Lighting in a narrow side yard

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JPmedia

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Sep 11, 2024
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I've had a small dome PTZ on the rear corner of our soffit viewing the narrow side yard that leads to the gate to the back yard since 2020. I'd like to improve the lighting since it does not have IR.

I tried using a cheap solar/battery light temporarily to experiment, but it splashes light everywhere, bouncing light off the soffit, electrical box and side of the house, blinding the camera. Not to mention it gets triggered by EVERYTHING and was on and off all night flashing a nice bright light into the neighbor's window every time it triggered. I'm sure they enjoyed that.

I need something more focused to help eliminate the light bounce off the surrounding walls, soffit, etc. AND it needs to be a constant IR light to avoid flashing the neighbors when the wind blows or a vehicle goes by out front.

Any ideas?
 
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You’re going to have some IR bounce regardless. But it’s perfectly manageable, give me a few minutes and I’ll post a few examples
 
Here's what I'm dealing with

The first grab is from early this morning. The light you see comes from the large PTZ attached to the e-mast right above this dome PTZ above the roof line and in the distance, from the large PTZ in front of the garage

Second grab shows the obstacles that reflect that can reflect the light back to the camera
 

Attachments

Notice the right side of the night grab is dark. I would like to make the image more uniform so I can see what's going on there.

Notice the second grab, the property stake. We just had our property surveyed for the third time, since the neighbor's fence is on our property which prevents us from finishing our chain link.

He is adamant that his fence is not on our property, but the newly installed marker puts that to rest. In case he decides to be vindictive, I want to make sure he doesn't alter or remove the marker without video proof.
 
Well that batch of cables has to go or be moved, no matter what you do

Most of my shots are from the other house and I dont have them handy as I archived them on another computer, which isnt on my LAN at the moment.

But here's some examples.
IR wont bounce so bad as to be unusable these are from my buddy's house using simple 5442 turrets.
Adding a small IR emitter would help a lot and you could always do corridor mode to tighten it up

ArmandoP2P_leftside yard_main_20260428043932_@10.jpg ArmandoP2P_rightside yard_main_20260428041653_@10.jpg



And here's a clip from my other house. This is an older CVI cam, its IR, and a small IR illuminator like the one I linked to right beside it

Notice the Mr Beams battery flood that comes on but adds really nothing to the scene. The other lights you see are IR

View attachment Home_ch4_20211205011839_20211205011923.mp4
 
bigredfish said:
Well that batch of cables has to go or be moved, no matter what you do

Most of my shots are from the other house and I dont have them handy as I archived them on another computer, which isnt on my LAN at the moment.

But here's some examples.
IR wont bounce so bad as to be unusable these are from my buddy's house using simple 5442 turrets.
Adding a small IR emitter would help a lot and you could always do corridor mode to tighten it up

View attachment 242665 View attachment 242666



And here's a clip from my other house. This is an older CVI cam, its IR, and a small IR illuminator like the one I linked to right beside it

Notice the Mr Beams battery flood that comes on but adds really nothing to the scene. The other lights you see are IR

View attachment 242664
Click to expand...
Yeah, have to corral that mess of cables. Most of them could be removed as we only have an antenna to 2 TVs.

I'd like to keep the PTZ here for the flexibility so I can monitor other areas of the yard in the daytime, so the question is where/how do I place and mount the IR to be most effective?
 
Attached is a pic from inside the yard looking out to the front. The fence/gate is below the camera
 

Attachments

  • BY PTZsm.jpg
    BY PTZsm.jpg
    117.6 KB · Views: 2
Yep very similar to my location in the video , very.

I just mounted the external emitter on the edge of the roofline/gutterfacing away from the camera

For $20 if but it and test it temporary in different positions. Hell it’s light enough you could slap it up temporarily with duct tape
 
bigredfish said:
Yep very similar to my location in the video , very.

I just mounted the external emitter on the edge of the roofline/gutterfacing away from the camera

For $20 if but it and test it temporary in different positions. Hell it’s light enough you could slap it up temporarily with duct tape
Click to expand...
Yeah, my thought was attached to the top outside of the gutter as well.

One other question, I wonder if there is a way to capture sound as well? The camera has no mic since it is a PTZ
 
An IR illuminator gives way more options to mitigate IR bounce that impacts exposure. Just moving it around a few inches or directing it different is a much easier task than with a camera.

Get a cheap camera with a mic and put on that side for redundant coverage and audio and if on same size as PTZ, may add the IR you need.

Or does the PTZ have an audio in cable?
 
I think I may have an answer to my question. What if I move the PTZ to the extreme outside corner of the soffit and install another fixed camera next to the PTZ facing in the direction that the PTZ is currently shown, then I would have IR from the fixed camera and audio as well, yes?
 
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wittaj said:
An IR illuminator gives way more options to mitigate IR bounce that impacts exposure. Just moving it around a few inches or directing it different is a much easier task than with a camera.

Get a cheap camera with a mic and put on that side for redundant coverage and audio.

Or does the PTZ have an audio in cable?
Click to expand...
I doubt the PTZ has audio capability. I think adding the second overview camera is the best option here
 
You know, I had 3 Dahua 5231s I just had to get rid of that would have been good candidates. Good luck finding one now
 
JPmedia said:
I think I may have an answer to my question. What if I move the PTZ to the extreme outside corner of the soffit and install another fixed camera next to the PTZ facing in the direction that the PTZ is currently shown, then I would have IR from the fixed camera and audio as well, yes?
Click to expand...

That might work,
Though as @wittaj mentions, it’s easier to adjust the aim of an external emitter.

With the fixed camera, while great for coverage when the PTZ is looking the wrong way, the aim of the fixed camera and its IR coverage may not light up what you want lit up
 
bigredfish said:
That might work,
Though as @wittaj mentions, it’s easier to adjust the aim of an external emitter.

With the fixed camera, while great for coverage when the PTZ is looking the wrong way, the aim of the fixed camera and its IR coverage may not light up what you want lit up
Click to expand...
The PTZ is for crawling the back yard in the daytime, otherwise it sits in the position as shown by the screen grab. I'm most concerned with the side leading up to the backyard gate during nighttime.

What the PTZ currently covers shown the grabs, is most important to me. I just like having the flexibility to snoop when the mood strikes ;)
 
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