IP Camera required for stills

[vkguy 0]

Hello, I was hoping that I might be able to pick the brains of the members here.

 

We have a photography website and we are in England, I was hoping to install a webcam as a stills camera to show the view around our premises (it's a very rural area!).

 

My requirement is that it is of high quality, weatherproof, true colour and can automatically upload to an FTP using a built in schedule without the requirement of a PC.

 

The best camera I have found so far is the VIVOTEK IP8332 but it is quite expensive. My question about this camera is that the cables from it are only very small tails, the camera would be installed high up on the side of a chimney breast, would the tails needs to go into a weatherproofed connection box where the ethernet and power would be plugged in?

 

Has anyone got any alternative recommendations for cameras? The appeal of the IP8332 is the retracting IR-Cut filter so it doesn't pick up any IR during daylight hours.

 

Also, does anyone know if you need to adhere to any local planning laws for erecting a camera, even if it's pointing at the landscape?

[Soundy 1]

I don't know how the price point compares, as I don't have pricing on the Vivotek cameras, but all of IQEye's cameras have the ability to send a still to FTP and/or email on a time-lapse schedule (ie. one per minute, hour, day, whatever), set up directly through the web interface, or on a time schedule (ie. at specific times) through a cron script. The ones I've used give pretty good color images even at night, through slowing down the shutter... if you're just showing landscapes, motion blur doing this probably isn't a concern.

 

IR cut filters are actually common on all "decent" color cameras. True day/night cameras switch to B&W at night and move the cut filter out of the way. Only the cheap day/night cameras (usually the ones with built-in IR LEDs) don't use an IR cut filter, but electronically process to compensate for the color balance issues.

 

As far as wiring, get a switch with PoE (power over ethernet) support, or use PoE injectors, and you can run power and signal on a single Cat5e or Cat6 cable. Many outdoor-rated dome designs include space for the connections inside the housing.

 

Check out IQ's Product Selector for some options - they have outdoor-rated vandal-resistant domes that all fall within the $500-$1000 (MSRP) range: http://www.iqeye.com/products/productselector.html

 

They also have a number of indoor cameras in the "$0-$500" range that you could use outdoors with an appropriate environmental housing, where all connections could be made inside the housing.

 

As far as your local laws... someone else who's in England (we have a few) should be able to help you with that.

[shropna 0]

I'm use Sanyo HD 4000 for this job....

[vkguy 0]

Both of those cameras cost significantly more than the IP8332.

[Soundy 1]

"$0-$500" is significantly more?

 

You say the Vivotek is "quite expensive" - we don't know what actual amount you consider that to be. You want something cheaper... without knowing what you're getting the Vivotek for, it's hard for anyone to recommend something "cheaper".

[vkguy 0]

The vivotek is £279.

 

The budget was £200 but the 8332 is quite a jump in quality over the £199 VGA cameras.

[Soundy 1]

£279 equates to about $444 (US/CDN)... which honestly is the lower end of the retail market for *good* megapixel IP cameras. You can go cheaper, but you're probably going to sacrifice either resolution, quality, or features (like the ability to FTP images on a schedule). Fortunately for your purposes, you can probably give up things like low-light performance, as you're probably interested more on daylight images anyway.