I came, I read, I'm lost...

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

Well I did learn a lot so it's not all that bad and maybe not lost but unsure.. I'm ditching the nest cloud based garbage and began the dive into a POE system. I live in a ranch house so fairly straight forward about 50 ft from the street. We have no street lights and no sidewalks. Our neighbors are about 50 feet between homes as well. On the right side of the house we have an entry gate but if i put a camera directly on it, it will also be filming right into my neighbors window so thats not really ideal. I could do a corner of the house as pictured or maybe on the outside corner of the fence itself facing our front yard? Picture of house is below (sorry about the weird panorama pic). I would just like some input on if this would be adequate or suggestions on what cameras may be better? I want to ID people plain and simple. We had someone light fireworks off in the front when we first moved in about 10 feet from the door and couldn't even see who it was.
From left to right,
Red - 8mp starlight lite varifocal turret
Blue - 4MP Extreme Low Light IP w/ LED - Turret (I wouldnt be using the flood light option, There's a light in front of the garage.)
Green - 4MP Starlight Turret IP Camera - 3.6mm (would 2.8mm be better for a front door?)
Blue - 4MP Extreme Low Light IP w/ LED - Turret

I will be running blue iris on a dell optiflex from ebay as suggested and cat6 throughout the house.

Thanks in advance, I know this is a redundant question but it's a big investment and i don't want to be wrong here.

SouthernYankee · Feb 23, 2021

You are off to a very good start.

You are reading, studying and planning before spending money.

Depending on the Neighborhood, and whether you park in the drive way, i would recommend two 3.6 to 6.0MM cameras for the garage. You need tight camera views to get the car door checkers. Two cameras at the front door, one a camera mounted A door bell height , and one pointed at the package drop area. The front yard over view camera 2.8mm will work.

I recommend starting with one good variable focus camera to start, test you camera placement and lens selection, test each location for 24 hours, test with motion at night. Have "bad guy" wearing a hoodie at night move by the camrera, can the ID be use by the police and in court.

===============
My standard welcome to the forum message.

Read Study Plan before spending money
Cameras are for surveillance to get information for after the fact.

Please read the IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes and other items in the IP Cam Talk Wiki. (read on a real computer, not a phone). The wiki is in the blue bar at the top of the page.

Read How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) in the wiki also.

Quick start
1) If you do not have a wired monitored alarm system, get that first
2) Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras if you need good low light cameras.
3) Start with a good variable focus camera, so you test for the correct lens,lighting, camera placement.
4) use a VPN to access home network (openVPN)
5) Do not use wifi cameras.
6) Do not use cloud storage
7) Do Not use uPNP, P2P, QR, do not open ports,
8) More megapixel is not necessarily better.
9) Avoid chinese hacked cameras (most ebay, amazon, aliexpress cameras(not all, but most))
10) Do not use reolink, ring, nest, Arlo, Vivint cameras (they are junk), no cloud cameras
11) If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR)
12) Use only solid copper, AWG 23 or 24 ethernet wire. , no CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum)
13) use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
14) (Looney2ns)If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 7ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
15) Use a router that has openVPN built in (Most ASUS, Some NetGear....)
16) camera placement use the calculator... IPVM Camera Calculator V3
17) POE list PoE Switch Suggestion List
18) Camera Sensor size, bigger is general better Sensor Size Chart
19) Camera lens size, a bigger number give more range but less field of view. Which Security Camera Lens Size Should I Buy?
20) verify your camera placement, have a friend wearing a hoodie, ball cap and sunglasses looking down approach the house, can you identify them at night ?
21) DO NOT UPGRADE your NVR or camera unless you absolutely have a problem that needs to be fixed and known what you are doing, if you do you will turn it into a brick !!

Cameras to look at
IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED . Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+) - 4MP starlight
.................... Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED review
IPC-T5442TM-AS ..... Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ - 4MP starlight+
IPC-HDW5442t-ZE .... Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE 4MP Varifocal Turret - Night Perfomance testing -- variable focus 2.7 mm-12mm 4 MP Starlight
IPC-B5442E-ZE ...... Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+ -- variable 2.7mm-12mm bullet
IPC-B5442E-Z4E .... bullet 8mm-32mm variable focus zoom 4MP
IPC-HFW7442H-Z ..... Review - Dahua IPC-HFW7442H-Z 4MP Ultra AI Varifocal Bullet Camera -- 4 MP variable focus AI

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

If nighttime color is what you are looking for, stay away from 4k (8MP) - especially one with a 1/2.8" sensor. It will be crap. An 8MP will need quadruple the light than a 2MP... the best combination is a 4MP on a 1/1.8" sensor. Or the 2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor. You are looking at a 8MP camera on a 1/2.8" sensor - a 2MP will kick it's butt all night long. And then you are looking at one with a 2.8mm lens - if those people are not within 10 feet of the camera, you will not be able to ID a stranger... @SouthernYankee has given you great suggestions for cameras. Go with varifocals so that you can dial them in to the area you are looking to cover.

