Looking for advice on my install locations.

[Ri22o]

Finally sneaking up on the end of this project and need some ideas on the camera that’s going to cover the easement and walking path outside of my back gate.

I had originally planned on putting it on top of the post so it’s not obstructed by the gate when it’s opened, but then I realized the turret won’t be able to go down past 0*. My thought was to then mount it to the vertical surface of the post (having forgotten about being worried the gate would obstruct it) to get better adjustment.

Any ideas for where/how to mount a turret so that it’s not obstructed by the gate but still has the range of adjustment for positioning?

 

[Ri22o]

I finally got all of the ethernet and power ran; this has been a job.

I temp mounted my 3.6mm 4K-T outside of the gate to see how the two positions look and this is what I have. The first picture in the sets is on top of the post and the second is with it mounted to the left of the green circle in the pictures above (the camera would have been in the way of the gate opening had I mounted it vertically to the post). When set on top of the post the camera is angled down as far as it can be, and that is the issue with this location; I don't have enough downward adjustment. The lower, vertical position gives me all of the adjustment I need, but at the cost of the gate possibly being in the way.

Ignore the quality, I have no clue what was going on with that, or why it was in substream, but I am just looking for thoughts regarding the mounting locations.


This area is a big blind spot for me and I might care less if there wasn't the walking path. I had an incident last year where there was a couple walking by and arguing. Not long after they passed, the lady was back there screaming for help. I doubt this happens again, but I would like to have coverage in the event something does happen.


I am not standing at the gate in both, but this is standing up on the gate.


Gate open. My concern is the lower position when the gate is open.


Standing about 4' out from the gate.


A little further out.



And further again.

 

[JDreaming]

I finally got all of the ethernet and power ran; this has been a job.

I temp mounted my 3.6mm 4K-T outside of the gate to see how the two positions look and this is what I have. The first picture in the sets is on top of the post and the second is with it mounted to the left of the green circle in the pictures above (the camera would have been in the way of the gate opening had I mounted it vertically to the post). When set on top of the post the camera is angled down as far as it can be, and that is the issue with this location; I don't have enough downward adjustment. The lower, vertical position gives me all of the adjustment I need, but at the cost of the gate possibly being in the way.

Ignore the quality, I have no clue what was going on with that, or why it was in substream, but I am just looking for thoughts regarding the mounting locations.


This area is a big blind spot for me and I might care less if there wasn't the walking path. I had an incident last year where there was a couple walking by and arguing. Not long after they passed, the lady was back there screaming for help. I doubt this happens again, but I would like to have coverage in the event something does happen.


I am not standing at the gate in both, but this is standing up on the gate.
View attachment 164388View attachment 164393

Gate open. My concern is the lower position when the gate is open.
View attachment 164398View attachment 164397

Standing about 4' out from the gate.
View attachment 164390View attachment 164394

A little further out.
View attachment 164391View attachment 164395


And further again.
View attachment 164392View attachment 164396

what about installing a pole or large PVC pipe behind the gate and paint it whatever color you think match?

 

[Ri22o]

Ideally I would like to have them mounted at a lower height, but understand I can't have that and also not have the gate obstruct the FOV when open.

I think I need to play with it some more and see what the minimum height would be that keeps the camera high enough above the gate that it's not obstructed when open, but gives me the lower mounting height. I could attach a board vertically next to the post that would allow me to mount the camera and have the full range of positioning. IR washout (in the event of an open gate) could be helped by a remote mounted IR illuminator that would not be in the path of the gate swing.

OR

An idea that popped into my head while I am typing all of this. I could see what it would take to just have the gates open inward... That solves all kinds of issues, not even camera related.

 

[Ri22o]

Update and advice time.

Update:
I have not yet changed the direction of the gate, but I got the Easement camera installed on the back of the fence. I went with the lower position, next to the post. During the day it is running CPAI people detection. It's able to recognize and capture people on the path, but I am mainly interested when people get closer to the fence/gate.



Advice:
After the moving of some cameras, I have a dead spot in front of my house. I feel I did a pretty good job with the backyard layout, implementation, and install with everything I learned from the front yard, but am now lacking in areas with front yard coverage and the section of sidewalk right in front of the front door (for when the PTZ might be elsewhere).

These house shots are not current with cameras installed, but show the area where I am lacking coverage. I had the Front Yard camera that gave me a view of the area between the columns in the front yard, but it was replaced with the PTZ that parks on the street/sidewalk.

What are some ideas of placement and concealment that would give me back coverage in this area? I am not opposed to adding one or two if it means I could ID someone walking up the path and also cover the yard. The more inconspicuous, the better, but it may be difficult to both place something at 7' and hide it.

