Front/drive coverage/placement suggestion? w/pics

[8bitbanger]

Hi folks -

I'm looking for thoughts and feedback on the three camera placement approaches listed below for the driveway of my new place. Specifically I'm looking for coverage (in order of importance) of our cars (one typ in front of each garage door), the length of driveway, mailbox (to the "left" of driveway entrance as oriented/shown), and yard. Disregard the RV.

I'm mostly working with turret 5442's. I currently have a spare varifocal, 2.8 and 3.6mm to play around with... but will buy more or use them elsewhere as needed. There is an existing 3.6mm under the covered porch, covering front stoop and front door (see first pic).

Generally I'd like at least visibility (observation but recognition preferred) out to across the road, 6' high, with ID at least a car length or two from garage doors: basically in the area cars will be parked. Some yard coverage sure would be preferred. I have other plans for the 'sides' of the house.

I'd hypothetically install the below mentioned cams about 9' up under the eaves (direct to brick face w/junction box). There is no added illumination, only starlight.

I concocted three approaches:
1) One 2.8mm, centered between garage doors.
Pros: one cam captures most of the front; only ~4ft blind spot beneath (car fronts).
Cons: DORI the worst; would like a little better recognition further out drive.

2) Two 3.6mm, at opposite edges of garage doors.
Pros: little better DORI coverage
Cons: significantly increased blindspots, two cams required, placement/direction critical; have to observe two cameras for full monitoring just outside of driveway sides

3) One 2.8mm centered (as #1 above), + one 12mm offset, pointed out length of driveway.
Pros: wide coverage for general viewing/monitoring; much better DORI covering more of the driveway/further out
Cons: ?

Is it silly for me to consider two cams, which basically orient in the same direction? What would you suggest? I'm thinking that if I'm going to go this route, I may as well look at something beyond 12mm tele to get ID nearly the full length of the drive (though the 2.8 + 12mm do seem to compliment one another pretty well in terms of where the 2.8 drops off and the 12mm picks up)?

 

[Griswalduk]

Looking at the picture of the front of your house i would try placing a varifocal camera either side of the garage in a cross formation and another one in the middle looking straight out further along the driveway. I would also place another two cameras in cross formation to cover the front door area. One under the porch at side of garage and the other at the corner of the house above where the seat is. The advantage of the varifocal is you can fine tune it to the required field of view. The 5442 -Z4E has a larger zoom which maybe of use if your driveway is long.

Many would also recommend a camera specifically for the "package drop area"

Be mindful the 3 round bushes are going to obscure what the cameras can see in this area.

I'll hand over to the rest for their input.

Good luck

 

[8bitbanger]

Thanks for the response. For the porch I have one where you describe, along with a ring (for better or worse, but it covers me for now). Eventually yes I'd like to put one above the left-hand side of door directed down/out towards walkway. Attached are the porch coverage. I only have so much leniency for cameras in the front from the Mrs.

And yes the bushes are definitely an unavoidable (see above Re: Mrs.) obstruction as long as I can captures some of the yard that's fine. More for wildlife viewing out there than anything (and spotting the meter reader coming to the side of my house). The bush on the corner of the garage is getting trimmed back heavily though!

Are you suggesting two varifocals cross formation at each corner of the garage area? Guess I'm worried most about covering blindspots immediately in front of garage doors.

 

[Griswalduk]

Yep cameras at each corner lined up so 1 camera sees the other or thereabouts. With 2 cars parked there will be an area in the middle between the 2 cars that you will see people entering but not what they are doing behind the cars. Another camera in the centre of the garage could pick up this area but you say you would like to see further out the driveway. 1 camera could maybe be lined up to do both but you might end up trying to cover too much ground. ideally having 2 cameras in the centre would be better.

You mention you have a varifocal and I'm assuming it's a 5442. It's always advised to make a test rig ( bucket with stones and a 4x2 or step ladders maybe with a piece of wood and temporally fastened the camera to it ) then test the area prior to final installing. You could do this at each location with a long patch cable and adjust the field of view to see if it fits your requirements.

Sound like you have all the equipment and experimenting costs nothing

 

[sebastiantombs]

General recommendation is one camera one each side looking toward each other and a third in the center looking straight out. Keep in mind that for ID the general rule is 100ppf.

 

[8bitbanger]

I mean sure, in an ideal world I'd have a bajillion cameras up, but c'mon I'd be in the doghouse if I proposed putting up three cams in the span of 22ft. . So I think best thing will be to temporarily mount some cams up and see what works best. Obviously I can't have my cake and eat it to, there will have to be a compromise. Guess that's on me to figure out.

