Please help with selection of cameras/NVR and placement

[ADCS]

Hey everyone

I would like to install about 3-4 cameras outside of my house. I am pretty new to the world of IP cameras but I have been reading post after post the past few months trying to take it all in. I am a weekend photographer and my day job is designing EO/IR turrets mounted on aircrafts so I am familiar with the tech just at an entirely different scale.

I would like to put 2 or 3 cameras at the front of my house and probably just one in the back. The back is fully fenced with a 7' fence and the gate is locked 24/7. We don't have much crime here so they would mostly be for peace of mind. I also hate that I can't see the driveway from inside my house so I need eyes out front.

I attached a pic of the front. I was originally thinking of putting one camera on each side of the garage door on the eave beside each pot light. They would be about 10' from the ground at that location. Then I started wondering if placing one at the garage gable end peak would be good enough to cover the entire driveway. It would be about 14' high there and the driveway is 3 car wide and 2.5 car long. I would also like one at the main doorway. I am not sure if it would be better looking at the door from the garage wall or looking at the door/walkway from above the door. The front door has a covered patio which is about 8' tall so they would probably need to be vandal proof dome. Is that to low to place a camera?

For the back I was thinking either on the house up high covering the yard or on the shed facing back to the house. The backyard is only about 40'x40'. The shed is in the back left corner about 30' fron the house.

For the cameras I have been looking at Hikvision. Both the DS-2CD2012-I or DS-2CD2032-I. I am not sure if I should use all domes or a combination or domes and bullet cams. I think 2.8 or 4mm are needed for both the front and back. I would use the cameras at 1920x1080 resolution. Thoughts?

For the NVR, I have a couple HP workstations made for doing CAD which I could turn into a camera server. They are more than powerful with quad core xenon processors and 12-24gb ram. With that said, they are power hogs drawing 250w at idle so I don't want to have them running 24/7. Since I will only have a few cams I was leaning more towards an off the shelf NVR, something from Hikvision likely. I would want 8ch so I have some room for upgrades and it must be POE. Thoughts?

Thanks Adam

 

[blake]

One camera on the side of your garage closest to your front door with a 2.3MM lense would do you well to cover your driveway and then some.For the one to cover your front porch/door, you have some options. For me I have my front door camera mounted on my garage soffit facing my porch other wise I would of had to mount it to high to see faces or mount a dome camera at average height. My driveway cam catches people walking up and my porch cam they walk right under it and don't notice it. What I have noticed is when they turn to leave is when they notice it and everyone looks right into it!

 

[blake]

Here's what my view is
This is with a 3.6mm lense.

 

[fenderman]

Dont mount the cameras higher than 8 feet....all you are going to get is a shot of the perps head....

 

[nayr]

that view is looking the wrong way, you want to see faces coming to your door.. not leaving it.. It will be much more useful mounted on the porch looking out than it is now.. thats a decent secondary view, but not a good primary door camera.

someone comes up and kicks your door in you wont get any face shot unless they decide to leave the same way they came in.

approaches and choke-points should have forward facing cameras to get high resolution shots that can identify people well... the backside of a person is rarely enough for a positive ID.. That porch light could also cast a shadow on someone's face walking towards the camera.

 

[blake]

My driveway camera catches their faces, I just didn't post that view.

 

[ADCS]

One camera on the side of your garage closest to your front door with a 2.3MM lense would do you well to cover your driveway and then some.For the one to cover your front porch/door, you have some options. For me I have my front door camera mounted on my garage soffit facing my porch other wise I would of had to mount it to high to see faces or mount a dome camera at average height. My driveway cam catches people walking up and my porch cam they walk right under it and don't notice it. What I have noticed is when they turn to leave is when they notice it and everyone looks right into it!

The problem I see with mounting only one camera on one side of the garage is it cuts off my peripheral view/approach to the yard. That is why I was thinking of one on each side or one wide angle in the middle.This way I can see either side of the driveway in the event the driveway is not used to approach the house. I think it will be more visually appealing having one on either side of the garage door though.

Dont mount the cameras higher than 8 feet....all you are going to get is a shot of the perps head....

I am afraid of mounting them any lower than 8 feet. I think if they are positioned correctly to see people as they approach the camera then the height won't be as much of an issue. Assuming enough detail can be made out at a distance. My garage wall is only 37' from the road so at 3MP or even 1920x1080 I think enough detail will be visible.


Are there any real functional differences between the DS-2CD2032 bullet and the DS-2CD2132 dome cameras? At the same viewing angle of course. Looking at the specs they are identical so is it just size/appearance preference?

 

[nayr]

detail at distance comes down to lens selection, sounds like you may want a 6mm.. and when your zoomed in height is less an issue but your field of view is more narrow... if your doing two cams this is isint as much of a problem, you just will have a big blind spot right under the camera.. you could mix/match here and do more of a zoom on the road with one and a wider angle with the other.

over 8ft anyone close to the camera all you see is tops of heads and a hat can very easily conceal everything identifiable.. when mounted near choke points you pretty much need to mount it at ~ head height so you get a good face shot as people approach.

 

[ADCS]

Thanks Nayr.
2/3 vehicles are parked very close to the garage door so having a big blind spot won't be good. My driveway is only 37' long, or 2.5 car lengths. I would hope at ~30' there will be enough details @1920x1080 to get a pretty good description. Basically at the edge of the driveway/road. Any closer, say 0-25' and I would sure hope there would be enough details at that point? I guess I am just spoiled working with the sensors at work. Reading license plates at 20+ miles makes these IP cams and commercial PTZ cameras look like children's toys.

Anyways, the garage doors will mostly be for motion detection and for an 'eye-in-the-sky'. The front and rear door cams are the ones for catching clear looks at faces. There is a 150w light under the covered porch at the front door so I hope I can get a clear view 24/7.

