Wall mounted fish eye - WHY???

Mark_M

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Axis communications have posted a new video on Youtube with a fish eye camera. A 360 half sphere view.

My questions comes to this use.
WHY?

Why would you mount a camera to a wall. Half of the imaging sensor is capturing the ceiling, what use is that?

I have even seen a few Panasonic fish eyes mounted this way in a shopping mall near me. I don't get why you'd waste so much viewing area.

axis_wall_fisheye1.PNG
axis_wall_fisheye.PNG
 

k110

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Collateral damage, if you mount it on the ceiling you won't see people's faces.

But I've never sold a fish eye before, just put more camera's :p
 

catcamstar

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Why? Because these camera's are really IN YOUR FACE. Even blind people see these camera's like pimples on a teenagers skin :D
 

Mark_M

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These camera's are really IN YOUR FACE. Even blind people see these camera's like pimples on a teenagers skin :D
What use does this have VS a wall mounted fish eye getting a 180* view?
The wall mounted 180* view cameras don't waste space capturing the ceiling!
 

Mark_M

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Collateral damage, if you mount it on the ceiling you won't see people's faces.
The example in this video does well at getting faces. Obviously you'd have to mount at standard ceiling height.

Airport in my city has many small Axis fish eyes on a pole mount from 25ft ceilings down. If I was 30cm taller I could touch them.
 

Mark_M

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How else would they monitor someone rappelling down from the skylight or the air ducts?

View attachment 85309
Coming down a sky light I could understand. But making a bang crawling through a duct would draw attention!

I see an airport being a money pit aside for the cameras, surely they've got something to cover the rooftop!
 
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nbstl68

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Seems like a 180 would make more sense of course but maybe the fisheye is less obtrusive and more vandal resistant than a large 180 camera sticking out of the wall.
Also many of the fish eyes have on-board de-warping. I picked up a couple of used Illustra i-825 , (5MP but you'd hardly know it from the images), Fish Eye's a few years ago...I have one on the garage ceiling but the other one I just stuck in the unfinished basement for the heck of it to watch the entry points, the water heater\HVAC ...and the floor just to figure out which cat was pooping down there!
It's like having 5 cameras in 1 because it allows for 5 separate streams at once. 1 FE and 4 de-warped views.

FE_Default.jpgFE_V1.jpgFE_V2.jpgFE_V3.jpgFE_V4.jpg
 

Flintstone61

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Hey now! I decided to try them to see which floor Lobby people get off on. from there they have 5 choices. I didnt see any 180 degree wall specific cams in my searching. we had a Homeless guy trick somebody into buzzing him in and he spent 5 hours onsite, and I heard he was sleeping in the laundry rooms, and wandering the underground garages. Then he tried to get in again. I had to up my game and quick. This was my find that would look down both hallways. I tested it on the ceiling first and didn't like that the elevator door view wasnt a great view. I felt disorientated trying see which way was what on the ceiling. They are effective in my use case. When somebody get on the elevator and goes outside, i have them on Camera's all the way to the parking lots or garages.
fisheyed.jpg
 

adamg

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It's one camera doing the job of two cameras. Saves a lot of infrastructure cost that way. Don't fret that, yes, 60% of its pixels are wasted and the 40% that have a good view are mediocre pixel density on target.
 

Flintstone61

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The whole thread is one guy throwing shade on the inefficiency of a camera.
Yes your math is correct. I don’t see anybody linking a solution. Where is the 180 degree wall camera to solve this horrible waste of silicon.
 

bp2008

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Multi-sensor panoramic cameras have a more appropriate field of view, but then you get seams in the image and oh yeah, a much larger footprint and higher price tag.

A fisheye mounted on a wall like this is one of the easiest and most complete overviews you can possibly have. You don't even need dewarping capability.
 

Flintstone61

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Multi-sensor panoramic cameras have a more appropriate field of view, but then you get seams in the image and oh yeah, a much larger footprint and higher price tag.

A fisheye mounted on a wall like this is one of the easiest and most complete overviews you can possibly have. You don't even need dewarping capability.
My Cameras look suspiciously close in resemblance to the ceiling Smoke detectors. and the Legrand Ceiling conduits I installed match the fire alarm runs. So it's a nice blend in look. unassuming.
 

Mark_M

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Where is the 180 degree wall camera to solve this horrible waste of silicon.
You've got me onto another decent point;
Is it just a waste of imaging sensor space or does it cause problems to the total image?

The Airport scenario from Axis isn't bad; Surely there's times when a ceiling light is causing the entire image to darken.
Like having too much wall viewable and the IR would blow the image out. Same deal here if a ceiling light is blowing the image out.
 

nbstl68

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Here's the 180 deg wall camera, (just happened to have one of those as well I recently put up on the garage and love it)...but it's a lot bigger vs. a low profile fisheye.
In both scenarios though they show a lot of overview but for a decent ID the individual would have to be pretty close to the cameras.

1617251676057.png
VS. Fisheye

20210327_163656.jpg


180 view
Screenshot_20210310-192904_Blue Iris.jpg

VS. a 5321 view
Screenshot_20210310-193117_Blue Iris.jpg
 

adamg

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HMC, have you considered using Blanking feature inside the camera to blank all the useless portions of the video?
 

HMC8403

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HMC, have you considered using Blanking feature inside the camera to blank all the useless portions of the video?
If it wasn’t a vaulted ceiling with skylights, possibly. Then again, I probably would prefer a white ceiling then the black masking.
 
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