Requirements change after time to consider plus real life events (was Suggested camera for limited area coverage)

[cerebros]

Hi everyone,

Looking for a bit of advice. I'm a security camera newbie as I've never seen the need before until some recent incidents. I've taken a skim through the "Cliff notes" and some other bits but these seem to have been written more from the point of view of wanting to put cameras all around a detached house where you can be sure of the camera seeing an intruder before they get close to the house. Living in a mid-terrace house I'm not quite sure how much that will affect choice of camera, especially as I think it's going to be possible to get into my back garden quite close to the back of my house. I'm also wanting to avoid going overboard with cameras, and especially to avoid developing security camera GAS.

Background




Since the start of December there've been a couple of incidents of theft, antisocial behaviour and trespass around my house. In the diagram my house is B.

In December, neighbour C had one of his sheds broken into. Coincidentally, or not, this was not too long after he'd recently started keeping some new tools in there. Since Christmas, my neighbour at house E also had stuff stolen from his shed (amazingly, I learned he never even used to keep his shed locked until this incident).

From the end of February, there have been three further incidents where things were thrown into gardens A, B, C, E and F, and neighbour C caught an intruder on the camera he had installed after the first of these incidents. I've not seen the footage of that as, not being too tech savvy, he managed to delete it as well as the "good" image his camera captured by mistake. I've only seen the image below, which frankly isn't much use as his security light has completely blown out the intruder as they were close to his conservatory where the light is mounted. However, I'm told that in the video clip his camera did capture all you could make out that it was someone in a hoodie; the picture wasn't good enough to make out the face. (I'm not sure what camera he's using but as he said it only cost him £50 I'm guessing that it's probably not a particularly decent spec.)



The latest incident is of particular note as the camera apparently didn't begin with the intruder heading towards the house but walking away from it before coming back. This has lent a bit of weight to a theory/concern that C and I have that on at least one occasion someone may have walked up from the roadside between C and D's houses and climbed up onto the outside toilets and then come across his conservatory roof (or that someone has been climbing up onto the outside toilet roof from D's garden). We had this suspicion because after the end of February incident he found a blob of ice cream on his conservatory roof; we weren't sure if it had been thrown from D's garden, or dropped by someone who had climbed up onto the outside toilet/conservatory roof. Prior to the incident on 15th March neighbour C tells me his camera caught something moving on his conservatory rood, but it was too close to tell what (his camera is mounted too high for it to have been a cat which would otherwise have been my first guess)


Details of area needing cover:

• Back garden, roughly 6m wide by 16m long (garden is about 20m long at the longest point but two sheds at 16m from the rear of the house block almost all view of the remaining bit)
• There's fencing nearly all the way round, although height varies. It's mostly 6ft apart from 3 5ft panels on the right closest to the house and 1 6ft, 3 4ft, and 2 5ft panels on the left. The 4ft panels have mesh fastened to the posts above them to restrict access over them, while the 5ft ones have trellis fastened across the top for the same reason.
• The only spot where there's no fence is where the outside toilet is, which backs on to house A's outside toilet. There's a door to the shared passageway that runs to the front of the houses there. The door is locked (as is A's door opposite it) and the door at the front of the passageway is also locked.
• Therefore the easiest route into the garden would be over the shorter sections of fence on the right, running about 6m from the back wall of my house. Realistically, someone trying to get into my garden would probably try coming over the 2nd or 3rd panel from the back of my house, so we're looking at a zone of 2-6m.
• Although I want to ensure my back door is covered, as well as the door to the passageway shared with A that runs to the front of the house, I suspect any potential thief will be more interested in trying to get into the sheds in the hope of finding tools to steal.
• I have a centrally located security light on the back wall. This only seems to trigger as you pass a point about 5m from the back wall of my house, so if someone were able to get into the garden more than 5m from the house, my light wouldn't illuminate them. A and C have security lights which do get triggered by movement in my garden but probably not enough illumination to be of use to a security camera.
• I would assume if going with only a single camera, the best position for it would be above my back door as that's the only spot you can really see all of the garden in front of the sheds (as per wide view below)
  

Main points of consideration:

• I think the key thing for me is that any camera(s) bought can generate images capable of identifying an intruder, whether at my shed door or back door.
• As the incidents that have prompted this search have occurred at night time, and I work from home now, I'm not interested in 24/7 recording and ideally I'd only want to be recording when motion is detected in the back garden
• Due to budget I'm not looking at using an NVR or dedicated PC for recording at this time. I have a Synology NAS that can run Surveillance Station but I'm looking for a camera that can record to micro SD to use as redundant recording (or instead of the Synology if I encounter issues due to the age of my Synology (a DS414j)). If the antisocial behaviour continues or the thefts in the area escalate to include break-in attempts (especially at front of houses) I'll look into an NVR or dedicated PC (as well as additional cameras) then (when I hopefully also have the budget to do so)
• Budget is a bit short at the moment so probably only about £200 to spend on camera(s) (I'm aware a PoE switch will be an extra expense I'm going to have on top of this)
• Given the lack of light cover on my sheds, unless someone has already been close enough to the house to trigger my light, I'm wondering if I'd be best served by a camera that has a built in light that would be triggered wherever motion is detected in the garden (depending on how bright any such lights get as to whether they'd be any use).