ALL cameras need light at night. Simple physics. Marketing a camera as low light and full color doesn't change that fact. As some folks are finding out, some of these cameras play with parameters that make them look nice and bright at night, but when there is motion, it is a complete blur and ghosting. I can make a crap camera look like noon at midnight by adjusting the parameters and make it look great as a still picture, but as soon as motion is introduced, it is blur and ghost city. How many perps will stop for 5 seconds so that your camera can get a clean shot of them...

If there isn't enough light, then you want to get a camera that has infrared, but then it will be B/W.

You would be surprised how much light these cameras need to stay in color at night (for the cameras that can switch to B/W with IR).

I have 33,000 lumen radiating off my house and I have to force the camera in color as it is not enough light for the camera to automatically stay in color at night. The sensors are small in cameras and need a lot of light.

I have enough light at this location that the little LED white light on the camera didn’t make a difference. This is a 4MP camera on the 1/2.8" sensor with an LED white light as part of the camera. So with this 1/120 shutter speed, I wanted to see if the camera could perform with only the white light from the camera and the flood lights turned off. As you can see from this video, it never recognized me at these settings. You would need to run 1/80 shutter with just the white light to be able to start to make a person out, but the image is way too dark.

The average Joe will not spend the time to calibrate and will just leave the settings on auto and love the great still image they get and then just accept a blur/ghost motion at night. When do we need these to perform - at night!

Keep in mind that with the shutter at auto, it is a nice bright image, but motion was a blur...once you dial the camera in to actually be usable, you see the limitations...

https://ipcamtalk.com/data/video/77/77700-cde61f6b1c11ec86c9d2aa035a02742b.mp4

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

SouthernYankee said:
You are off to a very good start.

You are reading, studying and planning before spending money.

Depending on the Neighborhood, and whether you park in the drive way, i would recommend two 3.6 to 6.0MM cameras for the garage. You need tight camera views to get the car door checkers. Two cameras at the front door, one a camera mounted A door bell height , and one pointed at the package drop area. The front yard over view camera 2.8mm will work.

I recommend starting with one good variable focus camera to start, test you camera placement and lens selection, test each location for 24 hours, test with motion at night. Have "bad guy" wearing a hoodie at night move by the camrera, can the ID be use by the police and in court.

Sounds good thank you! I will try the varifocal first and see what it looks like. I think i really just have to figure out what MP/sensor size/lens size combo i need for what i want. I'm slightly lost on the conversion to determine pixel size.

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

It is simple - do not buy a 4MP camera that is anything other than a 1/1.8" sensor. Do not buy a 2MP camera that is anything other than a 1/2.8" sensor. Do not buy into the 4K hype.

The 5442 series varifocal is a great camera - Try the 5442E-ZE and go from there.

Do not chase 4k - at night the 1080 (2MP) cams will be your better bet. Just ask my neighbors with their 4k cameras that didn't provide the money shot to get their stolen belongings back, yet my older 2MP camera did capture the money shot that ID'd the thief for the police to find and make an arrest and fortunately still had all the stolen stuff...If you have a lot of light, and I mean a lot of light, then maybe 4k, but most of us do not have enough light for 4K.

Also, do not be sold by some trademarked night color vision that is a marketing ploy in a lot of ways lol. It is simply what a manufacturer wants to claim for low-light performance, but there are so many games that can be played even with the how they report the Lux numbers. They will claim a low lux of 0.001 for example, but then that is with a wide open iris and a shutter at 1/3 second and an f1.0 - as soon as you have motion in it, it will be crap. You need a shutter of at minimum 1/60 second to reduce a lot of blur from someone walking.

You were looking initially at the ColorVu and check out this video at midnight. You see this and it looks like daytime. But any motion in the frame and it is crap and will be a ghost blur. You notice they do not show anything with motion. I can make all my cameras look like this at midnight with no other light, but we want good motion video, not still images video. They are very nice cameras with enough light at night which you said you do not have.

