Very discreet outdoor camera system advice needed

[drainpipe 0]

I’d really appreciate some advice on what to choose for a very discreet camera that will need to mount somewhere on the outside wall of my house. I’d like to be able to put it on the wall or an edge of the vertical wall, and cover an area below of at least ten metres out from it at a minimum. As it’s in full view, I’ve been looking for disguised cameras but haven’t really found anything suitable. I’ve found a couple of floodlights with LED/camera combined and even a wall-light with a built in camera - but these all have recording to a SD card in a slot so not ideal at all. Even if they supported over-write to the card, I’d still need a ladder to retrieve the card AND the ladder again to setup or later adjust the camera.

I’ve looked for outdoor IP cameras but can only find “camera” looking cameras which I really want to avoid.

 

So do any of you kind people have any suggestions for me about how to solve this please?

 

I think I’d like a disguised weatherproofed camera on the wall, that would allow me to configure and access it via my internal network. I know that most of these cameras have red LEDs that come on at night but again - these would give away the existence of the camera so I’m stuck there too!

I would assume that I’d also need to buy a small (2 or 4 channel) NVR and put that onto the LAN for recording onto. I’m familiar with networking and so should be able to deal with any necessary network connections and port-forwards etc. I might have missed a very obvious solution that’s staring me in the face of course, but please point it out for me as I’m running out of ideas now.

 

Many thanks in advance for any help at all with this,

 

Edward

[tomcctv 187]

Hi. Why do you need a covert camera ?? What is it going to be used for

 

Is it to monitor private or public space

[drainpipe 0]

Hello Tom,

Without too much background - we suffer from scratched cars and damaged property in the area. I’d like a method of recording my car when it’s parked so that if anything happens, I’ll have a good video record of it and also, hopefully, of the perpetrator. The cam is going to point to the back of the house over the space where we park which is nearby the house to the edge of the small garden we have. My Wife’s Mum usually stays over every other week and I would hate to find her car had suffered damage too. No public space in sight and that’s why it feels vulnerable. It’s a disguised camera because the bloke doing this (not kids) always has a reason for it not being him when this has happened before to others. Told you - long story - hope that’s enough of a snapshot.

[jeromephone 6]

There are several small cameras (pinhole type) on the market that would work someone even made one mounted in a floodlight. We have put them in what looked like a electrical switch box and they did the job.

Axis makes a high end pinhole camera but that is IP

[drainpipe 0]

Well jeromephone, I’ve spotted an axis P1224-E that looks like it might do this task for me. I haven’t yet looked for lower-cost versions of this “P12” series but I’ll research that when I’ve looked into this one a bit more. It’s a bit expensive but it does look like what I want.

 

I need to see what network storage devices it supports, as I’d like it to use an NVR if possible so that it just carries on and overwrites when the drives get full. I don’t think that works with a standard NAS drive.

 

Also trying to find the distance from the subject area that it will work with to give at least a satisfactory picture.

Your little switch box comment gave me an idea.

If I go with something like this, I might mount it on the wall close to a standard outdoor wall light, and maybe put it inside a cable junction-box. Make it look like the junction-box is working with the wall light? We could use a light thereabouts anyway.

 

It looks like there’s no problem with any flashing red-LEDs but I do need to check the night-time picture quality of course at around a distance of 10 metres or so.

 

So many questions keep popping into my head but in principle this looks like what I was looking for.

 

Thanks mate, I appreciate your advice.

[tomcctv 187]

Hi. Going out into car space .. Road side ... Is public space

 

Are you in the uk ?

 

Look at it another way if you install a standard camera that can be seen they might walk past your car and not do any damage.

 

Going covert and they might damage your car again

 

Recorder is the way to go with camera

[drainpipe 0]

Yes Tom, I’m in the UK. Our car is parked alongside my garden on a private road about quarter of a mile from the main road. It’s definitely not public space, it’s a private road leading to my house. I understand what you’re saying there about public space but it isn’t.

Also I understand about the deterrence value of a visible camera, but this is the way I want to go with this situation.

 

Where you say “Recorder is the way to go with camera” though - not sure what you mean as that is exactly what I want to do with the camera. I will record the feed.

 

Thanks.

[tomcctv 187]

Am also in the uk ..... Private road still has public access it's just not maintained by council

 

I use a lot of the axis you have listed and that will not do the job you need.

 

You are looking for a 10m distance .... You also need to take into account hight of camera. So you are looking for a camera of a target distance of 25 to 30m and with good night vision

[drainpipe 0]

Thanks, OK. I take your point about the access.

I also gratefully take your advice about the axis

 

If you have any suggestions I'd be really pleased to check them out as this looks like a bit of a minefield.

There are several cheaper cams even down to IP bird-box type cams but again the visual quality distance is the challenge it seems to me.

 

Anyway thanks for the reply, I shall research.

[tomcctv 187]

Hi. The same problem with a bird box camera ... It will not do what you need

 

I would look at the small mini PTZ from qvis in the UK

 

Can be bought for a lot less than the fixed axis listed and can be bought on cvi tvi IP formate.

If you buy the IP formate it comes with its own software to run on your PC

[drainpipe 0]

Looks good Tom.

I had to do an image search and found this [QVIS, IPTZ-P400-10X, 2MP 10X Optical Zoom IR Mini PTZ Camera] that seems to be the one you're suggesting?

 

It's certainly not as 'discreet' as I originally wanted, or thought I wanted. I'll look through it's spec and manual and see what it'll do.

Not that I'll understand a lot of it but as long as I can access from network - phone too but not a big problem if not - save the feed of video to a NVR.

Maybe covert isn't a b all and end all the the problem.

Thanks.

[tomcctv 187]

Hi. The reason why I surgest that camera is you need to protect cars and you may find a time that you need to park a car in a different position .... So you can move the camera with your smartphone

 

Yes it is the P400 but you need to look for IP version

 

http://qvisglobal.com/downloads/dl/file/id/124/product/108/iptz_p400_10x_specification.pdf

[drainpipe 0]

I just spotted that the pic you attached seemed to be unavailable and the qvis site now shows a different model i.e. [http://qvisglobal.com/iptz-p400-10x-v2] that looks a bit different to the first version. The v2 suggests that the first one (your pic?) is possibly obsolete.

 

The spec I've been reading, which might now be irrelevant if I've been looking at the wrong one - did mention TCP/IP so I assumed that meant it was an IP camera anyway, am I wrong.

 

I'll keep on looking through the qvis stuff anyway as a small camera like this could be mounted a little further away from the car, and your point about moving it's target position later if needed is very valid. cheers Tom.

 

Edward