How much range of motion does a turret mount have?

ah6tyfour

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I'm trying to figure out whether the mount of a turret camera gives enough range of motion to essentially turn it 90 degrees or even a bit more than that.

I'm prewiring a house and the front has the paved approach to the front door. Let's say walking up and facing the door is North. To the east is a column that is integrated into the side of the house. To the west is a column with all four walls exposed. My initial plan was to put a a camera centered on the south wall of that column (so you'd be staring at the camera the entire walk up to the porch). But I decided that it would look terrible. Just a super obvious camera sort of plopped on the wall of a column staring at you. So instead, I plan on having the wiring be placed on the west wall. Essentially, if I put a turret camera there and pointed it straight outwards, it'd be looking at the neighbor to my left.

Now I actually want that camera to point towards the approach. So I figure the mount makes the camera stick out a bit. Is the pivot point enough to turn that camera to be 90 to 100 degrees to face the approach walkway?

Would a bullet camera be able to cover this? If the mount pivot isn't good enough to turn the camera 90-100 degrees, I'd probably try to install a bullet camera there instead. I just find bullet cameras a bit unsightly once the junction box is also installed.

If it helps, I will most likely be using Reolink or Dahua cameras.
 
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wittaj

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The turrets can turn 90 degrees, maybe a smidge more. You would probably be better off relocating the turret or use a bullet to get to 100 degrees.

Dahua is a good choice.

Avoid Reolink unless you only wanna know what time something happened, but not who...

This is an example from Reolink's marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture. This is why you cannot buy a system based on marketing terms like Starlight.... Could this provide anything useful for the police? Would this protect your home? The still picture looks great though except for the person and the blur of the vehicle... Will give you a hint - the person is in between the two columns:

1632825911145.png

Bad Boys
Bad Boys
Watcha gonna do
Watcha gonna do
When the camera can't see you


 

Swampledge

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You could also use a turret wall mount on the camera. They only add a small amount of bulk to the camera, and I think look a little less aggressive than a bullet. This would give you essentially 360 degrees of adjustment in the horizontal plane.
 

TVille

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Dahua turrets can turn essentially 180 degrees, edge to edge. The view of the camera will be greater than 180 as the centerline of the camera can rotate essentially 180 degrees, and the field of view of the camera ranges from 56 degrees to 113 degrees, so you could get half of that added back on each end. So if you are looking for 90 degrees, and are using the 3.6 mm lens, you would add 24 degrees (half of 48) to that, giving you about 114 degrees of view.

Relolink is not equal to Dahua, I don't care what the goober on YouTube says. There are tons of reviews, analysis, info on Reolink's night time performance issues. If you want cheap, and want to know what time they kicked in your front door, they will do fine. If you want to know if they were wearing a hoodie or a dress, and what their face looks like, sick with the Dahua 5442 series.
 

mat200

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I'm trying to figure out whether the mount of a turret camera gives enough range of motion to essentially turn it 90 degrees or even a bit more than that.

I'm prewiring a house and the front has the paved approach to the front door. Let's say walking up and facing the door is North. To the east is a column that is integrated into the side of the house. To the west is a column with all four walls exposed. My initial plan was to put a a camera centered on the south wall of that column (so you'd be staring at the camera the entire walk up to the porch). But I decided that it would look terrible. Just a super obvious camera sort of plopped on the wall of a column staring at you. So instead, I plan on having the wiring be placed on the west wall. Essentially, if I put a turret camera there and pointed it straight outwards, it'd be looking at the neighbor to my left.

Now I actually want that camera to point towards the approach. So I figure the mount makes the camera stick out a bit. Is the pivot point enough to turn that camera to be 90 to 100 degrees to face the approach walkway?

Would a bullet camera be able to cover this? If the mount pivot isn't good enough to turn the camera 90-100 degrees, I'd probably try to install a bullet camera there instead. I just find bullet cameras a bit unsightly once the junction box is also installed.

If it helps, I will most likely be using Reolink or Dahua cameras.
Hi @ah6tyfour

What stage of the construction are you in right now?

Is the framing up? Only drawings? Is there a model house you can test with?

