Need help determining best location for camera on back of house>>

[LocoRob]

Have a new home under renovation and am trying to pre-plan any wiring I need to run before closing up the walls. Most the construction is in the kitchen area, which is to the right of the family room (family room is on left with it's independent roof over top) all the way to the middle window towards the right. Attached are some pictures of the back of the house. If I can afford, I'm going to put an extension on the family room in the near future.

The other view is from the shed in the middle of my back yard, looking towards the back of the house. This is approximately 100-150' in distance. There is another ~80' distance behind the shed to my property line. There is no fence, and my property backs into a reserve where there is a lot of kids riding quads and running around. From the posted signs on the back of the property, it seems the past owner had a lot of issues with trespassers.

For camera placement: For the back of the house, I was thinking of mounting a camera up under the soffit by the spot lights on the 2nd floor, or further down towards the right of the middle sliding door where there will be a light (not sure how IR and NV plays with lights next to the camera??). This area is under construction so I have some leeway where I can put the camera. Another option is to put the camera up high on the left over the family room, towards the peak of the roof (where I have attic access). What are some suggestions to do here with regard to type of camera (assuming turret or bullet) and lens (2.8mm - 6mm+)?

For the shed, I'm not sure what to do here. I'd like to have some sort of view around this area, but no idea how this would work since I'm not going to run a Cat6 cable underground to reach the shed. The shed does have power, but not sure how I could get this connected with a NVR?

Thanks all in advance!

 

[R0tten]

Hi, first post in this forum, but I am an enthusiast so I think I can give my advice since I've been placing mine in ~ 5 homes/apartment
Can you sketch out a map on paper of the property? It doesn't have to be perfect, though scaled to size would be nice, but not required.

 

[ruppmeister]

I think I would be placing the camera over the sliding door to your kitchen (?) with it having the view of the backyard too. You will likely need a 2.8mm lens to cover this area with a single camera and with such a wide coverage of a lens facial recognition becomes difficult until the person is close to the camera. That is why I would suggest near the home's entry point for better identification if someone tries to enter the home.

Here is a good website to see what lens best fits your needs though - http://ipvm.com/calculator

As for getting something out to the shed so you can see, I would hesitate to recommend anything with wifi since wifi almost always doesn't play nice, especially at any distance from the access point. Since you said you have power to the shed already, you might be able to use a powerline adaptor to get your camera a connection to your network - something like this: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA4010KIT-Powerline-Adapter-Starter/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444151814&sr=8-1&keywords=ethernet+over+power

 

[zero-degrees]

First - do NOT spend the extra $$$ on Cat6 cable - standard solid Cat5e cable will work. In this application there is no benefit to Cat6.

Second - If you have power in your shed you can look at getting a camera supporting wireless if you access point reaches the shed so you can turn a hardwired camera into wireless simply using a $10 adapter (there are mult threads here explaining that.

Third - You can mount a camera or two as you described up under the 2nd story eve. Using a 4 or 6 mm lens with matrix IR should give you nice coverage, you may also want to consider a VF lens so you can zoom all the way down to 12mm on the back door for exact coverage if you want. You honestly have a lot of solid placement options on the back of the home to cover all windows/back door, as well as back yard/property. Its really about where your placing your NVR inside the home. If you pull wiring into the attic for the high cameras could you get it to the same place if you were to place a camera on the portion of the home under renovation?

 

[LocoRob]

Didn't realize I had an old picture of the house before the slider was installed, sorry guys! The double window in the middle of the house is where the slider was installed. There will be a light to the right of the door per code. I can mount a camera above the light easily (since no dry wall on other side), but directly over the door is an issue as I have a solid header system that would be quite difficult to route an edge out of and cut a hole into which really don't want to do. Am I able to mount a camera near a light fixture without issues?

With having the camera mounted high above on 2nd floor, are there issues with the IR not reaching where it needs to be at night, and would there be any worth while detail in the video feed? I guess my goal (thinking as a noob) is to cover the back yard with one camera to know if someone is trespassing or lurking around windows. If I mount the camera to the right of the slider, then I'd likely get a better facial view of whomever is around. Up high I'm just going to see there heads, though the camera is totally out of sight almost.

I already had Cat6 cable running through the house so I could hard wire some devices. Was after the fact wifey wanted a camera system, so I have to utilize whatever I ran to the 2nd floor attic as the walls are all closed up where those wires were ran.

 

[LocoRob]

Since you said you have power to the shed already, you might be able to use a powerline adaptor to get your camera a connection to your network - something like this: http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA4010KIT-Powerline-Adapter-Starter/dp/B00AWRUICG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444151814&sr=8-1&keywords=ethernet+over+power

This is pretty neat. Not sure how it works exactly, but my guess is it's using the houses electrical lines as the transmission line for data? This works with having power on different breakers?

 

[zero-degrees]

@LocoRob rob, see these examples I did. These might help give you a little more insight.