It is these games that the consumer grade cameras of the world do to their camera to make it look good at night - but then a person walking by is a blur and people simply say well the camera isn't good at night. If you have the ability to change the settings, you can make it work. Just remember that every increase in shutter speed needs more light. So I can set mine to 1/250 second and eliminate blur at night, but then all that is visible is a 5 foot diameter around the camera IF I have enough light.

Here is another example from a camera manufacturer marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture. Could this provide anything useful for the police? The still picture looks great though... Will give you a hint - in between the two columns:

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

wittaj said:
If nighttime color is what you are looking for, stay away from 4k (8MP) - especially one with a 1/2.8" sensor. It will be crap. An 8MP will need quadruple the light than a 2MP... the best combination is a 4MP on a 1/1.8" sensor. Or the 2MP on the 1/2.8" sensor. You are looking at a 8MP camera on a 1/2.8" sensor - a 2MP will kick it's butt all night long. And then you are looking at one with a 2.8mm lens - if those people are not within 10 feet of the camera, you will not be able to ID a stranger... @SouthernYankee has given you great suggestions for cameras. Go with varifocals so that you can dial them in to the area you are looking to cover.

ALL cameras need light at night. Simple physics. Marketing a camera as low light and full color doesn't change that fact. As some folks are finding out, some of these cameras play with parameters that make them look nice and bright at night, but when there is motion, it is a complete blur and ghosting. I can make a crap camera look like noon at midnight by adjusting the parameters and make it look great as a still picture, but as soon as motion is introduced, it is blur and ghost city. How many perps will stop for 5 seconds so that your camera can get a clean shot of them...

If there isn't enough light, then you want to get a camera that has infrared, but then it will be B/W.

You would be surprised how much light these cameras need to stay in color at night (for the cameras that can switch to B/W with IR).

I have 33,000 lumen radiating off my house and I have to force the camera in color as it is not enough light for the camera to automatically stay in color at night. The sensors are small in cameras and need a lot of light.

I have enough light at this location that the little LED white light on the camera didn’t make a difference. This is a 4MP camera on the 1/2.8" sensor with an LED white light as part of the camera. So with this 1/120 shutter speed, I wanted to see if the camera could perform with only the white light from the camera and the flood lights turned off. As you can see from this video, it never recognized me at these settings. You would need to run 1/80 shutter with just the white light to be able to start to make a person out, but the image is way too dark.

The average Joe will not spend the time to calibrate and will just leave the settings on auto and love the great still image they get and then just accept a blur/ghost motion at night. When do we need these to perform - at night!

Keep in mind that with the shutter at auto, it is a nice bright image, but motion was a blur...once you dial the camera in to actually be usable, you see the limitations...

https://ipcamtalk.com/data/video/77/77700-cde61f6b1c11ec86c9d2aa035a02742b.mp4

Thank you, very much the advice i was looking. The camera in the video is a larger sensor than the 4mp low light i posted and it still has issues huh? I dont know why i wasn't thinking about motion blur. Does it work the same way a slr camera would with an aperture and shutter speed?

As far as the 8mp goes i was undecided on the 8 or the 2 varifocal. I choose the 8mp because i felt if i zoomed in i would be able to make out detail better.

I'm totally okay with NOT having color. I don't see any varifocal turret styles in a 4mp unfortunately.

So, If i can find a 4mp variable focus, a bigger sensor would be better? stick with a standard 4mp 2.8mm at the front door.

**was typgn this as you replied above sorry.. I'll read that now.

sebastiantombs · Feb 23, 2021

With an 8MP zooming in digitally on a daytime scene can be better, but at night, without enough light and whether it's in full color or B&W, it won't work well at all.

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

wittaj said:
It is simple - do not buy a 4MP camera that is anything other than a 1/1.8" sensor. Do not buy a 2MP camera that is anything other than a 1/2.8" sensor. Do not buy into the 4K hype.

The 5442 series varifocal is a great camera - Try the 5442E-ZE and go from there.

Do not chase 4k - at night the 1080 (2MP) cams will be your better bet. Just ask my neighbors with their 4k cameras that didn't provide the money shot to get their stolen belongings back, yet my older 2MP camera did capture the money shot that ID'd the thief for the police to find and make an arrest and fortunately still had all the stolen stuff...If you have a lot of light, and I mean a lot of light, then maybe 4k, but most of us do not have enough light for 4K.

Also, do not be sold by some trademarked night color vision that is a marketing ploy in a lot of ways lol. It is simply what a manufacturer wants to claim for low-light performance, but there are so many games that can be played even with the how they report the Lux numbers. They will claim a low lux of 0.001 for example, but then that is with a wide open iris and a shutter at 1/3 second and an f1.0 - as soon as you have motion in it, it will be crap. You need a shutter of at minimum 1/60 second to reduce a lot of blur from someone walking.

