Spiders, webs and motion - ARGH

[Durzel]

Has anyone got a reliable solution for spiders and webs that seem to end up on any camera with integrated IR lighting? Friend has 4 cameras set up, and has been washing them when it has got particularly bad, but they always come back. Makes sense - the flies are attracted to it, so the spiders go where the flies are....

Haven't yet tried setting up different profiles for night and day in BI, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with it. The motion detection seems to work flawlessly during the day, but falls to pieces at night and particularly when there's a web across the lens. It draws a box (object detect/reject thing) around practically the entire frame.

As far as I can make out BI doesn't have any way of excluding motion from objects that are larger than a given size, only a minimum threshold - is this correct? This is something that as I recall iSpy does quite well with a min/max object size bar.

The only other thing that I can think of that would help (bar disabling motion detection completely which would seem to be counter-productive given that's likely to be when any intruders are active) would be some sort of contrast sensitivity change? Because the spiders & webs are right in front of the camera they are typically bright white on footage, whereas humans are more granularly shaded.

Anyone have any solutions or thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

 

[paarlberg]

Several plant types that spiders do not like near the cameras will help. I have heard that Citronella drops on or near the cameras works. Maybe plant some citronella near the camera?

 

[fenderman]

@Durzel If you exclude objects that are larger you will inevitably miss motion that occurs close to the camera...
You can try the oils, ultimately the best solution is using exterior lighting...or add external IR if you camera supports turning off the IR light while leaving the IR cut filter disengaged. I have noticed that cameras like the hikvision 2332 turret and dahua hdw-4300c that have separate IR leds, are less likely to have spiders attack..

 

[pal251]

I have tons of spiders around my house but luckily not much problems with my cameras. You could try bug spray around the camera too. Test it to make sure it won't be caustic to the camera first though.