First image is just a multi capture with camera info
Second and Third images are back deck/entry pics. The camera is mount under the 2nd story eve at the corner of the home. The Sun porch door is almost 50' from the camera - the camera is a single matrix ir camera.
Fourth and Fifth images are the back yard. Same camera mounted under eve pointed at back of property. The swing set sits around 110' from the camera. Before going to IP I had a 4 matrix IR camera that showed the entire yard at night, however this camera is only 1 matrix and I am happy with it. If I did it again though I would get the 2mp version for better night vision .01lux.

In all these two cameras arn't for identifying, just for viewing, the lower door mounted cameras are for identification.

 

[ruppmeister]

This is pretty neat. Not sure how it works exactly, but my guess is it's using the houses electrical lines as the transmission line for data? This works with having power on different breakers?

Yes, it uses the houses power lines as a mode of transport for data. Bridging different breakers can work in some houses, but not others. Not really sure what the problem is in some setups that others have no issue with. I think the rule is as long as you are not crossing main breaker (the 200 amp for the whole house or second breaker box) then you should be fine.

 

[LocoRob]

@LocoRob rob, see these examples I did. These might help give you a little more insight.

Before going to IP I had a 4 matrix IR camera that showed the entire yard at night, however this camera is only 1 matrix and I am happy with it. If I did it again though I would get the 2mp version for better night vision .01lux.

I think I just read that 2mp is a bit better at night than 3mp cameras? I tried to look for a 2mp 1 matrix camera, but come up with only turrets, no bullets.

I think what I will do is a get a 2.8mm 2mp or 4mp 1 matrix bullet and mount it high by the spot lights (2nd floor) that shine down to the grass area (unless 4mm may be all I need to cover the area, think my property is about 150' wide). Still concerned whether or not the spotlight will interfere with the NV of the camera, thinking I can squeeze the camera above the spot light and hang on the eve.

If I expand, I can always put another camera to the far left, where the family room is, and use a ~6mm for identification. This way it covers the length of the house and both sliding doors.

 

[zero-degrees]

I think I just read that 2mp is a bit better at night than 3mp cameras? I tried to look for a 2mp 1 matrix camera, but come up with only turrets, no bullets.

I think what I will do is a get a 2.8mm 2mp or 4mp 1 matrix bullet and mount it high by the spot lights (2nd floor) that shine down to the grass area (unless 4mm may be all I need to cover the area, think my property is about 150' wide). Still concerned whether or not the spotlight will interfere with the NV of the camera, thinking I can squeeze the camera above the spot light and hang on the eve.

If I expand, I can always put another camera to the far left, where the family room is, and use a ~6mm for identification. This way it covers the length of the house and both sliding doors.

You are correct 2 and 4mp are better night vision cameras as they are .01lux resulting in less noise. I was not nearly as concerned with the night vision for the back yard camera as it is really just monitoring, not for identifying. The back deck camera is plenty clear enough at night and perfect during the day so I choose to go 3mp.

 

[Del Boy]

You are correct 2 and 4mp are better night vision cameras as they are .01lux resulting in less noise. I was not nearly as concerned with the night vision for the back yard camera as it is really just monitoring, not for identifying. The back deck camera is plenty clear enough at night and perfect during the day so I choose to go 3mp.

It's not quite that easy. If you want better night then get the DS-2CD2342WD-I, especially for the amount of land you have around your place.

I would be tempted to get 2x 2.8mm DS-2CD2342WD-I and mount them next to each other to give a full 180 degree 8MP view. Mount them either side of the gutter just at the top of the ground floor level.

 

[zero-degrees]

@LocoRob

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-explains-why-4-megapixels-are-better-than-8/

The above link has been referenced mult times as a good information source to understand WHY 2mp IS better then 4mp especially in low light. White it does not have EVERYTHING to do with the lux rating the lux rating is a large part/important part. The main thing is - the lower mp creates less noise within the image sensor.

"We've known for a long time in the imaging industry that increasing the megapixel count often increases the signal-noise ratio," Whitehorn says, "So we have a problem with more noise in those images, just because of the rate of sampling. That means that these images become noisier, the low-light performance falls off because you're not absorbing enough light."

Also two cameras side by side will not give you an 8mp image, as you are NOT gaining vertical height, you would only be gaining a side to side view and even then you would have to stitch the images/video together to get a true 180 degree view.

 

[LocoRob]

@LocoRob

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-explains-why-4-megapixels-are-better-than-8/

The above link has been referenced mult times as a good information source to understand WHY 2mp IS better then 4mp especially in low light. White it does not have EVERYTHING to do with the lux rating the lux rating is a large part/important part. The main thing is - the lower mp creates less noise within the image sensor.

"We've known for a long time in the imaging industry that increasing the megapixel count often increases the signal-noise ratio," Whitehorn says, "So we have a problem with more noise in those images, just because of the rate of sampling. That means that these images become noisier, the low-light performance falls off because you're not absorbing enough light."

Also two cameras side by side will not give you an 8mp image, as you are NOT gaining vertical height, you would only be gaining a side to side view and even then you would have to stitch the images/video together to get a true 180 degree view.

Thank you! Basically follows same principle then as point shoot cameras vs video cameras, makes sense especially if the sensors are the same size.

 

[acvb]

Remember that some cameras draw spiders... don't mount them too high for cleaning every other day.