Purchasing first Hikvision for Outside (DS-2CD2332-I)

[Curlyp]

Hello All,

I am purchasing my first Hikvision (DS-2CD2332-I) 2.8mm for outside. I found a really cool IPVM Calculator that shows the differences between the various lens.

For those of you that have or used the DS-2CD2332-I, how and where did you mount it outside? I am trying to get some ideas and see what others have done. I have an idea of where I want to mount it, I am not sure what is the best way to go about it.

Thanks for your time!

 

[networkcameracritic]

Cool tool but not very accurate. For that camera, the FOV depends on resolution, so for;

2.8mm 1080P=98.5, 3MP=86 degrees
4mm 1080P=79, 3MP=70 degrees
6mm 1080P=49 3MP=43.3 degrees
12mm 1080P=23.2, 3MP=20.6 degrees

What I tell people is to get a google map of your home and use a protactor to draw the field of view lines to see what will be covered. Or a pay a little more and get a zoom or varifocal camera.

 

[bp2008]

Yeah the picture showing the field of view 'visually' doesn't seem very accurate either. Looks like it is always showing you a narrower view than it says it is.

I have a 2332 with 2.8mm outside my garage, mounted under the eave. You can see it on the far right of this image.

(captured with a 2032 / 4mm)


And here are snapshots of its view in 3MP mode:

(captured with 2332 / 2.8mm)

 

[bp2008]

Just for kicks, here is the same view with a 10 megapixel ACTI E77 before I took it down to replace it with the superior 3 megapixel Hikvision. The only thing I miss is the nicer field of view I had with the ACTI.



If you zoom in on the full resolution version of that, you can see just how utterly horrible the focus is. I couldn't fix it and when I sent it to ACTI for repair they could not fix it either and sent it back with a new lens and the same focus problem.

 

[networkcameracritic]

One thing to consider that's more important then field of view is pixel density. Figure that you will need a persons face to be about 85 pixels tall to be identifiable. In practical terms, find that to be about 15' away with a 2.8mm lens and the 4mm is 25' in 3MP mode and 4mm covers my 3 car garage driveway. I use 3 cameras all mounted next to each other to stich a practical 180 degree view with a 4mm in the driveway and two 12mm looking up/down the street. I could have done it with two 2.8mm cameras, but would not have been as useful.

 

[bp2008]

Yes, absolutely, as you can see from my first pic I have a couple other cameras facing down my driveway too. The 2.8mm camera is nice for an overview but the real useful details come from a different cam that is more zoomed in.

 

[Curlyp]

Cool tool but not very accurate. For that camera, the FOV depends on resolution, so for;

2.8mm 1080P=98.5, 3MP=86 degrees
4mm 1080P=79, 3MP=70 degrees
6mm 1080P=49 3MP=43.3 degrees
12mm 1080P=23.2, 3MP=20.6 degrees

What I tell people is to get a google map of your home and use a protactor to draw the field of view lines to see what will be covered. Or a pay a little more and get a zoom or varifocal camera.

Thanks for the advice. I never thought of printing out a map of the house and indicating where the cameras would go! I am definitely going to do this!

At the moment I've got my DS-2CD2332 2.8mm upside down on the ceiling of my front door canopy to get close ups of visitors/parcel delivery/whatever coming to my door. I put one 3w LED downlight 3/4 of the door height up from the ground, with a 3w directional LED on the front triangular part of the canopy pointing at the approach. Both LEDs give a 120 degree spread of white light. The camera has it's IR turned off and gain turned down to 65 so that faces are not washed out.
The LEDs are on all night, and come on with a Steinel Nightmatic 3000 Vario sensor.

Thanks! You mentioned you have the IR tuned off. Does the IR not work well on these cameras or did you do it to obtain lighting from LEDs? What does 3w mean? Wattage? What does the gain mean in terms of cameras? Sorry for all the questions; I am still new to this!

 

[Curlyp]

Yeah the picture showing the field of view 'visually' doesn't seem very accurate either. Looks like it is always showing you a narrower view than it says it is.

I have a 2332 with 2.8mm outside my garage, mounted under the eave. You can see it on the far right of this image.

(captured with a 2032 / 4mm)


And here are snapshots of its view in 3MP mode:

(captured with 2332 / 2.8mm)

bp2008 - thanks for the snap shots form the camera. This actually gives me a better indication of what I will be expecting from the camera. I see the camera in the far right and one in the middle. I am surprised by the picture quality. The crappy D-LINK DCS-930L pictures are nothing near that quality!

Here is a picture of the one I have in my widow (which is another reason why I want to outside camera - to go outside!!)

Just for kicks, here is the same view with a 10 megapixel ACTI E77 before I took it down to replace it with the superior 3 megapixel Hikvision. The only thing I miss is the nicer field of view I had with the ACTI.



If you zoom in on the full resolution version of that, you can see just how utterly horrible the focus is. I couldn't fix it and when I sent it to ACTI for repair they could not fix it either and sent it back with a new lens and the same focus problem.

The ACTI has a nice field of view. Seems a little bigger than the Hikvision. What is the % of view?

