Please Help. Want ill Dad to be able to see Deer 150ft away

[Tabster 0]

Hello, I hope someone can help. My Father is terminally ill with cancer and is bound to his recliner most of the time. He used to hunt and also enjoyed just seeing wildlife in general. We live nextdoor to my parents and I feed the deer at a stump in their back yard about 150ft from their house. It was hard to think of something he could still enjoy so for Christmas I decided to get them a dvd security system so they could see the deer and also see who was at the door since they get oxygen and other supplies delivered frequently. It was a fairly last-minute idea so I went to TigerDirect and got what they recommended (a Kguard) and after buying additional cable and installing the 4 cameras the quality is pretty bad. Extremely washed-out and we're also having trouble with the DVR working properly.

Could you please recommend something that would fit their situation? We have a lcd monitor set-up so that they can both see it from their chairs and we would like to use 4 cameras. (no need for more) They will probably never use the DVR, it would just be for us to use if we want to sit with them and check-out if any animals came by at night. We would like the night view to be decent for the evening viewing of the deer but the camera will be very close to the feeding stump.

I would like to stay under $400 if possible. I understand it won't be like watching HDTV but I would like for them to see a little truer color and more detail.

Thank-you very much in advance for your help, this is all just over my head.

[Kawboy12R 0]

The colours on the 8ch Lorex ECO system with 4 cameras aren't too bad. Mine was $500 at Costco and comes with DVR and monitor. I won't recommend the saved video quality at all but the cams aren't too bad for live viewing in the day as long as the lighting isn't too complex (mix of shadows and bright sunlight). Night live view isn't too hideous. The IR has a hotspot in the center of the camera view but you can see detail outside of the hotspot. Gadspot.com has better cams than my Lorex though. Look for shockwave199's posts on here. He's got a link in his sig line to his install and sample videos. Their starter 4ch system is under your $400 mark. Compare his cam model demo videos with what comes with their system. Check his stuff out here. No time to compare myself. New Year's and my wife is just about prettied up for the evening and I have to run. Have a good one!

[Al Drake 0]

Hello, I hope someone can help. My Father is terminally ill with cancer and is bound to his recliner most of the time. He used to hunt and also enjoyed just seeing wildlife in general. We live nextdoor to my parents and I feed the deer at a stump in their back yard about 150ft from their house. It was hard to think of something he could still enjoy so for Christmas I decided to get them a dvd security system so they could see the deer and also see who was at the door since they get oxygen and other supplies delivered frequently. It was a fairly last-minute idea so I went to TigerDirect and got what they recommended (a Kguard) and after buying additional cable and installing the 4 cameras the quality is pretty bad. Extremely washed-out and we're also having trouble with the DVR working properly.

Could you please recommend something that would fit their situation? We have a lcd monitor set-up so that they can both see it from their chairs and we would like to use 4 cameras. (no need for more) They will probably never use the DVR, it would just be for us to use if we want to sit with them and check-out if any animals came by at night. We would like the night view to be decent for the evening viewing of the deer but the camera will be very close to the feeding stump.

I would like to stay under $400 if possible. I understand it won't be like watching HDTV but I would like for them to see a little truer color and more detail.

Thank-you very much in advance for your help, this is all just over my head.

 

I am not familiar with what you have but for a fix I am thinking that replacing a camera or two might be a solution. The difficulty with the DVR might be worked out with some help from people here.

 

I hope I can provide any help you might need.

 

Good luck.

 

Al

[Tabster 0]

Thank-you Al and Kawboy. I did look at the other posts and tried to digest as much as I could. I also looked at the Lorex system but they didn't have it in stock at our Costco. My husband and I also thought of changing the cameras as suggested but I think we got a bad DVR. It would black-out as soon as you got to any real movement that had been recorded. My parents had 6 deer today at the feeding stump and when the deer started interacting with each other and one was rearing up...poof went the picture which has been happening. Not sure if you all could have helped or not but we decided to just take it back.

I can almost feel the cringes this will make you all get but we got a Swann system today at BestBuy. Because of it being dark and rainy my husband just switched out the deer camera and the picture was much better in the dark so I have hope that when he can install the others over the weekend the colors will be better in the light. The DVR seems like it will work well for what we need. It's the 826004 and we expected to pay $380 on sale but for some reason rang up for $280.

If I had more time I'd try to learn more but right now my Dad has been having some really lucid days and we wanted to get something in place right away so he could enjoy it.

Thank-you again for offering to help, it was appreciated!

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

sorry you had to waste your money on those crap systems for such a meaningful purpose. the fact is, no package system camera is going to give you a picture where the deer appears as anything more than a speck at that range. to view a 25-foot-wide area at 150', you need on the order of a 30mm lens for a 1/3" camera, few if any of these types of cameras will come with more an an 8mm lens, and your view at that distance will be 90' wide.

 

your best solution is an outdoor housing holding a box camera with an appropriate lens (something in a 3-33mm or 5-50mm varifocal would be ideal). that could plug directly into a video input on the tv and give a big, clear picture of what's going on at the stump. no need to record it, no need for a bunch of extra cameras.

[Tabster 0]

My husband dug a ditch and ran a cable out so there is a camera right by the stump. They were even able to watch a mouse scurrying around last night and they called me after my last post to let me know there was a buck with a big rack at the feeder around 11pm. We didn't want it on the TV because watching TV is my Mom's only real escape from everything and we wanted to have a dedicated screen for the cameras so they could choose which to watch. Right now they seem to watch TV then both look at the monitor during commercials. I, too wish I knew more or had the time to learn from all of you here but I think this is going to work out ok and has already brought him (and my Mom) some happy moments.

I hope I didn't waste anyone's time and will probably be back sometime in the future with questions to get something for ourselves. I think I may be hooked.

 

Thank-you all again.

[Kawboy12R 0]

Thanks for the idea Tabster. Wish I'd thought of something like that when my grandfather was bedridden at home 20 years ago. He would've loved to watch the goings-on around his house while stuck in bed. Best of luck with your situation.