New Member from the UK with some questions :)

S

SafetyThird

n3wb
Nov 24, 2022
5
13
England
Hello all, while researching for a first camera setup I discovered this forum and have spent the past couple of days reading voraciously. Being in the UK I'm more limited to where I can buy equipment from as buying from the US is out due to import duty and VAT charges. AliExpress seems to have no issues coming in to the country but UK stores are limited with range of equipment, certainly the budget options. Andy's AliExpress store looks like the best option so far.

I live on a small farm in the countryside at the end of a long lane. I'm planning to have a camera on the lane and one in front of the house to record any people and vehicles coming and going. I'll post photos of the planned positions I'm considering putting the cameras.

I also want to put a camera in the chicken run and the chicken house, to keep an eye on the flock and make sure there's no intruders. Also means I can check they're all in the house at night without going out in the rain.

I use Home Assistant and would be using Frigate for my NVR so H264 is a requirement.

I had looked at the Annke C500 camera as I can get that on Amazon UK for £40 which seems a bargain but I can't see if I'm able to definitely get H264 on it, despite it saying so on the specification page.

After reading on here about Dahua cameras, I'm looking at the Loryta 4mp (IPC-T2431T-AS 4MP) camera that Andy sells for £60 which looks like it would do the job well for the chickens

Not sure if these are up to the job of to record vehicles and people who come to the house, as I want to have a record of registration numbers and the faces of people who deliver or visit. Would the Loryta be suitable or is there an alternative that would be better do you think? I’d like to keep the price to below the equivalent of $100 per camera if possible.

I have POE ethernet available at all points for the cameras.

Would appreciate any advice you can offer.

View point for the front door camera. Door is between the two lights on the left, camera could be next to the door or further along the building. Deliveries pull up next to the door so not a long distance for ID of faces and number plate. Not a long distance to cover for identification purposes.

IMG_0197.jpeg

IMG_0198.jpeg

View point for the driveway camera, visible distance to where the drive disappears is about 40m (120') but vehicles will pass the camera only a few feet away.
IMG_0199.jpeg
 
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Welcome to IPCT ! :wave:

Just be aware that the sensor size for that Annke C500 (1/3") will not provide very good low light performance. It's about half the size it needs to be, IMO.
The Loryta 4mp you linked might be a tad better but not by much only because the sensor is that same size as the Annke but has less pixel count.
Generally the recommended minimum megapixel to sensor ratio for acceptable low light performance is as follows:
  • 2MP on 1/2.8"
  • 4MP on 1/1.8"
  • 8MP on 1/1.2"
 
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:welcome:


I would buy from Andy at his ALI store like you mentioned. I would up my budget a bit and buy the equivalent of the Dahua 5442 from Andy. It would be better to buy the better cams one at a time as funds permit than settle for more cams of lesser quality.

Happy Thanksgiving.
 
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The 2431 is still a great contender and budget cam that can do well, especially at that close distance.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

1669314176931.png
 
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SafetyThird said:
Hello all, while researching for a first camera setup I discovered this forum and have spent the past couple of days reading voraciously. Being in the UK I'm more limited to where I can buy equipment from as buying from the US is out due to import duty and VAT charges. AliExpress seems to have no issues coming in to the country but UK stores are limited with range of equipment, certainly the budget options. Andy's AliExpress store looks like the best option so far.

I live on a small farm in the countryside at the end of a long lane. I'm planning to have a camera on the lane and one in front of the house to record any people and vehicles coming and going. I'll post photos of the planned positions I'm considering putting the cameras.

I also want to put a camera in the chicken run and the chicken house, to keep an eye on the flock and make sure there's no intruders. Also means I can check they're all in the house at night without going out in the rain.

I use Home Assistant and would be using Frigate for my NVR so H264 is a requirement.

I had looked at the Annke C500 camera as I can get that on Amazon UK for £40 which seems a bargain but I can't see if I'm able to definitely get H264 on it, despite it saying so on the specification page.

After reading on here about Dahua cameras, I'm looking at the Loryta 4mp (IPC-T2431T-AS 4MP) camera that Andy sells for £60 which looks like it would do the job well for the chickens

Not sure if these are up to the job of to record vehicles and people who come to the house, as I want to have a record of registration numbers and the faces of people who deliver or visit. Would the Loryta be suitable or is there an alternative that would be better do you think? I’d like to keep the price to below the equivalent of $100 per camera if possible.

I have POE ethernet available at all points for the cameras.

Would appreciate any advice you can offer.

