We've had a string of car vandalism, and a group of neighbors is looking into setting up cameras to monitor cars parked on the street at night. There is a decent amount of ambient light from porch and street lights, especially as houses are close together and close to the street. I'd guess 0.5 foot-candle min. I've linked to pics, one showing a balcony that would be a safe place to mount a camera, and the other showing the view looking down the sidewalk from the camera.
My question is, if we want decent night coverage of, say, three or four cars worth of parking spots from this placement, how 'much' camera do we need. Do we need good low light 2M camera to get useful images out to the third car (about 100' away), so a $1,500+ camera? Or can we get away something less expensive and still have something reliable and useful? Also, is IR the way to go for something like this, maybe including adding illuminators?
The balcony mount would be 13' up and 4' back from the sidewalk. The cars are spaced about 30' apart (so, at 30', 60', 90').
