.Anybody can order a home security camera and mount it where they believe it will serve its purpose well. While it may appear to be a simple task, planning security camera placement is a technical task. It requires a careful survey of your premises, and entrances. That’s more true if you are planning to install your camera as a professional security measure. It is with that in mind that I decided to write this article. I will share some of the most important factors have worked for me so far. In this article, you are going to learn how to use your home’s layout, and cater for variation in lighting throughout the day. You will also learn how to avoid mistakes associated with pixel dilution.
That’s because you need to capture both the vertical as well as the horizontal aspect of the security image or footage. Moreover, it has to appear in sharp focus, without any blind spots, and most important be out of reach. In the next section, we are going to look at some of the mistakes to avoid when installing a security camera at home.
Installing Security Cameras Outside Home
Whether you are installing the camera indoors or outdoors, how you do it will determine how well it works. You should avoid the following common mistakes that people do when installing cameras at home.
1. Make sure You Secure the Indoor and Outdoor Security Cameras
How well you secure the outdoor camera as well as the indoor cameras will determine their effectiveness. Security of the camera does not have to do with physical protection alone. Installing a security camera in a manner that it’s disguised can also help to protect it from being stolen, destroyed or even evaded by the intruder.
Of course, you also need to install a dummy camera as a way to protect the strategically concealed functional camera. More, you may need to make sure that the decoy camera is actually a cheap camera that works. Otherwise, if it’s obvious it’s a dummy, it may raise suspicion when the intruder is trying to get rid of evidence. What we want is for the intruder to believe he is being watched and the decoy camera is the one watching him.
2. Security Cameras Don’t Multitask
You may buy one high-end camera and forego buying two or three medium priced cameras. However, that expensive camera will not be able to capture an intruder’s face, the license plate number of the car the intruder packed a few yards from your front door, and the neighbor’s house across the street, and do it simultaneously. Even in cases where the camera is rotating as it captures images, on a 360 view, it will still miss scenes that are out of its field of view.
You therefore need to make sure that you place your security cameras in a strategic manner. You need to have cameras that capture footage from all possible angles. The captured footage from different cameras should also overlap, that ensures that you will be able to get a continuous view as the intruder moves around your property.
3. How High Should I Mount the Security Camera?
While mounting your camera at the highest can give you a wider field of view, it will make it harder to recognize the faces of the intruder. The only exception is if you choose to use a PTZ security camera, or any HD security camera. Still, you need to make sure that the height isn’t too high. Test the camera’s resolution to see how clear the resolution is at a range of say 20 meters or 30 meters. You should be able to make an informed decision.
4. Wide Dynamic Range Cameras at Doorways and Windows
An intruder will try to conceal their faces if they suspect that the entrance they are using is under surveillance. That means if aren’t using a dynamic range camera, you will never capture their faces unless they are looking directly into the camera. However, if you install a dynamic range camera, you will still be able to capture a decent image.
5. Fail to Provide Enough Lighting
Cameras need proper lighting to work properly, even night vision camera use inbuilt infrared light direct to their field of view. If you haven’t installed a night-vision cameras, you need to install some lights that will light up the camera’s field of view. Furthermore, you should make sure that the light flows away from the camera. Moreover, the camera should be mounted in such a way that the camera lens isn’t exposed to direct sunlight. If it does, the camera will have white streaks of light in all its images, and if there isn’t enough lighting, the night images will have unrecognizable images.
Conclusion
Overall, the quality of image you are going to get from your cameras will depend on several factors. While many of those factors can be corrected, others such as missing to buy the best security camera for your home or office can be costly to correct. You therefore have to make sure that to begin with, you have the best camera, and it must be the right security camera for the job. For example if you want to get decent surveillance images at night, install some lights as well. And if you want to make sure nothing goes wrong, choose a night-vision security camera. Otherwise, if the intruder damages the lights, the security footage will be mostly made of showy figures. We hope that you found this planning security camera placement to be informative, and you will get decent surveillance images from your security cameras.