Hi Guys,
I've been doing a lot of research and read through a lot of great information in the archives here, but haven't quite figured out an approach for the system I'm trying to design so I was looking for some input...
I need a rear view camera system for a boat that has poor rearward visibility. The boat is 17' wide and I want the camera system to be able to help in docking as well as general maneuvering, so it needs to have a field of view of at least 120 degrees. 180 would be ideal.
My two choices seem to be either a single camera with a fisheye lens, or two cameras with the pictures somehow combined.
Using two cameras makes the camera selection and image quality a lot better, and easily gives me a 180 degre view, but I haven't found any way to cheaply display two images side by side on one (16:9 wide angle) small LCD screen. I need to be able to view both at the same time side by side. It doesn't have to be a seamless picture, but they both have to be visible. I don't really want to put in two displays for this, as there isn't a huge amount of room at the helm for the displays.
As for just using one camera, there seems to be a very limited selection of options for a day/night camera with a wide field of view. A 3.8mm lens wouldn't be wide enough, and many enclosures seem to cut off much wider of an angle. Most of the cameras that I have found that do have wider coverage are fairly low quality $100-150 cameras that are lower end than what I'm looking for. Having a fisheye image isn't ideal, but is acceptable.
In addition, a 16:9 aspect ratio really would be closer than 4:3 to what I actually want in the coverage area... are there any wide aspect ratio cctv cameras for a reasonable price?
Other criteria:
- ok low light performance; doesn't have to be top notch, but it should be able to produce a usable picture with some ambient light.
- am open to adding IR LEDs, but would prefer they be separately mounted. I'd see if I needed them after installing tye system.
- doesn't need to be super high image quality, I am not trying to make out individuals just see relative locations and speeds of other boats.
- this system will be mounted outside on a boat. The only water getting on it directly will be rain, but it is a humid environment so it needs to be able to deal with that.
- camera w/enclosure would ideally be under $300 or so
- no recording necessary
Any suggestions of directions to research would be appreciated.
Thanks!
