EasyGion

About a month ago someone attempted to break into our house. Fortunately they failed but the attempt made it clear that I need to do something about beefing up the security around our house, barn and shop. The police told me that an alarm system was for the most part a waste of money, because they don't respond to them. So that leaves me with cameras, as a visual deterrent and to help catch the guy(s) if they choose to break in. This is what I was thinking would do the job: 1.) Good quality cameras to cover the approaches to the doors/decks. The cameras need to be good enough to get a good face shot. I was thinking a near-mega pixel or something similar most likely a vandal proof dome. The range would be say 5 to 20 feet needs to be low light as well. 2.) A few decent area coverage cameras to watch the bad guys as they move around the property again needs to be low light as well. 3.) Maybe later a PTZ or two to cover trip sensors. But that would be down the road a ways. So here is my problem. There are so many cameras manufactures that a person could go crazy trying to make an informed choice. Below is a list of manufactures I was considering, I would love to hear if I'm at least on track. I'm not made of money, but I do want decent cameras, so $200 - $400 per camera wouldn't be out of line as long as they really worked well. 1.) CNB - not really sure about them any longer after the problem with switching from color to BW. So now I'm considering, KT&C or maybe Panasonic. 2.) Vivotek FD8134V - for the high rez door cameras or something along those lines. All cameras need to work well in low light situations, and I may need some WDR cameras as we have lots of mixed shade/sun areas. Any suggestions would be a great help. - Thanks.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. I think the best plan for me is to buy one camera at a time and slowly build my system. If I can find a reliable dealer for CNB and KT&C I will start with one of each of those and see how it goes.

Thanks for the response! Was the PVC cover something you made or was it something designed for the camera? Thanks.

I'm looking to build a small relatively low cost security system to keep and eye on our horses particular and the rest of the property in general. I've tried this once in the past and the cameras held up for a while but then just died. It was a valuable learning experience. I leaned that the bullet cameras with the built in IR attract bugs, so if you want to sleep you have to turn off the alerts at night when the moths are flying about. They also don't project the light nearly as far as advertised. The installation environment is in western Washington state, in the Puget Sound convergence zone. What that means is, it rains - a lot. The record at my house is over 100 consecutive days of rain. The humidity is high, in the 92% + range. The property is setup in such a way that the cameras will be exposed to direct sun light in the mornings, depending on the season, because of the low angle of the sun. So here are my questions: 1.) Are you better off with box cameras in enclosures or the dome cameras? I would think the box with an enclosure would be better because it has a visor. 2.) Are the dome or box w/enclosure better in the high humidity environment? The CNB cameras judging from the reviews here and elsewhere seem like a good fit feature wise, I'm just concerned about environments issues. 3.) Are the CNB box cameras as good as the dome cameras? Thanks. P.S. I'm open to suggestions.

I’m trying to determine the difference, end result-wise between, DC Iris and AES. My background is in photography so my first thought is that DC Iris is similar to aperture priority and AES is similar to shutter priority. Is this correct? From what I’ve read, DC Iris is used when the camera is mounted in a location where the brightness level changes frequently. If this is correct, and DC Iris is similar to aperture priority, then the depth of field (what’s in focus) would change as the iris changes size. Is this correct? If the iris is fixed, and the shutter speed changes, then there should be a greater likelihood of getting blurred moving objects in low light situations. Is this correct? In photography it is possible to get the same photo using either aperture priority (DC Iris) or shutter priority (AES) from the standpoint of exposure, depth of field may be different or images may be blurred, but the image exposure would be the same. So what’s the benefit of using DC Iris over AES, if both can product an equally well “exposedâ€