 

[wittaj]

Here are my general distance recommendations, but switch out the 5442 camera to the equivalent 2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor works as well.

• 5442 fixed lens 2.8mm - anything within 10 feet of camera OR as an overview camera
• 5442 ZE - varifocal - distances up to 40-50 feet (personally I wouldn't go past the 30 foot range but I like things closer)
• 5442 Z4E - anything up to 80-100 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 60 feet but I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - anything from 80 feet to almost 200 feet (personally I wouldn't go past 150 feet because I like things closer)
• 5241-Z12E - for a license plate cam that you would angle up the street to get plates up to about 175 feet away, or up to 220 with additional IR.
• 49225 PTZ - great PTZ and in conjunction with an NVR or Blue Iris and the cameras above that you can use as spotter cams to point the PTZ to the correct location to compliment the fixed cams.

You need to get the correct camera for the area trying to be covered. A 2.8mm to IDENTIFY someone 40 feet away is the wrong camera regardless of how good the camera is. A 2.8mm camera to IDENTIFY someone within 10 feet is a good choice OR it is an overview camera to see something happened but not be able to identify who.

Main keys are you can't locate the camera too high (not on the 2nd story or above 7 feet high unless it is for overview and not Identification purposes) or chase MP and you need to get the correct camera for the area trying to be covered. A 2.8mm to IDENTIFY someone 40 feet away is the wrong camera regardless of how good the camera is. A 2.8mm camera to IDENTIFY someone within 10 feet is a good choice OR it is an overview camera to see something happened but not be able to identify who. Also, do not chase marketing phrases like ColorVu and Full Color and the like - all cameras need light - simple physics...

The little LED lights on cameras are gimmicky and will not light up an area farther away from the camera. You would be better served with flood lights and a PIR placed out there to trigger it further out if you cannot get the sensitivity setting correct.

 

[cerebros]

Apologies for the delay in follow-up post but been quite busy at this end and then a few incidents of antisocial behaviour & criminal damage, plus my experience trialling my own camera as well as interacting with my neighbour's new CCTV system, has given me more data points to go from.

First off, wittaj, thanks for the camera suggestions but from the research I've been doing, over here in the UK it seems a lot more places sell and install Hikvision gear than Dahua, so I'm probably going to go the Hikvision route just so that in the event I need to get someone out in person to provide support etc I'm going to have more options that way.


Since my last post, neighbour C ended up getting a PoC system after a spanner and hammer were thrown through the side window of his house late at night (he was actually on holiday at the time so I ended up having to call the police out and give him the bad news). That also spurred me to get a camera to test (an Annke I91BM that had a few quid off on Amazon) along the lines I'd been thinking about in my first post.

Then, recently, there were a couple of antisocial behaviour incidents involving occupants from house D (who we have extremely strong reason to believe were responsible for the broken window) targeting my house and car. Fortunately, these incidents were captured on D's system* so the police were able to take some steps this time which we hope will have put a stop to things but obviously we don't want to take the chance.

So, where am I at now? Begrudgingly (because I'm still trying to work out where to scrape the money up from to pay for this) I think I'm going to have to go to four cameras, possibly five, to give the coverage I want.

At the back I put my I91BM above the back door. As it's a 2.8mm it gives, with the aid of an angled junction box**, coverage across the full width of the garden round to the door to the shared entry way between my and A's houses. However, I'm now looking to go to two cameras. I'm looking to place a 2.8mm above the outside toilet block facing the opposite way to the current 2.8; while there will be a slight blind spot due to the roof of the outside toilet, it should give me a good overview.

The 2.8mm over the back door I'm looking to replace with a longer focal length; using the calculator tool on the IPVM site, it looks like a 6mm should provide enough coverage to spot anyone coming along in the blind spot of the 2.8mm above the outside toilet while giving me a better view of anyone trying to get into my sheds or approaching the rear of the house.

The front is where I'm less sure about which route to go in terms of number of cameras and which focal lengths to go for. I know I'll need two to provide coverage both ways coming onto my property from the front garden. I'm undecided at the moment between 2.8mm and 4mm for this - using the IPVM calculator tool again, with some cameras still giving close to 90 degree coverage even at 4mm, I'm half tempted to go for this focal length to give a better chance of getting identifiable pictures of someone who may come into the front garden with nefarious intentions but then change their mind if they realise the cameras are there (or when the security light I'm planning to get installed turns on on detecting them).

