^^ What he said about Reolink!
Effective video surveillance doesn't come in a boxed kit. Every camera location and the coditions of each location are different. That is why it's a good idea to buy one quality varifocal camera first, set it up on a test rig, and test every location where you want to put a camera using the web interface of the camera itself. The testing needs to be done both during the day and during the night. You need to be able to identify who di what, not just see a blur or poorly focused image of something happening. The varifocal lets you determine the proper focal length for each location. A kit has allthe same focal length cameras, usually 2.8 or 3.6mm. They don't work very well for identifying people. A person need to be withing about ten feet of a 2.8mm camera to get a reliable identification shot useable as evidence. Plus you can become familiar with exposure, shutter speed, noise reduction and all the other variables that are key to producing quality video under all conditions.
A snippet of my standard welcome -
Welcome to the enchanted land of video surveillance lunatics, good guys, nut jobs and miscreants (yes, I fit into at least three categories). There are a lot of knowledgeable people on here and knowledge and experience are shared constantly. That's how I got to be a lunatic (already a nut job and miscreant).
Start out by looking in the
WiKi in the blue bar at the top of the page. There's a ton of very useful information in there and it needs to be viewed on a computer, not a phone or tablet. The
Cliff Notes will be of particular interest although the camera models listed there are a generation old at this point. The best way to determine what kind of camera you need in each location and where each location should really be is to buy one varifocal camera first and set up a test stand for it that can be easily moved around. Test using that, viewing using the web interface of the camera, during the day and at night. Have someone walk around behaving like a miscreant and see if you can identify them. There is also information for choosing hardware and securing the system along with a whole bunch of other good stuff.
Don't chase megapixels unless you have a really BIG budget. General rule of thumb is that a 4MP camera will easily outperform an 8MP camera when they both have the same sensor size. Reason being that there are twice as many pixels in the 8MP versus the 4MP. This results in only half the available light getting to each pixel in an 8MP that a pixel in the 4MP "sees".
