New System Build--camera selection and installation advice

murphy2u

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Link to overall build info: New member working on 1st sec cam project
House Front.JPG

Looking for (likely) two cameras:

· 10-30' coverage, day and night face-recognition quality coverage for driveway and adjacent walkway to door;
Driveway - Walkway IPVM.jpg Driveway-walkway target area (2ft below beam).JPGPorch entry (eye level).JPG
Daytime coverage good enough to get facial recognition for anyone coming to the porch to grab a package or for plates on vehicles pulling into my driveway (an oddly frequent occurrence)
· 100’, vehicle make quality image and trigger for end of the street (where at least one criminal is parking); vehicle likely travelling through the viewed area at 15-20mph (parks 15yds further away out of sight from my house).
ATTACH]13597[/ATTACH] End of Street target area (2ft below beam).JPG
ambient lighting for the target area includes an overhead street light.
For both--need good nighttime coverage due to timing of criminal activity

Product Selection thoughts to date:
- Driveway/walkway: based on my reading to date, I'm leaning towards the Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z Starlight Turret.

- End of the Street: I'd do the Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z Starlight Turret (maybe with an IR illuminator helping) or perhaps a Dahua black face PTZ like SD59225U-HNI (will would to get a dedicated POE+ injector for the latter I know)

Installation thoughts to date:

- I am thinking of placing on the underside of the beams that are under and inset from the actual soffits. the walkway on centered on the walkway, the other somewhere further right (looking out) based on minimizing obstructions toward the end of the street.

Installation general area (beam and soffet).JPG

- This placement will put the camera in front of the porch and garage light sources. Only complication is my column mounted flag-post--it will be interesting to see how well the software setup can prevent false triggers on that (although I'll budget a lot of storage capacity anyway).
- This would also have the cameras relatively protected from weather.
- At night, my porch and garage lights will provide some ambient light from behind the cameras. The only lighting challenge I think I might have are a few low voltage landscape lights--I'm hoping that won't throw my driveway/walkway camera off too much.

Hopefully my pics are worth at least a few words, but I can post more description and pics as useful to clarify/explain further.

Camera selection and installation thoughts/alternatives are welcome and appreciated.

Matt
 

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nayr

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looks pretty sane; w/free shipping on varifocal turret just grab one and play with it and see how it'll work for any spot you want a camera.. If you give your self a couple weeks of playing and testing before mounting you'll answer most of your own questions.

without a camera in hand there's only so much prep that can be done on picking camera locations, then when you have the camera in hand you'll realize most of those plans need tweaking heh.. I pity guys trying to get this done on a new build, they are just shooting in the dark w/out any real idea what lighting conditions will be like, vegetation will end up being, etc.. they are just praying they picked all the best locations w/out any data to back it up.

best thing you can do is keep your mind open while your playing with the camera; dont make decisions ahead of time that prevent you from getting creative later.. you need at least 24h testing on a location to see what lighting is like all day/night, and go out there and pretend to be a prowler, mail thief, etc and see how it does at accomplishing your goals at various hours of the day.. This is a benefit the DIYer has over paying someone to install it, you can take your sweet time and it'll pay if you do.
 
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murphy2u

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looks pretty sane; w/free shipping on varifocal turret just grab one and play with it and see how it'll work for any spot you want a camera.. If you give your self a couple weeks of playing and testing before mounting you'll answer most of your own questions.

without a camera in hand there's only so much prep that can be done on picking camera locations, then when you have the camera in hand you'll realize most of those plans need tweaking heh.. I pity guys trying to get this done on a new build, they are just shooting in the dark w/out any real idea what lighting conditions will be like, vegetation will end up being, etc.. they are just praying they picked all the best locations w/out any data to back it up.

best thing you can do is keep your mind open while your playing with the camera; dont make decisions ahead of time that prevent you from getting creative later.. you need at least 24h testing on a location to see what lighting is like all day/night, and go out there and pretend to be a prowler, mail thief, etc and see how it does at accomplishing your goals at various hours of the day.. This is a benefit the DIYer has over paying someone to install it, you can take your sweet time and it'll pay if you do.
nayr--appreciate the advice on doing some creative experimentation--I had the same thought as I was trying to take some pictures. I saw the thread where everyone was trying to weigh in on the stair-entry and lighting issue. I suspect I'll have a camera strapped to a ladder or ziptied around a column, or maybe I'll need to buy an appropriate length piece of lumber!
looney--disappointing to hear my flag is going to cause me that much grief--but at least i know to expect it and not fight it too much (although there isn't usually much wind at night). Thanks for the warning in any case!
 

nayr

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I had about 4-5 possible locations picked for my Varifocal Turret to watch the back yard, my darkest and biggest blind spot.. then when I was walking around with the camera unplugged and in my hand just to see what it looked like in various spots I saw the wooden blank spot I put in the garage window for the cat door and thought.. oh what the fuck lets see what it looks like here since it'll be sooo much easier to wire up. (I already had an existing camera watching the inside door to track pet moments)

In the end it didnt go anywhere that I had thought about in advance.. all the plans were just a waste of time heh :)

The varifocal makes it so easy to worry about it later; I suggest you worry about it later :p
 
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