What is the best camera for my...

Q™

Q™

IPCT Contributor
Feb 16, 2015
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3,987
Megatroplis, USA
What is the best camera for my garage? What is the best camera for my driveway? What is the best camera for my front door? What is the best camera for my baby's room? What is the best camera for my back yard? What is the best camera for my front yard? What is the best camera for my side yard? What is the best camera for my house? What is the best camera for my shed? What is the best camera for my walkway? What is the best camera for my living room? Yadda...yadda...yadda...

Truth be told, the best camera for your "whatever" is the camera which BEST MEETS YOUR REQUIREMENTS and your requirements are framed by your budget and what you want your camera to accomplish.

For example, one camera/lens combination may provide a good overview of nearly everything that happens in front of your house, but is useless to recognize faces. A different camera and lens combination may provide you with face recognition of anyone who walks past on the sidewalk in front of your house, but is useless to see license plates on vehicles. Yet another camera may provide you with a satisfactory image of the license plate of every vehicle that passes in front of your house but is absolutely useless for the former requirements; one camera cannot do meet all of these requirements.

The answer to your "best camera" question is dependent on what your requirements are; on what you want your camera(s) to accomplish.

Therefore, your question is not "What is the best camera for..." but rather "How do I frame-out and define my requirements...what do I want my camera to accomplish?"

Only after you have defined what you want to accomplish can you begin to choose the camera hardware which will allow you to achieve your objectives.

Alternatively, you could be like Q™ and learn this only after spending thousands of dollars and doing hundreds of hours of work.

hang.gif
 
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decades of playing with security cameras brother, and I can tell you that the camera is only a very small part of the equation.. realizing what cameras are capable of, and what they are not capable of and then taking advantage of this through proper installation and lighting can make the crappiest cheap little system shine.. or alternatively a bunch of expensive cameras installed poorly wont accomplish much.

the best way to learn is to do, buy a cheap IP camera or two and play with them.. get your head around what they are capable of day/night and distances you can see with standard optics.. then build from there, trust me you'll find a place for those cameras you first bought once you have pieced together a video system that exceeds all your expectations.

Dont be afraid to make mobile test rigs to mount your cameras, string wires all over the place and try various locations before deciding to put a camera there permanently.

Anytime you capture an event on your security system, post-analyze the results and see if you could have made the image any better.. I am always tweaking things for the first few months, walk tests are the most overlooked thing.. a still image will look great and you may not realize you just hurt your quality until someone goes out there and you try to compare facial features.
 
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Great stuff nayr.
 
What you state is a great guiding principle for anything, imho. To add to that knowledge is key...you can only do so much with what you know or don know.
 
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So, what's the best camera?
 
Lostmydonkey said:
What you state is a great guiding principle for anything, imho. To add to that knowledge is key...you can only do so much with what you know or don know.
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Good stuff LMD...thanks.

I find myself frustrated with the constant "what is the best camera for..." questions but I see this everywhere I go. On the survival forums it's "What is the best survival gun?" On the blade forums it is "what is the best knife?" On the flashlight forums, "what is the best light?" But these questions are a natural progression for those who need information but are just starting out. What frustrates me is that the same (generous) members provide the same answers over and over and over again...topic after topic after topic. An effective IPCT.com FAQ system would allow members to point Newbies to specific FAQs which will help those starting out understand the guiding principles of cameras and IP networking.

It is worth noting that on a Google run SEO forum I've visited they make Newbies begin their post with the string "I certify that I have used the search function to try to find an answer to this question and I have read the FAQs" before they will entertain a question.
 
Q2U said:
Good stuff LMD...thanks.

I find myself frustrated with the constant "what is the best camera for..." questions but I see this everywhere I go. On the survival forums it's "What is the best survival gun?" On the blade forums it is "what is the best knife?" On the flashlight forums, "what is the best light?" But these questions are a natural progression for those who need information but are just starting out. What frustrates me is that the same (generous) members provide the same answers over and over and over again...topic after topic after topic. An effective IPCT.com FAQ system would allow members to point Newbies to specific FAQs which will help those starting out understand the guiding principles of cameras and IP networking.

It is worth noting that on a Google run SEO forum I've visited they make Newbies begin their post with the string "I certify that I have used the search function to try to find an answer to this question and I have read the FAQs" before they will entertain a question.
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I agree, and understand your frustration. honestly I think it's a person nature that wants to be told or read it's best....because it's the technology era where people want immediate results...hopefully that makes sense.. A little under th weather
 
Q2U learned the hard how moving a camera a few feet can totally change its performance..

extension ladders make great test platforms, plus if you leave one leaned up against the corner of your house for a few days nobody will complain ;)

just secure everything well, dont want your rig toppling over while your waiting to see what lighting conditions are like.
 
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Q2U said:
I find myself frustrated with the constant "what is the best camera for..." questions but I see this everywhere I go. On the survival forums it's "What is the best survival gun?" On the blade forums it is "what is the best knife?" On the flashlight forums, "what is the best light?"
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Anything starting with 9mm.
Anything SpyderCo or Kabar.
Anything 500+ Lumens.

Oh wait, those were rhetorical. Shit.
 
Q - I believe you could have saved yourself a paragraph or two by simply slipping the bird to everyone and posting it :)
 
PSPCommOp said:
Agreed. Posts with a heading like this are the forum versions of sending unsolicited dick pics.
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Then you don't understand the intent of the topic...or the intent in which it was posted. Therefore, fuQ you too.
 
I understand Q's message - you also have to understand Q from this forum to really understand his messages.

The point is asking what is the Best Camera for my front yard is like saying "What is the best car for me to drive?" All to often people ask open ended almost pointless questions here without defining anything. This is also why those posts get very little to no replys from the seasoned community here and normally only get replies from the new guys who sometimes are the last ones that should be giving advice.

I believe Q's point was to make it clear "You need to define your project and DESIRED end result before you can ask such a question." It will also possibly draw users to this thread and make a point to them, so they hopefully don't post that open ended question in a new thread, especially since there are already a hundred of them. So could this be viewed as a "dick pic" - sure it could, however you might deserve to be looking at that pic.

Just my take on the matter at hand.
 
zero-degrees said:
...I believe Q's point was to make it clear "You need to define your project and DESIRED end result before you can ask such a question." It will also possibly draw users to this thread and make a point to them, so they hopefully don't post that open ended question in a new thread, especially since there are already a hundred of them...
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P R E C I S E L Y .

It has also dawned on me that PSPComOp may have meant that such "What is the best camera for..." posts are dick pics...and may not have been referring to this particular topic. In which case this is certainly a fuQme moment...or perhaps better stayed as fuQ2. My apologies to PSPComOp if I misinterpreted his post, otherwise he shall continue wearing previously stated mantle of fuQage.
 
I want the widest angle camera to cover a 100 yard football pitch. Requirements are being able to see entire pitch and recognise face over 100m away. Less than $100 too.

We've had these before and they are defined :peaceful:
 
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