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Newbie looking for PTZ camera advice

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abcdol

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Hello experts, newbie here looking for advice for PTZ camera.

We live in California with weather temp >34F degrees during winter and <110F during summer. Our backyard lot is approx 15,000 sqft with empty cul-de-sac lot behind our brick wall and liquor store across that lot. At night time, we have several homeless and drunk people trespassing that lot, making noises, and sometimes throwing things into our backyard. There's no street light on that lot/street and we couldn't see anything beyond 25 feet at night time, and that empty lot twice bigger than our backyard.

We have Swann camera from Costco installed, but the night vision is horrible. I was referred by my neighbor to get 40x optical zoom PTZ Hikvision camera that cost $3,000+. Umm, I'm not that rich, and my budget is less than $500. Our house is POE ready with access point on ceiling. My choices are:

1. 2. 3. Hikvision Ultra Smart S5 5 inch 4 MP 25X Powered by DarkFighter IR PTZ Camera Support Autotracking ,DS-2DE5425IW-AE - IP Cam Talk Store (a little over budget)

I will install the camera on 10 feet square tubing 5 feet away from the backyard wall. So, do you guys have any recommendation for me?
 
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mat200

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abcdol said:
Hello experts, newbie here looking for advice for PTZ camera.

We live in California with weather temp >34F degrees during winter and <110F during summer. Our backyard lot is approx 15,000 sqft with empty cul-de-sac lot behind our brick wall and liquor store across that lot. At night time, we have several homeless and drunk people trespassing that lot, making noises, and sometimes throwing things into our backyard. There's no street light on that lot/street and we couldn't see anything beyond 25 feet at night time, and that empty lot twice bigger than our backyard.

We have Swann camera from Costco installed, but the night vision is horrible. I was referred by my neighbor to get 40x optical zoom PTZ Hikvision camera that cost $3,000+. Umm, I'm not that rich, and my budget is less than $500. Our house is POE ready with access point on ceiling. My choices are:

1. 2. 3. Hikvision Ultra Smart S5 5 inch 4 MP 25X Powered by DarkFighter IR PTZ Camera Support Autotracking ,DS-2DE5425IW-AE - IP Cam Talk Store (a little over budget)
4. PTZ cameras, the better ones cost significantly more than the better non PTZ cameras
5. Most of us would rather have a few non-PTZ camera than one PTZ camera for most home security setups.


I will install the camera on 10 feet square tubing 5 feet away from the backyard wall. So, do you guys have any recommendation for me?
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Welcome @abcdol

1) Do you really need a PTZ?
2) More affordable cameras have more affordable components, including the sensors and thus do less well in low light conditions.
3) most of us found WiFi cameras to be problematic

If you need a good camera, I would avoid this one you referenced:


1666373047479.png
 
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wittaj

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+ above.

PTZs are always looking the wrong way. You have it facing left and the action comes from the right.

Patrol doesn't work as it will miss, plus after so many cycles on patrol, it will stop working (people are finding that out after less than 2 years of 24/7 patrol moving every 7 seconds).

Now in conjunction with fixed cams, you can have the fixed cam be a spotter cam to tell the PTZ where to look. It is great then.

You will want to spend a little more to get that 49425. It is within your budget (under $500) and represents an incredible value for autotracking. But you have to buy from that vendor as nobody else has it with autotracking.

Wifi and PTZ are a bad combination.
 
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abcdol

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mat200 said:
Welcome @abcdol

1) Do you really need a PTZ?
2) More affordable cameras have more affordable components, including the sensors and thus do less well in low light conditions.
3) most of us found WiFi cameras to be problematic

If you need a good camera, I would avoid this one you referenced:
Click to expand...
Hi mat200, thank you for your respond. Since our backyard is in trapezium shape (see attachment), I thought PTZ camera would be better option to point out our backyard. I could be wrong since I'm not an expert. I will opt out wifi camera as you suggested too. So, based on this map, which camera would you suggest me to get? I might need another camera for front yard that has siren/loud sound to deter porch pirates. Any advice?
 