You were looking initially at the ColorVu and check out this video at midnight. You see this and it looks like daytime. But any motion in the frame and it is crap and will be a ghost blur. You notice they do not show anything with motion. I can make all my cameras look like this at midnight with no other light, but we want good motion video, not still images video. They are very nice cameras with enough light at night which you said you do not have.

It is these games that the consumer grade cameras of the world do to their camera to make it look good at night - but then a person walking by is a blur and people simply say well the camera isn't good at night. If you have the ability to change the settings, you can make it work. Just remember that every increase in shutter speed needs more light. So I can set mine to 1/250 second and eliminate blur at night, but then all that is visible is a 5 foot diameter around the camera IF I have enough light.

Here is another example from a camera manufacturer marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture. Could this provide anything useful for the police? The still picture looks great though... Will give you a hint - in between the two columns:

HAHA yep, so you answer my question. I used to do photography many years ago so I have a good understanding of f stops/shutter speed etc. I will stay away from the color for sure! Thank you. Saved me money and frustration!

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

The biggest mistake people make is thinking these cameras are like we see on TV and in the movies - we cannot digital zoom and get clearer details - a little digital zoom maybe, but it has to be an optical zoom which is where the varifocals come in.

You need to decide the area you want monitored by the camera and then select the correct camera for that location and optically zoomed for the coverage you want. Digital zoom, especially at night will be useless.

The 5442E-ZE is a varifocal with the current best combo of MP to sensor (4MP on a 1/1.8" sensor). Get that one and test it and then figure out the rest you need.

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

sebastiantombs said:
With an 8MP zooming in digitally on a daytime scene can be better, but at night, without enough light and whether it's in full color or B&W, it won't work well at all.

the 8mp i was looking at was a variable focus so it would do it optically. However, if i'm getting it right, that would still require a larger aperture and slow shutter speed as it zoomed in so wouldnt matter much.

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

wittaj said:
The biggest mistake people make is thinking these cameras are like we see on TV and in the movies - we cannot digital zoom and get clearer details - a little digital zoom maybe, but it has to be an optical zoom which is where the varifocals come in.

You need to decide the area you want monitored by the camera and then select the correct camera for that location and optically zoomed for the coverage you want. Digital zoom, especially at night will be useless.

The 5442E-ZE is a varifocal with the current best combo of MP to sensor (4MP on a 1/1.8" sensor). Get that one and test it and then figure out the rest you need.

the 5442e doesn't come in a turret does it? I havent found it yet.

sebastiantombs · Feb 23, 2021

Review - Loryata (Dahua OEM) IPC-T5442T-ZE varifocal Turret

Review-OEM Loryta IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal 4mp camera (Dahua)

IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal from @EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret Varifocal Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk store: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price Approximately US $200.00...

ipcamtalk.com

Keep in mind that these are varifocal and not true zoom. They are designed to be set at the required focal length for the installation and left that way.

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

Jhonyquest97 said:
the 5442e doesn't come in a turret does it? I havent found it yet.

Yep what he said^ go with the 5442T-ZE

If you want to be able to zoom in and out you need a PTZ.

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

sebastiantombs said:
Keep in mind that these are varifocal and not true zoom. They are designed to be set at the required focal length for the installation and left that way.

wittaj said:
Yep what he said^ go with the 5442T-ZE

If you want to be able to zoom in and out you need a PTZ.

Copy thank you guys!

Flintstone61 · Feb 23, 2021

These guys told me all this stuff a year ago. Did I listen? I thought they were crazy spending $200 on a camera.... nooooooo ....I had to go to "Hard Knock Camera dummy Shortbus school" and throw money out the window buying camera's that are not as full featured as the 5421's and 5442's.... Like the 20x Optical zoom "Jidetech" 2mp. It was less expensive and has a great lens but It's difficult to dial in motion triggers and other annoyances. It needs the annoying browser plug-ins to view outside of Blue iris and only on Internet Explorer. Did I get the right PC? yes. Did I get a surveillance drive? NO... Did I have problems with the WD Blue drive and Data corruption? YES. Did I get a POE 802.3"at" switch? NO, I bought an 802.3af switch only to findout it wasn;t enough power to run the big PTZ camera......These guys are saving you money.....try and see the wisdom....Hear me now and Believe me later.