I considered putting a camera next to the PTZ to regain the overview and then placing one lower where the corn and pumpkin are that could be more of an upshot to capture people on the approach. Another thought is to come up with something to put on the columns that could hide a camera (would need to be big to fit a 5442). If I did this I could place the camera on the right column and use it for both the overview and the approach; I already have can lights under the porch though, so I think any sort of up/down lighting might be a little excessive.

Thoughts?



This is my current coverage. You can see if I were to add the FOV back in from the Front Yard camera below, that I would not have a gap here, but the install height was a little high.


This is the camera FOV I replaced with the PTZ. I liked that it also gave me an additional view of the driveway, but it's also a bit high to be of any use other than an overview.


Where the PTZ is parked, for reference.

 

[Ri22o]

Since I went through the hassle of running ethernet to the back fence for the easement camera, I thought it may not be a bad idea to also have one on the inside of the fence covering the exterior of the house. This also now gives me a camera covering the gate from each side of the fence so I can get anyone coming or going out of it. I used one of my spare 5442 varifocals and it's set to 1100, which I am hoping might be close to a fixed 6mm in case I wanted to swap it out later.

I just got it up, so no day captures yet, but this is what it looks like looking back at the house with all of the IR from the other cameras and illuminators. There is absolutely no real light in my backyard, just IR.



And this is what I look like with all of the IR from the house behind me.


And the Back Gate FOV with the new camera IR pointed at the house.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Really nice sharing and good guide for guys to set up a professional system!

 

[Flintstone61]

Great job. Nice view of the house....hopefully all the of the motion is Wildlife and kids....normal stuff...
My Gf's sister was so paranoid about people walking thru the back yard to " cut the corner" She wanted to put up a fence. ( an unfounded fear really) ...I knew with a pontoon boat that might eventually end up here seasonally, the last thing I wanted to deal with was a fence to cut me off from my Boating needs ...in the back of my mind i knew...i had to talk her out of it....So in three years of having cameras. 1 neighbor cut thru calling for/ looking for his dog....and that was right after we moved in....So literally nobody has come onsite with bad intentions. (yet)...Just 1 deer, 2-3 fox, the resident squirrels, and 1 rabbit that lives out behind the shed.....Hopefully thats all we ever see. No 9 foot tall Aliens please...

 

[Ri22o]

Great job. Nice view of the house....hopefully all the of the motion is Wildlife and kids....normal stuff...
My Gf's sister was so paranoid about people walking thru the back yard to " cut the corner" She wanted to put up a fence. ( an unfounded fear really) ...I knew with a pontoon boat that might eventually end up here seasonally, the last thing I wanted to deal with was a fence to cut me off from my Boating needs ...in the back of my mind i knew...i had to talk her out of it....So in three years of having cameras. 1 neighbor cut thru calling for/ looking for his dog....and that was right after we moved in....So literally nobody has come onsite with bad intentions. (yet)...Just 1 deer, 2-3 fox, the resident squirrels, and 1 rabbit that lives out behind the shed.....Hopefully thats all we ever see. No 9 foot tall Aliens please...

That's all I hope to capture with any of them, but better to have than not have.

I had originally planned to just have the house centered in the view, but then realized I didn't really need as much of the left side of the yard in view. With where it is adjusted now it will serve its purpose as an overview of being able to look at the house with the benefits of also seeing the yard and people coming to the gate.

Here is an early morning shot. I'll adjust as the sun comes up, but it should be pretty close to good with these day settings.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Camera installed very well, good hiding!

 

[Ri22o]

This is earlier and then most recently with making a few changes. Color is a little off because it is in direct sun, but it's acceptable.



Don't mind the low voltage wires that still need to be tidied up, but you can see the cam above the junction box and transformer on the fence. Not super noticeable, but pretty good. The conduit on the left side of the gate is for the LV lights on that side and also has an ethernet for if I wanted to add a camera(s) somewhere along that section.

I also did something I thought was pretty smart; I shared the cam junction box with the camera on the other side of the fence. I didn't like how bulky and noticeable the box made the camera on the back side of the fence, so I attached that one directly to the fence, fed it's plug through a hole in the fence and into the box on this side of the fence, and then mounted this camera to the box. So there are two ethernets and two connections inside.

 

[Flintstone61]

You can always make it less visible ( if you want) with a trip to the hardware store and some dull flat type of paint and a brush....(But then the 9ft. tall Las Vegas Aliens might not see it and make a landing.)

 

[Ri22o]

You can always make it less visible ( if you want) with a trip to the hardware store and some dull flat type of paint and a brush....(But then the 9ft. tall Las Vegas Aliens might not see it and make a landing.)

I'm always hesitant to paint one of these in case I move it somewhere else, haha.

 

[Ri22o]

Bringing this back up to the top for some more advice/opinions on a new deployment.

