camera-newbie

Interesting.. Let us know how it turns out!

Ok.. Since our cameras are supposed to arrive tomorrow I figured I'd sketch up a quick overview image of where I plan to put cameras and see if anyone sees any major flaws with placement or angles,etc.. On the left & right are cinder block walls with 5' setbacks between the house & those walls. On the bottom of the drawing is where a sidewalk runs and the street. I'd like to have cameras 1-3 monitoring activity in not only the yard but also for any of the cars should there be a break-in (which we've had a few times over the years), egging, etc I've identified the power panel on the upper right corner - this is where all of our electrical panel stuff is including for our Solar panels with disconnects, inverters and whatnot. I want to know if anyone is fooling with these in addition to seeing if anyone is crawling over the fence. The backyard is where I really want to monitor what goes on.. Camera #7 is at the peak of the roof with the widest varifocal lens I could find -- 2.8mm computar. That camera will be mounted up about 20' give or take. Camera #6 & #8 will be mounted on the eaves at perhaps the 8' level and gather a more narrow field of view. Camera #1 will be getting the side-view of our RV which will be on the left side of the driveway with it's rear near that camera. Since the RV is rather tall (~10ft) I want to ensure that camera #2 picks up what #1 can't see. Camera #3 is primary a vehicle view camera since we always have a car parked in front of the house. Let me know if I need anything changed..

Isnt the sparkfun kit only good for 255 inches per the page you linked to -- limiting it to 21 feet give or take?

Thanks Matt! I'll keep that in mind when I get that far this weekend..!

Do these ND filters attach to the lens or just sit in front of the lens? I took a camera class or watched something online a few years back and they had some filters that could attach to the lens body as I recall.. Anyway, just wondering if you do this even for dome cameras,etc.. Does it matter what kinda of ND filter -- meaning can I visit my local camera store, pick one up and temporarily attach it to the lens in question and go to town and remove it afterward? Sorry for rambling..

^^ funny message!

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My kids are the same way -- as I am occasionally..

Thanks for the update -- I'm following behind you on this as well for our own installation.. I'm not going to have nearly that many cameras but should be receiving two dome CNB's sometime Friday and will be attempting to do the installation IF my baluns come in time that I ordered LATE last night..

If you're thinking about the Netgear switches, please do your homework.. I've got a 16 port smart switch (non-POE) in our garage and the power brick for it started misbehaving just after the warranty died and they wanted something like $35 for a replacement. They're notorious for supplying power bricks that are marginally capable IMHO as many people have been bitten by this issue from what I gather. When the power brick starts failing the switch resets itself once every few seconds -- really annoying. In terms of POE injectors, I'm planning on using this one which is a passive POE injector (no handshaking is done to determine power requirements) which is OK IF you know what the power needs are for your particular devices.. I spoke with one of the guys over there just to be sure it would work for my application and the price is right at about $25.. but haven't tried it yet but will be this weekend.. As usual, the standard disclaimer -- I've got no interest in the above company, just a (hopefully) satisfied user. If you don't know the power requirements or have mixed needs, stick with a regular PoE injector or switch which will figure it out for you.

Works for me.. I'll order a few pairs! Thanks!

Ok.. Parts are in the mail -- I'll be installing one IP camera that will be powered by POE and 2 CNB analog domes .. I'm planning to run all CAT5 and gather the CNB's come with their equivalent of baluns (please let me know if that is not the case!) but am a bit leery about running the CAT5 cable out in the open between the camera and where it disappears into the attic and eventually to the encoder or network switch. Do you guys usually just use EMT for this sort of thing or some of that water-tight grey tubing like you might find for a spa or similar 'wet' location? I'm just trying to figure out my game plan ahead of time. I still need to buy a box of CAT5e as my current box is almost gone -- I'm planning on using another box of Coleman cable #96263 in some color other than blue or white since my attic is full of cables like that.. It'd be nice to be able to tell the difference between regular CAT5 for voice/IP vs camera data. By the way.. If I run these cables containing the 12VAC for the analog cameras alongside existing Ethernet cables, what's the chance that the 12VAC might induce signal issues onto the regular ethernet cables next to it? I've got a ton of cable hangers in the attic to route the IP/voice cables from points in the house to the garage distribution panels. I can separate if needed.. TIA!

thanks guys! I guess I was misled by the online PDF manual which sort of implies a balun (or 1/2 balun?) comes with the camera but was listed as "optional". Anyway, in terms of buying one, how about one from this page or this page? Is there a better place to buy from? I'm assuming in my case I can get away with passive baluns since none of my runs are anywhere near 1000ft -- I think the longest is perhaps 50-75' max. By the way.. Should I get baluns with surge protection? Is that primarily for locations with lightning and/or power issues on a regular basis? Is this a common problem I should be worried about? If so, I don't mind spending an extra ~$10/balun if it keeps the cameras protected/isolated..

Correct.. (about the BNC video output), but the docs for that camera indicate that it comes with something that pretty much looks like a balun in that package.. I guess if that isn't the case I'll find some locally.. I'm thinking I might bite the bullet and use EMT and just assume I'll paint any exposed portions to match the house. I guess I'll be using my hammer-drill to get into the stucco.. but am hoping I can just route things on the eaves.. Luckily we've got some helpers around the house that can help out with fishing cables.