Remember, even when we think the positions look good, we may need to move the camera(s) over a little due to lights / IR reflections / issues with routing the cat5e/6, .. so always try to be flexible if possible.

Also N+1+ for cabling.. I always want at least 1 extra cat5e/6 cable pulled to each location I plan ..

btw - Reolink we have numerous reasons to not recommend that brand ..
 

ah6tyfour

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You could also use a turret wall mount on the camera. They only add a small amount of bulk to the camera, and I think look a little less aggressive than a bullet. This would give you essentially 360 degrees of adjustment in the horizontal plane.
Thanks! I didn't think of this. I think that would look pretty good. I don't like the look of turrets on a junction box. Does the wall mount act as a waterproof junction box as well?
 

ah6tyfour

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Datasheet for the dahua 5442TM is pretty revealing. Be sure to review the respective make/model datasheet of the camera you choose.
This is great. I'll probably end up going with this camera. Is there a variable-focus version? If not, maybe I'll just buy a cheap variable-focus camera from another more easily acquired brand jus to test before I buy since it looks like these come as fixed focal length only and 2.8, 3.6 or 6mm choices.
 

ah6tyfour

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The turrets can turn 90 degrees, maybe a smidge more. You would probably be better off relocating the turret or use a bullet to get to 100 degrees.

Dahua is a good choice.

Avoid Reolink unless you only wanna know what time something happened, but not who...

Would a bullet get me to 100 degrees? I had assumed the camera body would prevent that. I guess it depends how far out the joint is. It would have to have a pivot point far enough out that the camera could get to 100 degrees before the camera body itself hits the wall. I could ask the builder to prewire towards the edge of that column wall instead of the center, but that would look terrible to anyone who saw the house from the left side and I don't want my eventual neighbor to complain.

I was worried that, even with a junction box gaining me an inch or so of clearance from the wall, that the camera body would then hit the junction box if I tried to get it angled in such an extreme way.
 

ah6tyfour

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Dahua turrets can turn essentially 180 degrees, edge to edge. The view of the camera will be greater than 180 as the centerline of the camera can rotate essentially 180 degrees, and the field of view of the camera ranges from 56 degrees to 113 degrees, so you could get half of that added back on each end. So if you are looking for 90 degrees, and are using the 3.6 mm lens, you would add 24 degrees (half of 48) to that, giving you about 114 degrees of view.

Relolink is not equal to Dahua, I don't care what the goober on YouTube says. There are tons of reviews, analysis, info on Reolink's night time performance issues. If you want cheap, and want to know what time they kicked in your front door, they will do fine. If you want to know if they were wearing a hoodie or a dress, and what their face looks like, sick with the Dahua 5442 series.
Thanks, I guess Dahua is the way to go. It just is a bit less intuitive for a newbie like me. I figured with Reolink I could just use their NVR and their software for my computer and their app on my phone and it was relatively plug and play. With Dahua, it will require more active setup and management. My media hub also only has room for a switch and an NVR. Does Dahua have their own software and app? I guess running Blue Iris would be nicer anyway. But I don't have space in the room where the media hub is to have a computer. The media enclosure is only big enough for a two switches or a switch and an NVR. Could I just have a PoE switch and then have a computer in a different room on the same hardwired network run Blue Iris?
 

mat200

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Thanks, I guess Dahua is the way to go. It just is a bit less intuitive for a newbie like me. I figured with Reolink I could just use their NVR and their software for my computer and their app on my phone and it was relatively plug and play. With Dahua, it will require more active setup and management. My media hub also only has room for a switch and an NVR. Does Dahua have their own software and app? I guess running Blue Iris would be nicer anyway. But I don't have space in the room where the media hub is to have a computer. The media enclosure is only big enough for a two switches or a switch and an NVR. Could I just have a PoE switch and then have a computer in a different room on the same hardwired network run Blue Iris?
Hi @ah6tyfour

You need to decide what is the most important quality of the security cameras for you.

Primary question: Do you need low light performance? ( if you want any decent low light image capture .. )

If the answer is maybe or yes .. then Reolink is a very poor match.

Also remember a security camera system is not an alarm system, and no security camera system is perfect and able to do it all.

The most important for you now, is to get the best positions and enough cat6 runs into the home.
 

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