Help me! Best camera placement for my House (4ch w/Picts)

[Toaster 0]

 

So this is my house from a top view, front of house faces North. Our car's are normally parked in driveway in front of garage on right (north east corner of house), and one is almost always parked in front of house on curb by the tree.

 

Front of house is not "flat" - garage extends out further than front door area, as you can see, the front door and porch are in the north west corner of the house,

 

Backyard access is on left side (#4 / west side of house), right side (#5 / east side) is fenced area - no gate access on that side of house, there is a bay window for kitchen and my a/c condensers, phone lines, electrical power access are all out there on this side.. As you can clearly see its a zero properly line lot, with neighbors on both sides, well all three sides counting rear south side too.

 

I have a single back door located in the center rear (south end) of the house, and it sits between a fireplace chimney and bay window area from master bedroom.

 

I'm going to install a 4 channel system.

 

How would you suggest camera placement? I want to get maximum coverage from these 4 channels - I know 8 would be better, but I think thats overkill..?

[Birdman Adam 0]

I believe nothing is overkill with surveillance!

But seriously, a 4 channel system will probably fit you well.

 

So here's my suggestion for 4 cameras:

 

 

I tried to optimize for watching all entrances and higher risk areas (cars in driveway..), and also for big areas like rear lawn and front door + front lawn.

 

You can see cameras 1-4 in the numbers, and their viewing angles in the shaded areas.

 

1 takes care of the rear entrance, plus pretty much the whole lawn, and that shed.

 

2 watches the alley to the rear lawn entrance.

 

3 takes the driveway, garage door, and some front lawn.

 

4 views the front door and the rest of the lawn.

 

-I would suggest all of these be true day/night cameras, and be coupled with motion-sensing floodlights.

 

-3 may require a lens close to fish-eye if you want to get all of the driveway and the garage door.

 

-I didn't put anything down the right side of the house as that seemed low-risk, just utilities, and maybe a couple windows?

 

-If you doing this yourself, I would try to buy cameras with vari-focal lenses, so you can adjust the zoom to exactly what you need for each spot. For example, 2 would have a tighter zoom to get more detail at things in the alley.

 

I'm sure others will chime in with other suggestions.

[Toaster 0]

That was pretty much my intended layout, expect where you have camera 4 (green/front door) looking west direction, I planned on mounting that one under my porch area basically at my front door looking north out to the lawn and the car parked on the front curb.

 

The system I bought was a simple q-see system with 45ft night vision 27 ir led camera's, 2 wide angle and 2 narrow angle. I don't know how wide - the wide angle ones are yet - I'm hoping near fish eye. If not, I saw a lense for $28 that gives 110 degree fish eye view by swann, I'm not sure if it will fit these q-see camera's... ?

 

I guess it will all depend on how the views are on these cameras.

 

 

Here's another question:

 

My house is 2 story in the front (about 20 feet high) and single story in the back (about 9 feet high). So I was planning on under the eave for backyard camera and gate access camera... Is mounting the driveway camera up that high a bad idea? I'm guessing yes. I was planning on mounting on the brick wall about 9 feet up...

 

My limited experience with camera's has been when they are HIGH UP - you don't get any facial clarity - but..... that's why I'm asking the questions

[Birdman Adam 0]

I would keep all the cameras low, like maybe mounted under the eaves of the roof. Lower and they can be tampered with easily (unless they are vandal domes). This way you can see more details of people/cars, like faces and maybe plates.

 

I like your idea for camera 4. That way you'll get better view of people walking up.

[Toaster 0]

Here's a question I've been trying to figure out. Front door camera, the way my porch is setup - to get a shot of the front door, that's ALL I'd get from that camera. Is that a good idea? The way I have it now is ABOVE the front door so I see who's walking up, but once someone is on the porch, I can't see them anymore, because they're basically UNDER the camera, which is now facing OUT and above them.

 

Suggestions?