I do when I try and test and gave me some good examples. She also seemed pretty uncomfortable with the camera next to the door as well, which I think will be the case with most people.

 

[Ri22o]

Looking for some more opinion on where to place the camera on the north side of my house.

General information:
Without a camera on this side of the house there is a dead spot in coverage. The purpose of a camera would be to view this portion of my property and to have additional footage in the event something were to happen. The best I can describe what I am looking for is a lower height overview, if that's a thing. Also, as an additional note, my house backs up to a road and a walking path. My fence goes to the property line and my neighbor built his fence 10 or 12 feet off of the property line. This leaves an alley that some people like to use as a cut through. I know people doing this is not my problem because it is on his property, but it provides a means of access to my property that would not normally be there if his fence was to the property line. My front door/porch is on the corner of my house and the porch is accessible from the front or the side; this opens up opportunities for how someone could approach the front door.

This area of the yard is well lit by a Tendelux IR illuminator.

I had initially installed my camera for this side on the second story soffit and adjusted it to just short of 3.6mm. After reviewing all of my locations I decided to try it down lower on the first floor soffit. From there I tried it a bit lower and further back on the house. The last test location was the corner fence post.

My instinct is to use the first story soffit location and rotate the camera to get less of the neighbor's garage and more of the yard in the lower left of the frame. I will still have some DO of the sidewalk but be able to observe more of my yard at a lower height.

See the screen captures and notes below. Hopefully you can follow along, but let me know if I need to provide any more info.

For reference, these are the locations of each capture.





This is from the original location. Varifocal set to just shy of 3.6mm.
I was not unhappy with this as a DOr location. It let me see the front/side yard and where someone came from or went if they became a person of interest. It's height made it a soft r and an unlikely I location.




This is from Position 2. Varifocal set to 2.8mm.
After moving down to the first floor soffit I felt I was able to retain a similar DO to the upper soffit location but had a better angle which increased R and gives possible I ability to anyone approaching my front porch from the yard.




This is from Position 3. Varifocal set to 2.8mm.
I chose this specific position because there is a chase on the other side of the wall that will give me easier access for cabling. The downside is the bush would need to be kept trimmed and will likely block most of the lower portion of the frame even if maintained regularly. It is also above/behind my furnace vent and will likely be obstructed by the discharge air on colder nights. I lose some DO down the sidewalk but have a better angle with the lower install height. Adjusting the focal length will obviously give better results for RI. I do like that I am potentially able to see more of the yard and my neighbor's alley opening, but given the other noted issues I don't feel this is a good candidate.




This is from Position 4. Varifocal set to 3.6mm.
I thought I would try this location just to see what I would see. I lose all DO for anyone coming/going on the sidewalk but have the ability to turn more towards the house and increase zoom for a better face level image over the front yard. A downside is I see people at the porch and not people approaching the porch. I am not totally opposed to adding this as a future location to supplement #2.




For reference, this is the only other coverage I have of this portion of my yard. I realize the focus of each of these is for someone on the porch and at the door, but thought it relevant to provide any angles that include the portion of the yard in question.

 

[wittaj]

If the goal is to catch people cutting thru the property, I would go for Position 4 and then add a camera looking backwards so you catch them coming and going thru the alley.

You have other cameras for the sidewalk/street.

 

[Mike A.]

Agree. 4 is best given your description of what you want there. 3 as second choice. Others would be good for overview if you also had another cam lower/closer view but too wide on their own.

 

[Ri22o]

If the goal is to catch people cutting thru the property, I would go for Position 4 and then add a camera looking backwards so you catch them coming and going thru the alley.

You have other cameras for the sidewalk/street.

People cutting through there isn't a super priority but something I wanted to note. I am mostly trying to avoid a dead spot in coverage for this area but also wanting to take other aspects into consideration before I start cutting holes.

Agree. 4 is best given your description of what you want there. 3 as second choice. Others would be good for overview if you also had another cam lower/closer view but too wide on their own.

Knowing how much that stupid bush grows, and how quickly it can get out of hand, I am leaning towards not using 3.

I do want to try another position which would be 2, but at the front of the porch looking backwards towards the yard/fence.

Whichever I end up doing I am considering doing in partnership with 4 to give a better matrix of angles near the front door. I would likely build 4 into a birdhouse as well.