 

[ADCS]

So I thought I knew which cams I wanted...I did some more reading on here and other places so I have come up with a few more contenders. Thanks Networkcameracritic.

DS-2CD2132 2-axis mini dome
DS-2CD2532 3-axis real mini dome
DS-2CD2732 3-axis varifocal dome
DS-2CD3332 3-axis eyeball dome

I really like the idea of the eyeball camera. Small and compact like a dome for aesthics but no IR glare issues. am just worried about the winters here having the lens exposed...lots of snow and the typical temp is -5C to -10C with days or weeks being below -20C. Anybody using an eyeball can in harsh weather?

I also really like the varifocal idea since I am not sure if I want to to go with all 2.8mm or have one at 4/6mm...but with it being a manual focal length adjustment how often will I really change it? probably never.

Decisions decisions.

 

[fenderman]

You should not have issues with the turret its rated for just the same as all the other hikvisions -30°C ~ 60°C (-22°F ~ 140°F) humidity 95% or less (non-condensing)

 

[nayr]

@ADCS, I have a 3.2mm 3MP camera on my front door.. someone's face at 30-40' away is not as large as you'd think... even with all these pixels someone's head is only a handfull of pixels at a distance with a wide vide camera... once ur further than ~20ft from the camera its not doing as well anymore and if I dont know the person I am unlikely to recognize them any further.

lens selection is hugely important, go play on: http://ipvm.com/calculator

here is a 1080p 2.8mm camera @ 35ft.. only a mere 32 pixels for a face; not even half of what you need for a good ID.

and another shot with same camera @ 6mm lens.. nearly 70 pixels for a face.. much better!

 

[spotco2]

I am currently going through the same thing with trying to decide what cameras to use and where. I've purchased several, put them in different locations, replaced some and moved them around until I was happy with what I was seeing.

I have a 3mp 4mm bullet mounted in the corner of my garage door (about 7' off the ground) looking down the driveway between the vehicles. I can clearly make out a face within 20' but I would have to know them past that point. I had a 6mm in the same place and could get out to about 35'-40' with it but the field of view was not wide enough to cover both sides of the parked cars.

I was concerned that people would be know the camera was there but most that I see on it (we have a lot of foot traffic) just glance in it's direction and keep going. I am not worried about someone breaking it as I would have a very clear recording of them as they approached it.

Varifocal is nice when you don't know what you want or nothing is readily available that fits your specs. Once you dial it in, it would be extremely uncommon for you to ever change it (it's not a 30 second thing like a PTZ).

 

[ADCS]

You should not have issues with the turret its rated for just the same as all the other hikvisions -30°C ~ 60°C (-22°F ~ 140°F) humidity 95% or less (non-condensing)

Excellent. I must have been looking at one of the NVR datasheets when I saw -10C.
-30C should be fine with the cameras self-heating.

@ADCS, I have a 3.2mm 3MP camera on my front door.. someone's face at 30-40' away is not as large as you'd think... even with all these pixels someone's head is only a handfull of pixels at a distance with a wide vide camera... once ur further than ~20ft from the camera its not doing as well anymore and if I dont know the person I am unlikely to recognize them any further.

lens selection is hugely important, go play on: http://ipvm.com/calculator

here is a 1080p 2.8mm camera @ 35ft.. only a mere 32 pixels for a face; not even half of what you need for a good ID.

and another shot with same camera @ 6mm lens.. nearly 70 pixels for a face.. much better!

Thanks Nayr!
I have decided to go with 2x 4mm turrets above the garage door and 1x 2.8mm mini-dome near my front door. If I find the 4mm doesn't give me a wide enough view I will pick up another turret with a 2.8mm lens and move the 4mm somewhere else. At this point I am not really interested in identifying people at the road (~40 ft from garage). I don't have any sidewalks on my side of the street so there is not much foot traffic anyways. I am mostly interested in catching people that are coming towards the cars/garage/house so at that point they would be walking into the cameras' view.

I am currently going through the same thing with trying to decide what cameras to use and where. I've purchased several, put them in different locations, replaced some and moved them around until I was happy with what I was seeing.

I have a 3mp 4mm bullet mounted in the corner of my garage door (about 7' off the ground) looking down the driveway between the vehicles. I can clearly make out a face within 20' but I would have to know them past that point. I had a 6mm in the same place and could get out to about 35'-40' with it but the field of view was not wide enough to cover both sides of the parked cars.

I was concerned that people would be know the camera was there but most that I see on it (we have a lot of foot traffic) just glance in it's direction and keep going. I am not worried about someone breaking it as I would have a very clear recording of them as they approached it.

Varifocal is nice when you don't know what you want or nothing is readily available that fits your specs. Once you dial it in, it would be extremely uncommon for you to ever change it (it's not a 30 second thing like a PTZ).

Good to know I am not the only indecisive one here. I will basically be doing the same thing as you. Trying out different locations and different lens sizes to see what works best in my situation.

 

[ADCS]

So I am just about to order a couple 4mm 2332 turret cameras and one 2.8mm 2532 mini-dome. I will likely be adding more cams in the future.
I also ordered a TL-SF1008P POE switch to minimize the cables going into the house.

Now I just need to decide on an NVR. I was reading this thread CLICKY-CLICKY but now I am even more confused. There are so many 7608 NVRs.....

What I want:
- 8ch NVR (with or without POE)
- Run 4x 3MP @ 15+fps. Ideally 8x 3MP cams @ 15+fps
- Compatible with Hikvision camera motion detection
- 2x SATA
- Low noise
- Low power consumption

I am lost with all the model 7608 model numbers...Suggestions?

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