However, as mentioned earlier, the recent antisocial behaviour targeted my car as well as the house. As I don't have a driveway, I park in a roadside bay which is 15m from the house. While the two cameras I'm planning to install would cover this, at that distance the cameras are going to struggle to provide images that could be used to identify someone interfering with the car directly. That's why I'm also pondering adding a 6mm on the front as well which should give far more usable images around the car; where I'm planning to put it, I should also be able to angle it to cover the full width of my front fence, including the two gates into my front garden (about 8m from the house). As the recent antisocial behaviour occurred from a bit of a distance, while this way I probably wouldn't be able to get event notifications (unless I was willing to put up with a lot of notifications), I should have identifiable images of someone in front of my property.

I'm still not 100% sure whether I would want to go with an NVR or a computer running Blue Iris. While the interface of my neighbour's NVR could be a bit more user-friendly, on the other hand the need to go through and pull footage off should hopefully be few and far between so that is a bit of pain I can probably put up with. Blue Iris being Windows based does give me pause for thought with issues I'm experiencing with Windows and random lock-ups (just about tolerable on a desktop machine that's put to sleep when not in use, not on something that's supposed to be running 24/7)

* We actually got lucky in that it was the people at D involved in this as we were able to positively identify one of the people involved. However, while looking at the footage of the incidents, C remarked that the footage didn't seem to be as clear as had been demoed to him when he bought the system. When I looked into it, it appears that although his cameras are 5MP, the NVR he was sold is a HQHI series and so only records 4MP lite...

** I used an angled junction box as without it I wasn't quite able to get the angle on the entry way door.

 

[CCTVCam]

2.8mm will be a good over view camera but you won't get an identifiable face @ eg. your shed.

The 1st thing to work out is the entry points to your property ie how are people getting to eg the shed. Are they eg coming over the fence from neighbours houses or throught the door between the house to the right which eg leads to a passageway? That's going to affect the placement of cameras and the focal lengths required. With so many variables in your garden, I'd suggest buying a cameras with a varifocal lens, so you can adjust the focal length to match your location.

For me it's got to be colour at night as I'm a great believer that it enhances recognition, but it's personal and budget dependent when buying multiple units. You also need more ambient light to run colour. The 5442 / 1's are good colour in day / excellent B&W at night cameras. The good colour at night cameras are excellent in the day and good at night but do still require some light.

Also, a quick note, in the UK if your camera captures public highway or other neighbours properties, even incidentally, you may need to comply with the GDPR. Not sure whether anyone would ever enforce it or what the penalties would be. The good news is looking at your yard picture, it doesn't look at 1st glance as though a camera mounted at your door will capture people off your property going about their business, so you should be ok there. Only you can see what's captured.

As for cameras, stick to the established models and brands recommended on here. There are a few favourites and they're favourites for a reason. Once you go off those onto cheaper cameras you'll find the quality suffers especially at night.

There is also the Active Defence cameras for scaring off intruders, although they currently aren't based on the best sensors, so best used as over view / secondary cameras. with other cameras as main recognition cameras. Active defence can flash lights and sound sirens.

Just looking at your photo, I'd probably use 3 cameras - one at the back door wide angle at 6-7 feet looking down the garden as an over view. One on the coal bunker? to the right at 6-7 foot over the hanging baskets looking back at the house covering the window and door. A 3rd camera in the back door area with a long focal length focused tightly on the sheds at the bottom of the garden.

It's not undefeatable, eg if someone knows the camera on the coal bunker is there, they could disable it whilst coming in under the doorway camera by then keeping close to the wall. The way to avoid that would be to have the doorway overview angled towards the coal bunker and entrance so it covers that and 1/2 the garden. With the long focal distance covering the sheds, you have the valuables covered, However, it may leave a dead patch in the middle of the garden poorly covered but unless they're stealing plants... There's also a slight risk of someone coming down under the doorway camera to the left depending on exact coverage. The caol nubker camera should get that but may not get a face if they exit to the front of the house.

Just my 2 cents and others with other / more experience may disagree and have other ideas.

 

[cerebros]

Starting with the back I'm actually slightly less worried about people getting into the garden now than I was when I put up my first post. Several of the garden fences in the immediate area have either been replaced or brought up to full 6' fencing all round. Sure, it's not going to stop someone who's determined to get in but if the person responsible for the December theft was an opportunist it might deter them.

