When I got the cameras they had stickers on the box that identified the lense size. They also had small stickers on the outside of the cameras. I did test them and could see an obvious difference that they were at least different compared to the one 2.8mm camera I got. I thought the 2.8 would work well in the entryway of my front door. Neither the 2.8 or 4mm camera worked well and I gave that idea up. Both gave such a small field of view and would be hard to capture a target in the entire covered entryway. I ended up using a 4mm that covers the area of my front yard just before the entryway to my front door. This worked much better. Someone has to cross this path to get to the front door. It allowed me to capture people coming to my front door along with part of my front yard.
What size lens to get?
- Thread starter chadman
- Start date
Started at 5:30AM and was a simple install of the 3 cams. Wires were easy to run in the attic and the installed turned out great. Unfortunately I have one bad camera that look like a piece of dirt is stuck on the lense. Get a small black spot in the video and the focus of the camera goes kind of wacky sometimes and every looks kind of pink and digitized. Sometimes it goes back to normal or I can switch the IR on then back off to fix it.. I can't see any dirt on the inside or outside of the glass, but the video definitely show something. I ordered a replacement and will only take a few min to swap it out.
tangent
IPCT Contributor
- May 12, 2016
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2.8 is pretty wide. In fact at that lens size you already get a little fisheye distortion. 2.8 should be a FoV around 110-88 degrees horizontal. Bigger issue might be your placement of the camera. Some cams have corridor mode to rotate the image (you have to rotate the camera too). You can get fisheye cams too, but they're kinda pricey. It might take more than 1 camera. Not much point in capturing walls on camera.
It's always a good idea to bench test before you actually install something.
I made the mistake of buying one of the all-in-one kits from Sam's Club last year. Good price and relatively decent resolution and quality but ALL cameras were 2.8mm I went through the whole dry run install and quickly realized that was not optimal FOV for most all of the locations. As noted before by @Kawboy12R , it was quickly evident they were more "what's going on" cams vs. the "ID who did it" view I was looking for originally.
Also, when you walked up to the camera at night, by the time a subject was close enough to be identified...the IR would do a total face wash out, so it was impossible to identify someone really. So in effect, due to my lack of understanding, the entire kit was useless to me for my needs other than checking out the nice view in the yard and watching critters go by. That kit went back to the store and I'm now researching to build a useable system.
Work your way through this forum, I've learned a lot about proper camera selection, placement and use from these guys.
Also, when you walked up to the camera at night, by the time a subject was close enough to be identified...the IR would do a total face wash out, so it was impossible to identify someone really. So in effect, due to my lack of understanding, the entire kit was useless to me for my needs other than checking out the nice view in the yard and watching critters go by. That kit went back to the store and I'm now researching to build a useable system.
Work your way through this forum, I've learned a lot about proper camera selection, placement and use from these guys.
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