My house backs up to a walking path that goes along the road. I have a 2.8mm 5442-AS / T54IR-AS to cover entry to the gate, but have wanted to put in a couple -Z12Es to capture people walking along the path. I picked up a black refurb B52IR-Z12-S2 and have been messing with it today to see how it works, but the real test on if this works and whether I pick up another for the other direction will be IR-ability later tonight. This is part of the reason I waited for the -S2, because it seems to have much better night time ability.

My questions:

• Is this FOV too tight? (Zoom is set to full)
• How does the focus look?
• IVS missed several people earlier today, my guess is due to the narrow space on the edge of the frame to detect/determine a human before entering the Intrusion Box. I have since narrowed it up (and it seems better), but would I be better off, and more reliable, with a couple vertically angled Tripwires near the center instead?

For reference, the camera shoots between the two trees, marked in red, and the kill zone is marked in green. It is about 93' to the middle of the FOV.



I got lucky with this couple walking by and the text on her shirt giving me something to check the focus with. Thoughts on if I should try to adjust?




It won't let me export with IVS rules displayed for some reason?

This is the IVS Intrusion Box before.


And this is it now.

 

[bigredfish]

Not bad at all. What Exposure are you running? A little faster may help.

 

[wittaj]

I love to see someone constantly adding like I do LOL.

I think your view is suffering from the same thing we see with LPR - the tighter we zoom in, the more narrow the focus window is.

So it will be a balance act.

As we say for plates, I would have someone stand left, center, and right and do a manual focus in each location and then maybe take the average of the focus number to get you a decent focus.

 

[bigredfish]

Yep very much like plates.

You can almost tell when running it frame by frame which are the full Iframes.... I'd try running that at 30FPS and 0-1 or 0-.5 (corrected 0-2 or 0-1

 

[Ri22o]

Not bad at all. What Exposure are you running? A little faster may help.

15fps at 0-3.33 with 20 gain, currently.

I am really just playing with it to make sure it's even going to work in this location (or at all with IR) so I probably shouldn't try to fine tune it too much as it's currently just clagged to a 4x6 leaning up against the fence.

I love to see someone constantly adding like I do LOL.

I think your view is suffering from the same thing we see with LPR - the tighter we zoom in, the more narrow the focus window is.

So it will be a balance act.

As we say for plates, I would have someone stand left, center, and right and do a manual focus in each location and then maybe take the average of the focus number to get you a decent focus.

I honestly think it's passable, I just didn't know what others thought about adjusting the scene and focus. I can stare at it all day and it look fine but to others it be horrible, and vice versa.

However.

My concerns were proven correct and I don't think the location will work anyways. The IR is blasting one of the trees and causing issues. I had hoped to be able to mount it in this location because it is very close to the junction box and wouldn't be a whole lot of work, but, well, yea.






The junction box is where the star is, and my plan was to place the cameras to shoot the yellow lines. This would have been an easy route from the junction box, gave me good lines of sight through the trees next to the path as they grow, and also allowed the cameras to be more discreet behind my trees. My next test is going to be shooting from the left end where the blue line is and hopefully I can get a gap in the trees. I did plan ahead and trenched conduit from one side of the gate to the other when I ran all of this, so it's not the end of the world, just not ideal.

I suppose, worst case, if I turn the blue line more towards 11 o'clock, and it's workable, I do have a ZE-S3 I could deploy there since the -Z12E bullet would likely be overkill at that short of a distance.

 

[Ri22o]

As we say for plates, I would have someone stand left, center, and right and do a manual focus in each location and then maybe take the average of the focus number to get you a decent focus.

My neighbors already think I am crazy. So it's definitely going to be a hard ask for someone to help with this.

You can almost tell when running it frame by frame which are the full Iframes.... I'd try running that at 30FPS and 0-1 or 0-.5 (corrected 0-2 or 0-1

Because of the trees and the cars that will go by in the background, I only intend on using this with IVS rules/triggers and no motion so I have no issue turning the FPS up from the typical 15. If I set to 30, should I also set iframe to match at 30? I currently run everything at 15/15.

 

[wittaj]

My neighbors already think I am crazy. So it's definitely going to be a hard ask for someone to help with this.


Because of the trees and the cars that will go by in the background, I only intend on using this with IVS rules/triggers and no motion so I have no issue turning the FPS up from the typical 15. If I set to 30, should I also set iframe to match at 30? I currently run everything at 15/15.

Yeah, and we both know who the first person they will contact will be when something happens to their property!

Is it close enough you could RDP on a laptop and wifi yourself in that location? I may have looked a little weird to my neighbors holding a laptop out in the street

Yeah you should match FPS/iframes for BI - especially with that tight field of view.