We’ve created several posts detailing the importance of surveillance systems. Out of all the security measures you can take, installing cameras ranks among the most effective. By creating and storing video of your property, cameras allow you to keep an eye on your business at all times. This can help solve any crime that occurs on your property. Moreover, installing cameras can even help you catch thieves staking out your building before they breach it! As with any security-related product, choosing the right cameras can prove difficult. Cameras come in all shapes and sizes, and come equipped with a surprising amount of variables that greatly affect performance. While this can prove intimidating, the good news is that we can provide a camera for just about any application you can imagine! In today’s post, we share the details for some specialty cameras to secure your property.
First, we’ll details some of the variables you have to navigate when choosing cameras. From there, we’ll go about helping you select the cameras that best suit your needs. Specifically, we’ll look at how cameras receive ratings for various difficult outdoor applications. Then, we’ll see how you can add cameras that view significant distances to create long-distance security. Finally, we’ll shift our focus to cameras with specialty lenses for specific circumstances. Now, let’s dive in by laying out some of the different options you have when choosing the right cameras for your property.
Understanding Your Camera Options
Luckily for surveillance customers, manufacturers have created cameras for almost every possible situation. Unfortunately, this can also lead to confusion in choosing the proper cameras for a job. For example, installing an indoor-rated camera outdoors can lead to weather-related issues shortly after installation. Additionally, cameras differ in how they react to factors such as environments with little or no light, or even extreme light in some cases. Furthermore, choosing insufficient lenses can cost you valuable security if installed in areas where you want a long-range view.
Understanding your options when it comes to camera selection greatly increases your surveillance system’s effectiveness.
Choosing the right cameras starts with understanding the variables involves in camera selection. This helps you get the security you need. Moreover, having this understanding also helps you stay as cost-efficient as possible. After all, many applications only need basic cameras. Purchasing cameras with unneeded features drives the cost up unnecessarily. Of course, on the flip side, installing basic cameras in situations that cause for specialty cameras to secure your property renders your surveillance useless in many cases! Today, we aim to help you find those “just right” cameras that fit every security need. We’ll start this exploration with a look at camera “ratings” and what they mean.
Cameras for Outdoor Weather or Extreme Situations
As you can probably guess, some — if not the majority — of the cameras we install get installed outdoors. As you can also likely guess, not all cameras get built to withstand outdoor conditions. Furthermore, some cameras even need more than the usual ability to withstand bad weather based on where we install them. For example, cameras in extremely bad weather climates, on docks, or near dams may end up getting more than their fair share of abuse. In these instances, we need to select our cameras carefully!
One way to make sure you select the proper camera is by checking its “IP Rating.” The “IP” stands for “Ingress (or ‘Entrance’) Protection.” A camera’s IP rating is shown with the letters “IP” followed by two digits with varying values (e.g. “IP 67”). The higher the number of each digit, the more resistance provided by the camera. The first digit represents protection against solid objects, on a 0-6 scale. To achieve a “6” on this scale, an object must display resistance to dust. Most cameras are dust-tight, so almost every camera has an IP rating that starts with a “6.” The second digit generally ranges from a “5” to an “8.”
An IP65 camera can withstand jets or sprays of water, while an IP68 camera can withstand continuous water submersion under specific conditions. Obviously, IP66 and 67 cameras lie in between those two extremes. If you do have reason to believe your cameras face potential weather or element damage, we recommend installing cameras with an IP67 or IP68 rating. Doing so will ensure that your cameras can withstand the wear and tear of outdoor use for years to come. Now, let’s see how installing surveillance in difficult conditions also involves choosing specialty cameras to secure your property that provide the right type of lens for your application.
“Long-Distance” Surveillance
Many of our customers’ surveillance “targets” lie quite a ways away from their camera locations. In this case, we have to make a couple important choices. For starters, choosing cameras with the necessary resolution greatly increases your chance of a successful security experience. As we pointed out in our post on Choosing IP vs Analog Cameras, every image captured by a camera is made up of hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of smaller images. Each of these images is called a pixel, and one million of these pixels is called a megapixel.
Full high-definition television screens project an image containing 2.1 megapixels. Therefore, you may think a 2.1-megapixel camera would project about the best picture possible. However, cameras with higher resolutions allow you to zoom in closer on an image before the image begins to “break up,” a process known as “pixellating.” For those looking to have the ability to zoom in closer on an image, we recommend cameras in the 4- to 8-megapixel range.
After choosing your cameras’ resolution, we still have another equally important decision to make. A camera’s viewing capacity can vary greatly based on its lens. Some cameras have lenses that we cannot adjust at all after installation. These cameras, called “fixed lens” cameras, do not allow for any picture adjustment once we mount them. Other cameras do give us the ability to zoom in and out, as well as left and right, after installation. These cameras have “varifocal” lenses that allow customers to change what their cameras see after installation. This allows us to install varifocal lens cameras, then zoom them in on what you wish to see. We recommend varifocal lenses for any customers looking to view more than 50 or so feet away from their camera locations. Coming up, we’ll discuss some lens options for unique security applications!
Surveillance with Specialty Lenses
Pan-tilt-zoom cameras, such as this model by Hanwha, can cover large areas of your property from one camera location.
Cameras with varifocal lenses provide ample coverage for many security applications. However, some areas of your property may need a little extra power to provide the security you need. For example, cameras with the ability to pan, tilt, and zoom (known as “PTZ” cameras) provide you with a motorized lens that can scan your entire property for trouble from one camera location. Similarly, multi-lens cameras can provide you with the power of 3-4 cameras in one location! This type of setup creates a tremendous field of vision for your camera, and allows for the most efficient wire runs possible.
Furthermore, we often install cameras with lenses specifically designed to read license plates. These license-plate-recognition (or “LPR”) cameras have extremely high definition to ensure they can provide you the license plates of cars as they enter your property. Additionally, they also have technology that allows them to capture a license plate number without getting the picture getting “washed out” by the reflectivity of license plates in difficult lighting conditions. These cameras prove especially useful watching the perimeter of your property. In addition to allowing you to view the license plate information of cars entering your property, they also allow you to sort videos by license plate searches. This allows you to find video of each and every time a specific vehicle enters your property. Obviously, adding the cameras described in this section can greatly increase the security around the exterior of any building!
Using Specialty Cameras to Secure Your Own Property
We hope the material in this post aids your efforts in using specialty cameras to secure your own property. As always, we encourage you to contact us with any questions today’s post may raise for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. We know you have a lot of options when it comes to installing cameras — or any security, for that matter — and we’d love to help you. Additionally, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We provide complimentary security audits and equipment quotes to both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can address any security concerns you may have. Moreover, we can also make suggestions of our own based on observations made during our visit. Together, we can help you install a complete surveillance system to help keep your property as secure as possible!