Are you talking about the cnb 24vf? if so, the price isn't that high unless your comparing to those not so great $25 Chinese cameras.. This is one of those 'you get what you pay for times' IMHO...

Just a quick update.. I received the lens in the mail and it works just fine on the Basler (but I've yet to receive the outdoor enclosure for it).. I've tried using the Basler camera with both Vitamin-D and SecuritySpy on the Mac.. Both work OK but in different ways. Vitamin D seems to complain regularly about dropping frames even on a system with hard-wired ethernet.. That is using the MPEG4 streaming since I was unable to get V-D to recognize the Basler H.264 stream for some reason. SecuritySpy only likes the Basler JPEG stream.. Go figure. Anyway, I did order a pair of the CNB domes (VCM-24VF) for use in the front-yard along with a commercial grade power supply. I'm hoping to receive that sometime this week to try out.. I also ordered a Passive POE injector from Wifi-soft since I've already got readily available switch ports and didn't want another switch (w/ POE) to mount on the garage wall.. I also ordered some Avigilon items from TheWireGuys here on the forum (Thanks Michael!) including one of their encoders. I'm looking forward to trying this stuff all out once it arrives.. I'll post some pics once I get things and start wiring,etc..

Perhaps the OP should call the shop in question and ask them..

Are your cameras true-day-night (TDN) cameras? Are you talking regular light or IR? I'm planning on doing probably a combination of IR and regular (regular controlled by PIR detectors or similar) but am not there 'yet'.

Is the laptop going to be used permanently for this purpose (dedicated?) -- if not, you'll likely not record anything (depending on whether your IP camera has on-board storage care of an SD/flash drive) when the laptop is elsewhere.. As long as the laptop is available you can either use the built-in web-browser or use some NVR/VMS software loaded on the laptop -- there are many out there with different features, prices, etc..

If you can, run some extra cables as spares just in case something nibbles through the 'in-use' cable at some point down the line or something else happens.. It's cheap insurance if something happens down the road. I'll let others chime in on the main part of the question though..

I'm not sure what forum software you're using here, but for those of us that use things like iPads, iphones or various Android devices, there's software called Tapatalk that can be used to communicate directly with the forum software and allows for a much better mobile experience from what I've seen.. Their plugin currently supports 8 different forum software packages including phpBB, xenForo, Vbulletin and various others and there's no cost. Anyway, just thought I'd ask since I didn't see it mentioned anywhere here yet..

I can, and have but it's got some odd quirks at least when used on both an ipad and iphone that are semi-annoying.. One of them is that IF you load up a thread with multiple pages, it jumps to the end of the thread instead of the beginning -- not sure if others notice this but I have. The 2nd issue is that if I go to hit the up-button (top-left corner) and it wants to popup a new 'pane' (for lack of a better term) asking how far you want to go up forum wise, and IF you accidentally miss it, the pop-up disappears never to return and I'm forced to hit one of the other pop-up titles nearby instead. The 2nd issue shows up on my iphone about 60% of the time and makes it difficult to navigate threads and pop-out afterwards. I'm not sure how many people read the forum through the current mobile style so perhaps it's not worth-it effort wise but occasionally I find myself at the doctor's office or similar twiddling my thumbs and I figure up the phone while I'm waiting.. Thanks!

Just make sure your computer don't spring a leak.. That would be bad!

ok.. I just bit the bullet to ensure I'd have one this week -- I opted for the Computar lens since it's way easier to order than the Pentax which isn't sold nearly as wide.. It's supposed to be in my hands on Thursday..

Thanks for the reply.. I'm working towards setting up my first IP camera that I bought from the WireGuys here -- the enclosure is on order and I'm trying to work through my lens options.. Ok.. So I got an answer back from Basler on what lens will fit into the Aigis HS9480 enclosure (a fairly small enclosure) and I should be OK to get one of the following lenses I've selected primarily for the focal length (2.8-12mm), but the two lens data sheets indicate slight variations and I'm not sure which is the better choice : 1) Computar/Ganz TG4Z2813FCS-MPIR with spec sheet found here 2) Pentax TS4V212ED-Q (#C70227) with spec sheet found here (you'll have to search the PDF for C70227. I think the main things to note are the following : 1) Computar lens : has f1.3 aperture, wider field of view horizontally at 102.2 degrees 2) Pentax lens : has f1.2 aperture, slightly narrower horizontal field of view at 98.5 degrees The Computar should let in a little less light due to the lower aperture rating but has the wider field of view.. The Pentax on the other hand should allow more light in due to the lower aperture rating but the field of view is a bit less.. I believe the pricing on both is similar .. Any ideas on how much difference the aperture rating on these will be different in terms of low-light performance? If this was your decision, which would you choose? Just for background, this lens will be used as an over-arching camera in the backyard elevated up about 25' to monitor an area of approx 50-60' deep by about 50 wide hence the need for a wide field of view -- I'm trying to stick with a varifocal lens to ensure I can adjust the image viewing area a bit -- I'm assuming if I want much wider than 100 degrees I'll need something like a fish eye which I'd rather not use for this application due to the obvious distortion of the image.. This camera will be used in low-light with external lighting. Eventually other cameras will augment this view with more specific areas and those cameras are of course TBD at this point..