Front Door Camera Placement Help (terrible sketch attached)

[moe 0]

I'm having trouble determining the best placement for a front door dome camera. It will be a Panasonic WV-CW484S. See attached sketch.

 

The problem is that I have two wall lighting fixtures on each side of the door. The fixtures extend off the wall about 6 inches and I'm worried that the light will wash out the camera picture.

 

I'm not sure whether I should put the camera below these lights, or above. I ONLY have 6 inches in between the light fixture and the door. Another possibility is placing the camera directly above the front door. Would this be better?

 

FYI there is a small landing in front of the door with about 10 steps below. I would like the camera to get some of those steps in its view.

 

(Sorry for the jpg being the wrong side up. Also, the rectangular looking thingies with the ovals inside of them are the light fixtures. The circles with the X's are possible camera locations. I am NOT limited to these locations.)

 

Thanks

 

[scorpion 0]

I would take the camera, and hook it up to a portable 13 tv, and I would stand on a ladder in various places.

 

Look at the TV screen, what you see is what you get. This would answer the question for me more so than anything else.

 

If all else fails, and there is an attic space above the front door, then try a ceiling mount position.

[SureVeillance 0]

Definitely do the ladder routine and check the picture before drilling any holes. I have found that cameras mounted at or below the top of the door frame give better photos for identifying who is at the door. If you are only interested that someone is there, but not who it is, over the door would work.

 

Also, make sure you try it at night with the lights on because there is a secondary reflection that occurs when the light that is closely mounted to the dome is on but not in the field of view - the light illuminates the inside of the dome and can cause a faint picture of the reflection of the camera. In other words, when you are holding up the camera to the wall in the proposed position, hold it in such a way that the you are not blocking the light which will strike the back or side of the camera to get a truer idea of how it will look when mounted.

 

Instead of the 13" monitor, you can also use a laptop with video in, or the laptop attached to the remote monitoring of your video security dvr (which may introduce some delay).

[bike_rider 0]

One other option for viewing at the site is a portable DVD player. We have one and I completely missed the possibilty of using it to aim for the first 5 cameras we put it.