 

[Curlyp]

One thing to consider that's more important then field of view is pixel density. Figure that you will need a persons face to be about 85 pixels tall to be identifiable. In practical terms, find that to be about 15' away with a 2.8mm lens and the 4mm is 25' in 3MP mode and 4mm covers my 3 car garage driveway. I use 3 cameras all mounted next to each other to stich a practical 180 degree view with a 4mm in the driveway and two 12mm looking up/down the street. I could have done it with two 2.8mm cameras, but would not have been as useful.

Thanks for pointing this out @networkcameracritic. I didn't even consider pixel density. My perceived notion of the wider lens would allow me to capture most of my house in the event something bad happened. Now looking at it from your point makes senses; the wider view I have, the farther away individuals will seem, and the shorter the view, the closer up the individuals will seem.

Once I print out the map and drawl out the views from your numbers, I will have a better understanding of which lens I will need.

"2.8mm 1080P=98.5, 3MP=86 degrees
4mm 1080P=79, 3MP=70 degrees
6mm 1080P=49 3MP=43.3 degrees
12mm 1080P=23.2, 3MP=20.6 degrees"

Thankfully, I haven't purchased it yet. I planned on doing it this weekend. I will hold off until I have my house mapped.

Yes, absolutely, as you can see from my first pic I have a couple other cameras facing down my driveway too. The 2.8mm camera is nice for an overview but the real useful details come from a different cam that is more zoomed in.

Does the camera in the middle of your drive way show great detail in close ups? What is the field of view for that model? Could you possible post a pic so I may get an idea?

Thanks!

 

[networkcameracritic]

I have one 2.8mm camera in my house and that's at the front door. There's two anomalies that happens with 2.8mm, first the IR LEDs never seems to put out as wide a coverage as the lens, so you end up getting a flashlight effect where it's bright down the center and virtually no light at the edges defeating the purpose of the wider lens. Even with my 4mm ds-2cd3332-i it's better but not perfect so I added a Tri-Illuminator, a decent external LED illuminator for about $59 from Wrightwood Surveillance. Dahua is a little better at this than Hikvision, but not perfect. The other thing is barrel distortion where objects furthest from center will appear curved which bothers some people, I deal with it because it's not a photo contest, it's security.

For example, this is the camera you are looking at with 4mm lens, the light is somewhat even, much better than the 2.8mm.

This is with the tri-illuminator

This is Hikvision dome, same location with a 2.8mm lens

 

[Curlyp]

I have one 2.8mm camera in my house and that's at the front door. There's two anomalies that happens with 2.8mm, first the IR LEDs never seems to put out as wide a coverage as the lens, so you end up getting a flashlight effect where it's bright down the center and virtually no light at the edges defeating the purpose of the wider lens. Even with my 4mm ds-2cd3332-i it's better but not perfect so I added a Tri-Illuminator, a decent external LED illuminator for about $59 from Wrightwood Surveillance. Dahua is a little better at this than Hikvision, but not perfect. The other thing is barrel distortion where objects furthest from center will appear curved which bothers some people, I deal with it because it's not a photo contest, it's security.

For example, this is the camera you are looking at with 4mm lens, the light is somewhat even, much better than the 2.8mm.

This is with the tri-illuminator

This is Hikvision dome, same location with a 2.8mm lens

Thanks for your feedback.

Interesting and makes total sense that the IR would not be able to cover the field of view from the 2.8 lens. I am sure if the IR was more powerful it wouldn't be an issue, but that is not the case with this camera.

Do you happen to have a link to the Tri-Illuminator? I am interested in learning more about it.

The pictures you posted, is that taken using the IR or the Tri-Illuminator?

Tomorrow, I will take a picture of my front door entrance and post it. Curious if the 2.8 would better suit the area as it someone what small.

 

[networkcameracritic]

I took all images with the camera's IR on, but supplemented the middle pic with the tri-illuminator. Here's where to get it - http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=66&zenid=1cce73d582eeba68bd9f72596027fb75

 

[Curlyp]

I took all images with the camera's IR on, but supplemented the middle pic with the tri-illuminator. Here's where to get it - http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=66&zenid=1cce73d582eeba68bd9f72596027fb75

Thanks for site. I'll have purchase one. Do you leave it on all night or have it setup to turn on when motion is detected?

 

[Curlyp]

1. I have the IR turned off on the camera by the door because when a person walks toward the door/camera their face would be overexposed by the IR light. The camera does try to adjust this, and will produce a nice shot of static scenery with the IR on. However, I need to capture the moving face, not the static scenery. The camera cannot adjust itself that quickly. It would need to be able to recognise a face and have an algorithm to adjust light based on the fact that a face is present and moving around the picture. This isn't going to happen in the near future, but I'm sure one day it will.
2. 3w means 3watts power. Not a lot, but bright enough. In fact I had to change the bulbs from 5w to 3w because 5w was too bright.
3. There is IR light at the front of my house, but this is provided by another camera 4m up from the ground. The DS-2CD2332 still picks up this IR light, but it is not too bright down at ground level, and that camera is not pointed anywhere near my front door.
Lastly, if the scumbag coming to the door is wearing a high visibility/reflective jacket/cap etc. having the IR bounce off it from the camera will again overexpose the picture resulting in a bad image of the face. Having a separate source of IR/light means that it still reflects, but nowhere near as much and you still get a good shot that is not overexposed.
The Gain setting makes the picture less/more exposed. Lighter/darker. Other people on the forum here will have more experience with Gain and Brightness and whatnot.