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mat200

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abcdol said:
Hi mat200, thank you for your respond. Since our backyard is in trapezium shape (see attachment), I thought PTZ camera would be better option to point out our backyard. I could be wrong since I'm not an expert. I will opt out wifi camera as you suggested too. So, based on this map, which camera would you suggest me to get? I might need another camera for front yard that has siren/loud sound to deter porch pirates. Any advice?
Click to expand...
Hi @abcdol

1) Larger areas to cover, require more cameras.
2) PTZ cameras while useful, often those new to PTZ cameras believe the PTZ can replace fixed cameras .. in most cases PTZ cameras are good to augment a nice core fixed camera setup.
3) motors / gears in any moving products have service life span .. so eventually even the PTZ gears / motors hit the end of service life ..

At this time, imho it is better for you to get one good varifocal 4mp 1/1.8" sensor model camera and a small PoE switch and start playing with it in a test rig to see what is possible.

In the end you will have to make a compromise on your setup as few of us have enough of a budget to get a perfect setup, and that is OK .. just determine what is the most important areas you want to cover.

See the DORI section of the cliff notes, and understand the concepts of DORI .. often we imagine that cameras can ID out much further than they really are able to.

Checkout IPVM Designer / Calculator and play around with some ideas of camera placement ..

Also, look at alarm sensors.

btw - looks like Andy may still have a sale going on this weekend .. he's the main source many members use for 1/1.8" Dahua OEM cameras ..

2022 EmpireTech Autumn Oct. Sales

Hey guys The 7 years promotion we did going very well and people were happy with the lottery, i appreciate all guys here help and support for us. So we make some plan for another promotion in Oct. We offer some package price for people who want to set up a kit., can include NVR or without NVR...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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wittaj

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abcdol said:
Thank you for your response. What is it that you don't like from PTZ? So, in what situation that I need PTZ camera?
Click to expand...
He means that it was always looking the wrong way. He had it looking right and the perps were active out of camera view on the left.

As we mentioned, PTZs are a great compliment to an already existing system where you have fixed spotter cams that direct the PTZ where to look and then start tracking.

In rare instances is a PTZ a good stand alone only option. Some people are like well I will put it on patrol so it is always looking around. The problem with that is PTZs are only rated for so many movements and constant patroling will get the warning in under two years.
 
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Hey @abcdol,
I suggest you take @wittaj's advice. He helped me set up my 3 spotter cams/PTZ arrangement. It's not perfect, but I think it's the best I can do for the amount of money spent. The 49425 he suggested is a good camera and you can get it from @EMPIRETECANDY either directly or through one of his stores for under $500:


If you can find the 49225 refurbished (Dahua stopped making it), it's an even better camera for this application. But, be sure you get it from Andy because if you buy it elsewhere it may not have autotracking.

Do your research and come up with a plan for spotter cams and PTZ placement. I used cheap 2231-ZS cameras for spotter cams and wish I'd stepped up to the ones that can identify people. Always get the cameras with AI, it's there if you need it, but you can't use it if the camera doesn't have the feature. So for $10 more I could have purchased the 2241-ZAS cameras.

Good luck.
 
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PTZ can be great when someone is watching the scene 24/7 and moving them to where the action is. Obviously for a residential setting, this is impractical. Instead, many people use overview cameras that takes the place of a person watching over the scene. When the overview camera picks up movement in a defined area, it will trigger the PTZ camera to move to a preassigned spot that corresponds with the area of interest. If the overview camera picks up movement in another defined area, it will trigger the PTZ to move to the new area of interest.

That is the only way a PTZ is going to be helpful. Simply getting a PTZ camera and pointing it one spot in your backyard isn't going to be any more effective than a non-PTZ camera. It's might actually be worse because a PTZ will give you a false sense of security that you can use just the one camera to cover your whole backyard. That idea is a complete fallacy.
 
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