One thing I could never figure out is on the varifocal, how can I tell what the current focal length actually is? I see nothing in the camera controls (web interface) to indicate. It's an IPC-T5442T-ZE.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Look in the Wiki in the blue bar at the top of the page. There's a converter for zoom to millimeters of focal length in there. It is an approximation, not an exact reading, but more than close enough for normal circemstances.

The point of three cameras is to be able to watch and get identity shots no matter where the bad guys may come from or go to around the cars that are potentially parked in the driveway. Getting a shot good enough to identify is the key, anything else and your just kidding yourself and making yourself feel good because you have cameras.

 

[8bitbanger]

No you're exactly right, and I've at least been given a nod to the notion "if you're going to put cameras up make them worth the trouble and aesthetic "cost" if they're needed some day"

I need to test and see how bad the blindspots are, practically, with 3.6mm+ cross-oriented. I think they'd at least cover one another. That online cam tool sure is handy to get a ballpark.

This isn't a super crime ridden(knock on wood) area so I'm not overly worried about smash and grabs of the cars, or someone lurking/waiting in the dark on a side of a car I can't see. I'm more worried about broad daylight robberies and porch pirates. People are forced to enter via the driveway due to a nice deep culvert, so I think getting good ID further down the driveway is critical, and where the varifocal will come into play.

 

[wittaj]

See these two threads, complete with recommendations for cameras based on distance to IDENTIFY, as well as a reason for redundant views.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...

ipcamtalk.com

Why I Like Redundant Views/Multiple Cam Views

A lot of newbies ask for help with their camera setups and most think that they can get by with a single cam to cover quite a bit of area. While that is possible if all you are interested in is a wide-angle overview, it usually will not give you a great chance of getting a face shot good enough...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[8bitbanger]

See these two threads, complete with recommendations for cameras based on distance to IDENTIFY, as well as a reason for redundant views.

Good reads, thanks for the links.

 

[Flintstone61]

I like two cams facing same direction. it's not silly.

 

[mat200]

Hi folks -

I'm looking for thoughts and feedback on the three camera placement approaches listed below for the driveway of my new place. Specifically I'm looking for coverage (in order of importance) of our cars (one typ in front of each garage door), the length of driveway, mailbox (to the "left" of driveway entrance as oriented/shown), and yard. Disregard the RV.

I'm mostly working with turret 5442's. I currently have a spare varifocal, 2.8 and 3.6mm to play around with... but will buy more or use them elsewhere as needed. There is an existing 3.6mm under the covered porch, covering front stoop and front door (see first pic).

Generally I'd like at least visibility (observation but recognition preferred) out to across the road, 6' high, with ID at least a car length or two from garage doors: basically in the area cars will be parked. Some yard coverage sure would be preferred. I have other plans for the 'sides' of the house.

I'd hypothetically install the below mentioned cams about 9' up under the eaves (direct to brick face w/junction box). There is no added illumination, only starlight.

I concocted three approaches:
1) One 2.8mm, centered between garage doors.
Pros: one cam captures most of the front; only ~4ft blind spot beneath (car fronts).
Cons: DORI the worst; would like a little better recognition further out drive.

2) Two 3.6mm, at opposite edges of garage doors.
Pros: little better DORI coverage
Cons: significantly increased blindspots, two cams required, placement/direction critical; have to observe two cameras for full monitoring just outside of driveway sides

3) One 2.8mm centered (as #1 above), + one 12mm offset, pointed out length of driveway.
Pros: wide coverage for general viewing/monitoring; much better DORI covering more of the driveway/further out
Cons: ?

Is it silly for me to consider two cams, which basically orient in the same direction? What would you suggest? I'm thinking that if I'm going to go this route, I may as well look at something beyond 12mm tele to get ID nearly the full length of the drive (though the 2.8 + 12mm do seem to compliment one another pretty well in terms of where the 2.8 drops off and the 12mm picks up)?

Hi @8bitbanger

I would definitely look for a varifocal or stronger fixed lens to get 100 ppf at the start of your driveway .. perhaps even a bit further so you can ID any car or person standing just before they enter your driveway ..

If you have a mailbox on the street, then I would try to move cameras up further closer to the mailbox to try to watch and ID anyone attempting to steal mail or damage your mailbox.

With those considerations, a wider FOV and tighter FOV camera are a good start .. do plan to add more later if you feel the need, and seeing what looks like an RV you may want another camera to cover more of the RV parking area .. it really depends on the possible issues you want to watch for.

Try to tighten the blue FOV to get 100ppf at the start of your driveway ..