Here is Mr. Arse with a high viz jacket and hat. IR from the source camera reflecting back (not the DS-2CD2332).

DS 2CD2332 with IR on. I don't have lots of hair, but I'm not a complete slaphead yet.

DS 2CD2332 with IR off. My wife, not me. She has hair.

Obligatory DS 2CD2332 badger shot:

..and the camera.

Don't be put off by all this. Just get your camera and bugger around with the lighting later. It won't be your only/last camera, and simply having the camera there will deter over 80% of perps anyway: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http:/rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/r249.pdf
Look at page 5 there.

Fantastic! Thanks for the pictures (and the pdf); this really helps to visualize everything. I read page five; these facts are pretty interesting. Thanks again for sharing.

Thinking about how my front porch is, I may have to turn off the IR light as well. I installed a new LED light fixture last spring. The lighting will definitely illuminate the area, but might be too bright to where it will wash out the faces. This is something I will have to play with when I hook up the camera.

Here is a picture of our front porch entrance.

Here is a picture of the front porch leading to the front door. The two read circles are where I am thinking about installing one of the cameras. You can also see the LED light fixture I installed.

The Mr. Arse picture didn't show up. Could you repost it please? Also would you mind sending me a link to the 3w light. I am curious to see what it looks like.

 

[bp2008]

Does the camera in the middle of your drive way show great detail in close ups? What is the field of view for that model? Could you possible post a pic so I may get an idea?

Thanks!

I don't know the field of view, but it is narrower than most.



This is some chinese 5MP cam I bought years ago and it does produce good detail day and night.

 

[Curlyp]

Thanks for reposting Mr. Arse and the comment about my porch! I see what you mean about the IR reflecting back. It has completely washed out the the face. Would any type of lighting wash out a scumbag in a reflective jacket?

I like the idea of placing the camera at eye level (where the square picture is), but my only reservation is, if someone tampered with it. Of course, I would have them on camera walking up to the door and tampering with it until it went offline. I guess I just don't want to lose the money and time invested! I will definitely have to look at it once I receive the camera.

I plan on placing the order tomorrow. My thought is, since the porch is kind of narrow, I would want to go with the wide lens (2.8mm) to capture most of it. Would you suggest the same?

Lastly, thanks for the pictures and the links to the downlight and bulb. These visually really help.

I've reposted Mr. Arse. Not sure what happened there.
I'd be tempted to put the camera where the square picture is on your door at that same height.
I think you will probably have plenty of light in the entrance with the light fitting you have in there.
Here's the downlight:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stainless-Outdoor-Exterior-Interior-Liight/dp/B008E5MAFQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425139674&sr=8-1&keywords=Stainless+Steel+Outdoor+Wall+Light+IP65+Exterior+/+Interior+wall+Liight

Directional light and light sensor/controller:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knightsbridge-Adjustable-Stainless-Outdoor-Wallight/dp/B007JZ3FAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425139782&sr=8-1&keywords=knightsbridge+wall3l+adjustable+stainless+steel+outdoor+single+wall+light+ip65

Here are the GU10 3w bulbs, but they have a 120 degree light spread, not 160 like it says on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/MiniSun-Branded-Super-Bright-GU10/dp/B008TPIOAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425140078&sr=8-1&keywords=MiniSun+Branded+3W+Super+Bright+GU10+LED+Bulb+with+60+x+3527+SMD+LEDs

I like your porch. Good luck with it.

 

[Curlyp]

I don't know the field of view, but it is narrower than most.



This is some chinese 5MP cam I bought years ago and it does produce good detail day and night.

Thanks for the visual! The picture is really clear! Do you happen to remember the brand and model number of this cam?

 

[DokkenVersusChicken]

I just installed a 2332 2.8 myself. so far, i love it. the IR illuminator seems to be much better than my 2032s.

Does anybody have any experience with spider webs on the 2332? I am hoping that the side-mounted IR will help.

 

[Curlyp]

I just installed a 2332 2.8 myself. so far, i love it. the IR illuminator seems to be much better than my 2032s.

Does anybody have any experience with spider webs on the 2332? I am hoping that the side-mounted IR will help.

Thanks, I am excited to receive mine. By the way, do you mean the insect spider for spider webs?

 

[DokkenVersusChicken]

Thanks, I am excited to receive mine. By the way, do you mean the insect spider for spider webs?

yes, the insects build webs across the lens of my bullet cams due to the IR ring surrounding the lens. in warm months I have to dust them every few days.

I am hoping that the separated side-mounted IR on the 2332 will help reduce this issue some.