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

Flintstone61 said:
These guys told me all this stuff a year ago. Did I listen? I thought they were crazy spending $200 on a camera.... nooooooo ....I had to go to "Hard Knock Camera dummy Shortbus school" and throw money out the window buying camera's that are not as full featured as the 5421's and 5442's.... Like the 20x Optical zoom "Jidetech" 2mp. It was less expensive and has a great lens but It's difficult to dial in motion triggers and other annoyances. It needs the annoying browser plug-ins to view outside of Blue iris and only on Internet Explorer. Did I get the right PC? yes. Did I get a surveillance drive? NO... Did I have problems with the WD Blue drive and Data corruption? YES. Did I get a POE 802.3"at" switch? NO, I bought an 802.3af switch only to findout it wasn;t enough power to run the big PTZ camera......These guys are saving you money.....try and see the wisdom....Hear me now and Believe me later. View attachment 83347

Yep, the AI alone on the Dahua cams is worth it!

I too bought a cheap PTZ and wasn't long before I upgraded it!

Jhonyquest97 · Feb 23, 2021

Flintstone61 said:
These guys told me all this stuff a year ago. Did I listen? I thought they were crazy spending $200 on a camera.... nooooooo ....I had to go to "Hard Knock Camera dummy Shortbus school" and throw money out the window buying camera's that are not as full featured as the 5421's and 5442's.... Like the 20x Optical zoom "Jidetech" 2mp. It was less expensive and has a great lens but It's difficult to dial in motion triggers and other annoyances. It needs the annoying browser plug-ins to view outside of Blue iris and only on Internet Explorer. Did I get the right PC? yes. Did I get a surveillance drive? NO... Did I have problems with the WD Blue drive and Data corruption? YES. Did I get a POE 802.3"at" switch? NO, I bought an 802.3af switch only to findout it wasn;t enough power to run the big PTZ camera......These guys are saving you money.....try and see the wisdom....Hear me now and Believe me later. View attachment 83347

Not disagreeing at all. This is why I ask because I’m ignorant to the stuff. But I know you get what you pay for and I would rather pay more now then later lol

Flintstone61 · Feb 23, 2021

sebastiantombs said:
Review - Loryata (Dahua OEM) IPC-T5442T-ZE varifocal Turret

Review-OEM Loryta IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal 4mp camera (Dahua)

IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal from @EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret Varifocal Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk store: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price Approximately US $200.00...

ipcamtalk.com

Keep in mind that these are varifocal and not true zoom. They are designed to be set at the required focal length for the installation and left that way.

Is the 5442 ze Bullet considered varifocal as well?

wittaj · Feb 23, 2021

Yes, a varifocal is any camera that is not a fixed lens.

samplenhold · Feb 24, 2021

Don't try and buy the whole system at one time. Get that 5442 varifocal and use a test rig as described in the Cliff Notes to test specific placements. Do not run wires or mount the cam until you have tested the exact position, day and night, with a person walking around in the cam view.

Put some LED bulbs in your driveway and front porch lights and keep them on all night, use a timer. I use 5000k temperature 500 lumens bulb in the coach lights and 5000k 1750 lumens in the pot lights on my porch. Even if you can't get good enough lighting for color at night, the visible light will help with the IR picture.

If you have that view on your fence that you would really like to have, realize that you can mask the video. See my still below. I did not want my cam pointing into my back neighbor's pool. You would not see much, but it just seems creepy to me to record that.

Back Yard NW Corner 2019-2-27 12.41.15.302 PM.jpg

@wittaj has given you some good info on sensor size. Here is a little more. It is not that a 4MP cam is 'better' than an 4K cam per se. Low light performance is based on how much light gets to each pixel. So if a cam has a 1/1.8" sensor (0.555 inches), each pixel would get much more light to it if there were only 4MP spread across it than 8MP from a 4K cam. Of course other things are at play here, like shutter speed, aperture setting, and the lens used. But most 4K cams in the prosumer lines are on 1/2.8" (0.357 inches) or smaller sensors. So that 4K cam on one of those sensors will get even less light per pixel than the 4MP on 1/1.8" sensor. The wider the aperture, the more light gets in but the depth of field is less so focus becomes an issue. To get more light to the sensor, the shutter can be slowed down, but that will impart motion blur. You can up the gain, but that imparts noise. It is no different than sports photography. There are trade offs that need to be made. So getting a big sensor and less pixels is the easiest way to maximize the light to each pixel without imparting negative issues.

There is nothing wrong with having a wide angle cam, one that we call an overview cam, provided that you realize it is just that, an overview cam. It will not give you any facial info but can supply other data like clothing color, markings and logos, vehicle info, perp direction of travel, etc.

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Jhonyquest97

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