The entry way door you see in the picture at the top probably isn't going to be a way into my garden - the door at the other end of the entryway is kept locked (as is this door) and to get through that someone would have to make quite a bit of noise (which we know as they have been a couple of attempts in the past 5 years) and my neighbour that side has a conservatory that someone would have to break into first and then break out of to get into the entry way. My reason for trying to make sure that was covered was more that I thought someone might try and get into the entry way from my garden and should get caught by the camera above the back door getting to it

Unfortunately, that does mean that there's probably an equal chance of someone getting into my garden from any of the sides, assuming they can get into one of the gardens adjoining mine; that said, I think it's somewhat unlikely someone would come in from A's garden unless they were coming across the roof of the shed at the bottom of his garden.


@CCTVCam what you've identified as a coal bunker is actually the outside toilet - the current back door is what used to be the door to the coal house (a previous owner decided to close up the original back door and knock the kitchen through into the coal house). For the back I really don't want to go to more than 2 cameras both for cost reasons and because it might start raising eyebrows amongst the neighbours that either I'm attempting to spy on them or that there's something really valuable in the house worth stealing, and thus becoming an incentive, rather than a deterrent, to attempting to break in.

Like I said, using the calculator tool from the IPVM calculator, if I were to replace the current 2.8mm with a 6mm, I would vastly increase my chances of being able to identify someone at my sheds, at the cost of there being a reduction in the width of the garden covered, potentially leaving a bit of a blind spot if someone were to get over the fence to the left and sidle along it, or if the could get over the panel you can see between the sunflowers and the outside toilet (although again, they'd have to sidle along the toilet wall to avoid being caught, having already got over that fence panel to do so)

That's why I would also be looking to put a 2.8 mm on the back wall of the house above the toilet block, as that would cover the area along the left of the fence the 6mm would miss, while the 6mm should cover the blind spot caused by the outside toilet roof that the 2.8mm would have. While the 2.8mm would catch C's garden I've already discussed this with him and he's happy for it to do so as it gives him a bit more coverage, and when/if he's no longer there I can always privacy mask off that garden.

Anyway, I'm about falling asleep at the keyboard, so will post up some info about the front garden tomorrow or over the weekend


This is the view from the 2.8mm camera I've placed above the back door. (Please excuse the mess... was making some decent headway with sorting the garden out and then had to start trying to cull and edit photos from a family do in August and then had to start looking into security cameras in more detail so my gardening time has been reduced to zero for the past few weeks)



This is what it sees in "Low illumination" mode (if I were to carry on using this camera I'd have to upgrade the security lighting to detect motion further down the garden as I'd need to ensure the camera could use a faster shutter speed to get usable video - think it goes down to 1/6th of a second in this mode)


And this, taken with my proper camera, is to give you an idea of what the light in the garden looks like to the naked eye at night. The fence posts on the left are being illuminated by the supplemental light on C's garden camera.

 

[cerebros]

So, the front.

A few days ago I took some pictures using my regular camera to try and approximate various focal lengths of security camera in roughly the position the cameras will be placed. Unfortunately this is a bit more rough and ready than ideal so I've not quite got the camera pointing in exactly the right direction (due to being stood on step and lifting the camera over my head to get it closer to the right height... ideally I'd have made sure the front wall of my house was being captured) plus not being able to exactly match the horizontal field of view. In an ideal world I'd have had the thought to try the 2.8mm I put in the back in these positions to get a better idea as I believe a 2.8mm security camera is a teensy bit wider again than my wide angle regular camera lens...

Anyway, from this I'd probably be leaning towards a pair of 2.8mms (although if I'd simulated the vertical FoV as well I could be persuaded to go 4mm if it showed enough of the garden). But from these simulated shots it's clear that the 2.8mm or 4mm wouldn't give a terribly good view of someone interfering with my car, while my simulated 6mm (although granted I could go a bit tighter with a varifocal lens, although that would probably mean having to be extra precise about where I park)










(the camera position being simulated in the bottom pair of images would actually be a bit higher than shown here, so the bushes wouldn't obstruct so much of the view of the fenceline)

The current lighting situation at night is a bit of a mixed bag. As the position where my car is normally parked is under a lamp post, someone stood by the car, which is about 14m away from the house, would actually be lit up reasonably well but the closer you get to the house the worse things get.

In fact, I'm slightly more concerned about the space between my fence and the spot slightly in front of the street light; once inside my front garden from what I've seen demonstrated the supplement light on the current ColorVu cameras should be enough to illuminate someone (and if after installation and testing that proves not to be the case, I can then look at backing that up with security lighting) but bearing in mind the antisocial behaviour incidents recently have occurred from outside my property, I'm not entirely sure how much would be picked up beyond my fence.

In the panel of images below I've set the camera to try and show what the lighting looked like to the naked eye and gone from about 3m from the house all the way out to by my car at 14m from the house.