View point for the front door camera. Door is between the two lights on the left, camera could be next to the door or further along the building. Deliveries pull up next to the door so not a long distance for ID of faces and number plate. Not a long distance to cover for identification purposes.

View attachment 146502

View attachment 146503

View point for the driveway camera, visible distance to where the drive disappears is about 40m (120') but vehicles will pass the camera only a few feet away.
View attachment 146504
Click to expand...

Welcome @SafetyThird

Many member have found the 4MP 1/1.8" sensor Dahua OEM cameras do well , and have had good experiences with Andy as a vendor ..

Currently I have seen many newer cameras with smaller sensors out .. and if you can afford to, would skip them if you need any sort of low light performance ..
 
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Well Ali express in the UK ffs!
 
Basic guide is many consumer brands and small sensors = poor pictures at night.

Realistically, you may need to up your budget to avoid cameras that see next to nothing after dark. Take a look at this thread to see the folly of many consumer cameras / small sensors:

The Typical picture of a Perp on Nextdoor-type Apps with Consumer Grade Cameras like Ring, Nest, Arlo, Canary, Wyze, etc.

Love these posts on Nextdoor type apps LOL. This thread will be used for members to post the poor quality consumer grade type camera images that we see people post to the Nextdoor type apps. Can anyone make out this person that went thru their cars LOL.... And this thread is where members...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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Morning everyone, thank you so much for the comments and links, I've been working my way through them. Looks like I definitely need to up the camera budget a bit if I want to not waste money and get it right first time so, here's latest thinking and I would appreciate a little more advice on final camera choice and to ensure I've understood everything so far.

Chicken run cameras.
For the outside run, they're only out there during the day so I don't need the low light capability really but do enjoy just being able to watch them pottering around so I"ll upgrade to the IPC-T5442TM-AS 4MP Starlight+.

Inside the house I'll go for a 2mp camera, IPC-T5241TM-AS 2MP WDR IR, I only really need to know they're all in there at night, there's no real movement once they're on their perches and during the day I'm just keeping an eye on whether they're laying in the nest boxes and make sure none of them are eating any of the eggs. 3.6mm lenses will give me full view if in the corner of the run and the house.

Front of house cameras
I'll get two, one for recording people coming to the door and one for number plates. That one needs to be optic zoomable to get the correct area for recording number plates, the vehicles park there so there'll always be footage of a stationary car/van but I'll need night capability over the winter as many deliveries come after dark. Distance from camera to number plate is around 5-10m (30-60'). with the info I've been reading in this thread, I need either a 2MP camera with 1/ 2.8 sensor or 4MP camera with 1/1.8. Given cameras with equivalent specs other than sensor size/resolution, would 2 or 4mp give me better low light detail with onboard IR lights?

Specifically, I'm looking at these options for the number plate camera, really not sure which would be the best option, they all seem very similar in abilities.

4MP
IPC-T5442T-ZE 4MP Starlight IR Vari-focal
2MP
IPC-T2231T-ZS 2MP Starlight WDR IR Vari-focal
IPC-T3241T-ZAS 2MP Lite AI IR Vari-focal

For the doorway camera, I was thinking another IPC-T5442TM-AS 4MP Starlight+. with 3.6mm lens, However, it has no mic and I figured that might be a handy thing to have to record conversations at the doorway. I couldn't see another 5442 series fixed camera that had a mic so the choice looks to be either a varifocal IPC-T5442T-ZE 4MP Starlight IR Vari-focal or a 2mp camera IPC-T5241TM-AS 2MP WDR IR. The distance for the doorway camera is only out to 10m so perhaps 2mp would be ok for facial recording.

Camera on the lane, I'll probably get the same one I choose for the front of house license plate camera as they're doing the same job.

This place is bad for my bank account this week but probably better in the long run :)
 
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Just note the zoomable cameras are zoom and fix not meant to be zoomed in and out on a daily basis. If you need that you need a ptz but that's a whole different ball games and brings it's own problems. Hence why most go down the adjust and fix route with an extra camera if necessary to cover more than one target area rather than a ptz.
 
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The 5442T-AS does have a built-in microphone but no speaker. One way audio only.
 
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CCTVCam said:
Just note the zoomable cameras are zoom and fix not meant to be zoomed in and out on a daily basis. If you need that you need a ptz but that's a whole different ball games and brings it's own problems. Hence why most go down the adjust and fix route with an extra camera if necessary to cover more than one target area rather than a ptz.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, I thought it probably was the way it worked but good to know. I'm looking at those so there's the option to fine tune the viewing area and then leave it set or know which is the best zoom option and replace with a fixed length later.
 
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