POS camera for bar recomendation needed

Baspinall

Baspinall

Young grasshopper
Aug 11, 2016
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A customer wants to add two cameras to watch the cash drawers in a bar. Pretty dark place in the evening. Drop ceiling about about 4-5 ft. above POS height. There is a POS on either side of this bar about mid way. Hard to see in pictures. Currently I have all Hikvision cameras on this system. Would entertain LTS. WHat do you guys think? Darkfighter cameras are rather large. I'm thinking vari focal maybe 2 MP ? Will lower MP give me more clarity at night? Will the IR just white out/reflect off of money at night?
Suggestions welcome.

Thanks - Brian
 
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Hi @Baspinall

if it is low light, then I would pick one of the darkfighter models.
 
Not an expert so take this with a grain, but is this just to fight a cash theft/change concern because I thought with bars a bigger problem were the over pour, short ring and wrong change situations. Anyway it feels like your customer might not want a big obtrusive security camera in full view (arguably maybe that would be a good deterrent), but you say there is a drop ceiling could you mount something like a box camera aimed straight down through a hole in the ceiling above the cash register?
 
Wow Strange seeing Ashtrays in the Bar, Here In NY its worse than Murder if you lit up in a bar and you would be executed on the spot. That being said, Are you adding new cams or replacing the two you have. You could easily catch those spots from overhead closer to the POS systems with the darkfinders and have good resolution, easily enough adjusted for the environment.
 
I know you mentioned staying with Hikvision, but just wanted mention that Dahua has a relatively small Starlight mini-dome wedge camera (4231F-AS). Not varifocal, though. They also have a pretty small Starlight mini-dome PTZ (SD1A203T-GN) that is varifocal. Both have built-in microphones, if that helps.

Baspinall said:
Will lower MP give me more clarity at night? Will the IR just white out/reflect off of money at night?
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It's a combination of lower MP and sensor size. Lower MP alone doesn't make low-light image quality great. I don't think anyone's found a 2MP that was above normal in low-light image quality that wasn't a Dahua Starlight or Hikvision Dark Fighter. Both of those models use 2MP 1/2.8" sensors or bigger (1/1.8").
 
I wonder if you could put a fisheye right between the two registers and see both drawers well enough. Whatever the choice I think you needs camera(s) closer to the registers.
 
These will be new. Nothing there currently. They want to capture the cash drawer to watch transactions. I like the darkfighters I just wish they were not so large.
Smoking = private club here in PA
 
Wouldn't a 3.6mm, 87-degree FoV camera like aristobrat recommended (IPC-HDBW4231F-AS) have something like and 7-9ft horizontal and about half that vertical coverage area? Might be tight (based on the pictures) but at that distance I bet you'd have over 100ppf and still be able to see in near darkness.

If the math works out could even use 2 of the 6mm variant for better resolution of the 2x4ft area of each register. I wonder if those bright screens are going to cause the camera to have vision problems (dark drawer below a super bright display). Also in a smoking club, you might experience completely new dome-camera problems previously undocumented (just basing that off the inside of the glass in the wife's car after a month of smoking).
 
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Those pictures are from two domes currently installed. Yes because of the smoking the cameras do need to be cleaned more often. I did think about the mini domes but have no experience on how well the IR is on them? Hikvision makes them in 3.6 mm as well. Not a fan of fish eye lenses.
 
crw030 said:
Wouldn't a 3.6mm, 87-degree FoV camera like Tangent recommended (IPC-HDBW4231F-AS) have something like and 7-9ft horizontal and about half that vertical coverage area? Might be tight (based on the pictures) but at that distance I bet you'd have over 100ppf and still be able to see in near darkness.
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That was @aristobrat's suggestion not mine. I was wondering about an actual fisheye camera (with software de-warping) not a 2.8mm with some distortion. Maybe like this: 4 MP Compact Fisheye Network Camera
 
Baspinall said:
Those pictures are from two domes currently installed. Yes because of the smoking the cameras do need to be cleaned more often. I did think about the mini domes but have no experience on how well the IR is on them? Hikvision makes them in 3.6 mm as well. Not a fan of fish eye lenses.
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I have the exact Dahua, but not sure what your IR concerns are. I have mine turned down outdoors to reduce face "white out" and car reflector glare. Check out the drawing for that dome, because the camera sits on an angled surface and the image and IR got worse for me as I moved it from the dome center.

A better fit (two registers and flat mount), maybe consider the IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M mounted in between (possibly opt for the 3.6mm lens) to avoid the fisheye concern. That is the dual that I have pointed extreme off-center and it has some IR reflection. Since you would be pointing yours almost straight down I bet you wont have similar issues. I don't have a second one, maybe someone with spare can see how bad the IR is at 4 feet hehe. Otherwise in maybe 10 days I will have another if I get around to placing an order for door/package cam & garage cams with Andy.
 
As far as IR concerns. I was just wondering if a camera above would just reflect off the bills at night? Another words would you be able to identify 10, 20's etc?
 
I suppose you could add some lighting to the drawer that turns on when it's open.
 
Baspinall said:
As far as IR concerns. I was just wondering if a camera above would just reflect off the bills at night? Another words would you be able to identify 10, 20's etc?
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Good question - sounds like it is worth a test.

I was thinking of keeping the camera in color mode - just need enough ambient light.
 
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I actually just emailed Hikvision to see which camera they would recommend - keep everybody posted.
 
At such a short distance, I don't think it will matter if the cam specializes in low light. Anything with built-in IR should make it more than bright enough. In fact you may end up needing to set a manual exposure range so it does not wash out bills or allow them to blur from being moved.

I'd mount one cam for each register overhead. Use ipvm's camera calculator to determine the appropriate lens size, and keep in mind that if you buy cams with longer fixed lenses you may need to break the glue holding the lens and refocus it manually in order to be sharp at such close range. I posted some notes on pixels per foot for this in a different thread last year: Camera good enough to monitor cash transactions in a shop
 
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bp2008 said:
At such a short distance, I don't think it will matter if the cam specializes in low light. Anything with built-in IR should make it more than bright enough. In fact you may end up needing to set a manual exposure range so it does not wash out bills or allow them to blur from being moved.

I'd mount one cam for each register overhead. Use ipvm's camera calculator to determine the appropriate lens size, and keep in mind that if you buy cams with longer fixed lenses you may need to break the glue holding the lens and refocus it manually in order to be sharp at such close range. I posted some notes on pixels per foot for this in a different thread last year: Camera good enough to monitor cash transactions in a shop
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math ftw
 
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