Where should I put my camera for facial recognition?

[alwaysoff]

This is a photo of my front door with two possible camera locations I can think of. Which one would you suggest?


I've attached photos of what my camera takes from each position.

A:


B:


I'd like to have facial recognition done by DeepStack (if that's possible) so I can be alerted if a known person is approaching.

It seems that "A" is better for facial rec, but the camera is smack bang in the middle, above the door. B Lets me see more parts of the yard / porch and even more of what's near the front door. B would place the camera sli

The camera is IPC-T5442T-ZE vari-focal 2.7-12mm. The snapshots above were done at the widest angle, from Stream 2 (SD).

 

[sebastiantombs]

Neither location is really appropriate for ID at the front door. For good ID the camera should be down around six feet, or seven at the absolute maximum. The 5442T-ZE is overkill for that as well. One of the wedge style cameras in 4MP would work fine there. I have four cameras on the front of the house and the only one people really notice is the doorbell camera.

DS can work for facial recognition if you can give it enough pictures of the faces you want to be notified of.

 

[wittaj]

Neither one will work - they are too high. For facial recognition, it needs to be at face level.

However, keep in mind that most of us have found in home settings that facial recognition is more gimmicky and novelty than anything else. If you have to put in 5 or 10 or 15 or 35 pictures of yourself in the NVR or DeepStack for it to recognize it is you...then you shouldn't expect much....

It can work in certain situations like a business that requires everyone to stop in front of the camera and the camera is at head height. Outside of that, the percentage of being accurate is probably not going to be super high. Especially someone coming to a front door.

Unless you spend the big bucks that casinos and airports have LOL.

Heck even in ideal situations like a business with the camera at ideal height and optimal lighting it fails....

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[wittaj]

But if you do mount them higher, then with that varifocal, I would aim and zoom further out to flatten the angle and zoom in to area close to in red and maybe get a face shot before they start looking down as the approach the house, but it would still be problematic for facial recognition for the reasons above.

 

[alwaysoff]

So perhaps the ideal camera for facial recognition would be a doorbell camera mounted on the door, but this camera needs to be "zoomed in" i.e. have a narrow field of view. Most if not all doorbell cameras have a very wide field of view.

 

[CCTVCam]

No. Doorbell cameras use fisheye lenses that distort and image. They often use small sensors with poor quality pictures especially at night. You cannot zoom them in as they have a fixed wide fish eye lens. They are poor quality compared to a "proper" camera.

Get a proper camera with a wide angle lens eg 2.8mm and have done with it. Forget facial recogintion. Best any prosumer orientated system is likely to do is object recognition ie person, dog, cat etc.

Even with the above lens, the person may fall outside of the recorded area when close to the door. If you want a what happens at the door shot, you need a camera mounted looking back at the door from nearer the garden eg on the house side of that pillar nearest your daughter or the other pillar nearest to you in the 2nd picture. Usually some might mount one off to the side on the house, but your door is recessed so anyone inside the recess will not be recorded by a side facing camera. One on the back of the pillar, the camera will not be seen on approach but will record any incident at the door eg assault, forced entry etc and will capture the face of anyone turning around or exiting. What it won't do is deter by being hidden.

The time you might not get something on a doorward (inward facing camera) would be if someone forced their way in without looking back and then exited by another means eg back door, window etc. If you want the best of both worlds, and to keep it neat on your door, you could do a doorbell camera on the door to give you a good enough pic when someone has their back to pillar camera for answering the door purposes, and one on the back of the pillar to capture any action / face on exit. Just don't expect either camera to automatically tell you it's auntie Doris from next door or a burglar with a stripy suit and bag labelled swag. At least not yet. Maybe in a few years....when the Chinese communist party rule the world although then it will probably be their camera!

 

[SouthernYankee]

nice job on the question. Very good pictures for the discussion.
I have a cheap small camera mounted in my door bell. It is a cheap Chinese POE camera with a 3.6MM lens.

I have multiple cameras covering my front door.
1) camera mounted in the door bell at about 4 ft up. (the door bell cover is brass and is 28 years old)
2) camera mount on the over hang pointed back at the door.
3) one camera above the door to the side pointing at the package drop aresa/
4) one camera mounted inside the house pointing at the door.