Camera system

[pete01]

Evening all, just after a bit of Advice on a decent reasonably priced ish camera system.
2 to 3 cameras and a decent picture quality.

 

[secureiam]

Cameras need to be specified for the job.

so what do you want it to be capable of?

 

[pete01]

Cameras need to be specified for the job.

so what do you want it to be capable of?

Hello, theres been a few break ins round my way lately, so if someone does steel my car or get into the house and they were silly enough to show their face I'd like to see it.

 

[secureiam]

Then you need ID quality at the distance your vehicle is from your house.

DORI - detect, observe, recognise, identify, so you can look at the spec sheet of a camera and for the fitted lense it will tell upyou field of view and dori credentials.

the next question is whether 24/7 colour is what you want, and what lighting options you have.

for example colorvu With a nearby street lamp will be full colour 247 without the need for it’s white light.

you can have cameras that flash, and play a recorded message and have two way audio.

 

[secureiam]

The problem with white light on a camera is in fog it reflects back, IR doesn’t, so a some manufacturers have hybrid options where it flashes toget a full colour image on detection.

however if you don’t have the white light on and even background light you can still get 247 colour

 

[pete01]

Dont go to technical just something easy to use but effective, any recommendations?

 

[secureiam]

Hikvision alone have hundreds if not thousands of cameras and variants which is constantly changing.

How far is the car from where the camera is to be mounted?

What sort of lighting do you have near the car

 

[secureiam]

So for example I have a customer that has the same cameras through out his property.

Not specified by us.

He has a wide 2.8mm wide angle lens 4MP resolution down a very long passage down the side of his house that’s a person wide.

He would have been better to have had 2MP camera with a 4mm or 6mm lens which would have saved him a chunk of money and the camera and got a better image at the end of the passage way and down the whole passage much better than t he more expensive camera.

 

[pete01]

The car is on the driveway by the front window, there's a street light at the end of the driveway ( about 4m away)

We also have parking at the side, where I put my van this is at the side of the house with a PIR flood light above.

 

[secureiam]

On 4M distance a 4MP 2.8mm colour vu ip camera, you can have something like this with ID at 6m. You can opt for different features like LSU models or hybrid models.

DS-2CD2347G2-L(U)​

Take a look at the spec and see what you think on suitability

 

[daern]

@secureiam Do you know if Hikvision have revised their rules on DIY installs? My understanding was that they were only selling to trade installers now? (That said, I've had no problem getting around this myself, so it's hardly a big hurdle!)

Otherwise, another shout out for Hik ColorVue cameras. My own haven't been too bad in the fog, but they unquestionably work best with a bit of ambient light rather than using the onboard illuminator. It's quite amazing just how little light they need - even a few crappy, solar lights in the back garden are enough to give a remarkably good (colour) image at night.

 

[secureiam]

Lots of places sell Hikvision, trade/ retail etc, trade are supposed to be trade only but some are strict and some are not.

Support issues, 1 trade = thousands of installs, diyer maybe a hand full of installs less experience and knowledge (well sometimes).

Agreed dont need much light, can set to about 6% of their own white light to get good full colour image increase it to about 12% and the darkfighters will also go colour (dependant on age of tech may need to increase it a little).

Better to have third party lighting like solar lamps dotted around, it also makes it harder for unwanted visitors to hide.

There are other brands out there.

 

[daern]

Support is a good point - my experience is that you won't get a great deal from the manufacturer and most retailers are box shifters, so (with a few exceptions) probably aren't geared up to help you if you don't know what you're doing in the first place.

There are other brands out there.

I'll be honest, I've tried a few, and I still think that the Hik stuff is the best - in terms of reliability, image quality and functionality - but perhaps less so from an ethical and privacy standpoint! I'll keep buying their kit, but I'm now taking additional steps that I didn't used to in order to protect privacy. The last non-Hik camera I bought was a Reolink and while it was quite a bit cheaper, and fitted my needs (I wanted 4k + 5x zoom), it was clearly a less capable product with noticeably less configurability.

I need to replace a couple of my older cameras soon, so this is next on the list for me now I've got more capacity on my Frigate box!