Looking for Driveway Camera w/ Floodlight

[ryphez]

Hey all, I'm still pretty new to the whole home security thing, but am looking to add a camera to our driveway. I'm debating between adding it in the center vs corner (see images). I measured the driveway which is 16.5' x 23' to sidewalk (10' from end of driveway to street). The facia board with the jasmine plant is ~8 ft above the driveway. I can add the camera onto the front or bottom of this. The corner angle can go on a higher board slightly forward from the garage if that makes more sense. I'll ensure the jasmine isn't in the frame compared to my pics

This camera just needs to cover the driveway and entrance to the path to the backyard (left side of pics). I have a camera already on the sideyard facing this path which covers our side door. We also have a doorbell camera which covers the porch. I still need to handle the entrance on the other side of the house, but I'll think thru that later as the wiring is much more complicated.

I'm looking for the driveway to have a floodlight on the cam as well. We face across the street to greenspace with a light already so I'm less concerned with false positives but want to configure to only trigger on the driveway, not the sidewalk. I run Blue Iris (NVR) as well as Frigate (notifications). Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Let me know if you need any more details!

 

[bigredfish]

Couple of observations
1- Do you want ID or just to "see something happened"?
2- Do you have a car parked in the drive at night often? If so, you need crossing cameras on both sides. Go out and try it yourself and have someone take pics of you
3- That right side shot will be a problem with those obstructions bouncing IR back at the camera and drastically lessening the IR on the drive

 

[ryphez]

1. ID on the driveway (max 20 ft from cam), recognize or observe further out from Sidewalk/street
2. No cars parked in driveway
3. This was a quick phone pic of relative location. The plant won't be a concern once I mount the camera

 

[bigredfish]

ok, I’d do either a 4K-X bullet 3.6mm or a 5442. I’m a fan of fixed lens because they are better at light pickup than VF when zoomed. But 20ft is max IMHO for 3.6mm fixed otherwise you need the 5442 VF which wouldn’t need zoomed very much and therefore not lose too much FStop

 

[tmxv4128]

Agree with what others have suggested. I think the 4K-X bullet with the white light "on" would provide the best image. You mentioned: "We face across the street to greenspace with a light already." Does this mean you have a light facing the street already, or is there a light from the greenspace facing your house? If it is the latter, you will definitely need to add lighting to compensate for the back-lighting. I'd stay away from floodlight cams. Too many negatives. Always best to stay with a proven 4K-X or 5442.

 

[ryphez]

We have uplighting on the left side as well as some lighting on the right porch. There is a light pole in the center of the picture across the street so the image would be backlit.

 

[garycrist]

One cam per corner (4K-X) and the light in the center to call all of the bugs!

 

[ryphez]

any difference between 4K-X bullet vs turret?

 

[bigredfish]

Yes, the bullet is better. It's soft focus area is less pronounced and it has more LED lights

 

[ryphez]

Great thank you! Am I okay with only 1 on the driveway given there won't be cars parked? I can always add a second on if it is necessary later

 

[bigredfish]

Yes, but we will give you a BAD CAMERA GUY ticket if you park there overnight

 

[ryphez]

don't want that!


really appreciate all the insight here. is there a thread for config on the camera I can use once I get it to set it up?

 

[bigredfish]

Not really, each scene is so different .

@wittaj has a great general rule of thumb on settings post if we can get him to paste it here. Good luck, many good folks here happy to help out

 

[wittaj]

You rang lol....

In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.

 

[tmxv4128]

any difference between 4K-X bullet vs turret?

I use both bullet and turret versions of the 4K-X cameras, and as bigredfish stated, the bullet version is better for most applications. Here is a video I made using a 2.8mm, 3.6mm, and 6mm version of the 4K-X camera to show the similarities/differences during the day/night. On-board lights turned "off", as the cameras are facing the street. Since they are back-lit from the single street light across the street, it is kind of similar to the greenspace facing your house.

 

[bigredfish]

I forgot about that, very helpful on lens choices. Thanks!

 

[ryphez]

I use both bullet and turret versions of the 4K-X cameras, and as bigredfish stated, the bullet version is better for most applications. Here is a video I made using a 2.8mm, 3.6mm, and 6mm version of the 4K-X camera to show the similarities/differences during the day/night. On-board lights turned "off", as the cameras are facing the street. Since they are back-lit from the single street light across the street, it is kind of similar to the greenspace facing your house.

Super helpful thank you! I appreciated the racoon detail as well

I ordered the 3.6mm from Amazon as I figure I can return easily if need be to swap for a different lens.

Appreciate all the details and help!