Looking for ideas on monitoring driveway.

[cmx]

A few years ago i put cameras around my uncles barn, recently he has had people walking in his driveway trying to get to the river and crossing over the fence and tearing it up causing cows to get out!

Beside his driveway is a wire fence and power poles and a cow pasture its all open farm land.

Please excuse my 1 st grade drawing.

There is 220 feet space between the barn and driveway and the driveway is 1,100 feet long, i was thinking about running a cable from the barn to the fence line and put a camera up as you can see down the entire driveway from there.

Question is can i mount it to the power pole? probably not the best idea and then that leads me to what camera to buy, i was thinking maybe a combo unit with a 180 Panoramic lens and a PTZ below that can follow people.

 

[samplenhold]

What kind of a power pole are you talking about?


Is it wooden or metallic? Just supplying his place or other places too? How often has the power company worked on it?

If it is just a wooden pole to your uncle's place and the power company is never out there, it would probably be ok to mount a cam or two on it. There have been folks here that have done that but I do not know what the long term issues have been for them.

If it is a metal structure that transports high voltage across the countryside, they get inspected fairly often and I would think that you would have issues from them rather quickly. I doubt if you could get permission to mount cams on those.

If you decide to run Cat cable to them, 220 feet is doable. Placing several cables in a buried conduit would work with a couple of extra pull strings. Use cables rated for direct burial even if you put them in conduit since there will end up being moisture in there over time. Or just direct bury them, but that would mean if you decide to run more cams, you will have to trench again. Or just run several extra cables in the beginning. Realize that lightning can cause quite a problem with that much cable strung out acting like an antenna. So make sure you properly ground each cable. If you could run power to the mounting place, you could setup radios to send the signals back to the barn and you would not have to plan for lightning.

As far as what cams, that will depend on what you are trying to achieve with them. You have to make that decision. Do you just want to see what happened? Or do you really want to ID "who let the cows out! Moo, moo, moo moo, moo!" Are you looking for advanced warning of a perp coming down the road? The choice and placement will depend on what you want to achieve. Also the question of night versus day is another factor. If you need night ID then that is a whole different ballgame at those distances and I would imagine that you do not have much light there.

 

[cmx]

Sorry yes they are just regular wooden power poles, the power company has maybe been out twice in the last 20 years and the power poles are for his house/barn only.

Hes just looking to record these people as they are repeat offenders and maybe send it to the police.

He can see everything around his house/barn but not the driveway as it's 220 feet from the barn.

 

[samplenhold]

Hes just looking to record these people as they are repeat offenders and maybe send it to the police.

Again, what does he really want from these videos? '...record these people and maybe send it to the police' will not do any good if they can't be identified. Meaning that good face shots are not available. Sending video to the police that shows perps doing something but is not clear/focused/zoomed in enough to identify them will give the police nothing to go on.

A guy down the road from me had a few Ring cams around his house when a person opened up his pickup and stole some stuff. He had video from those cams but they were useless to the police. cops said "that's nice. It happened at 1am. Looks like just one person, but we can't even tell if it is a guy or a gal." They did not even take a copy.

 

[cmx]

Again, what does he really want from these videos? '...record these people and maybe send it to the police' will not do any good if they can't be identified. Meaning that good face shots are not available. Sending video to the police that shows perps doing something but is not clear/focused/zoomed in enough to identify them will give the police nothing to go on.

A guy down the road from me had a few Ring cams around his house when a person opened up his pickup and stole some stuff. He had video from those cams but they were useless to the police. cops said "that's nice. It happened at 1am. Looks like just one person, but we can't even tell if it is a guy or a gal." They did not even take a copy.

Obviously he wants to identify them does that even need to be said? Other wise what is the point.

 

[samplenhold]

Obviously he wants to identify them does that even need to be said? Other wise what is the point.

OK, fine.

Is there a choke point that could narrow down the width that needs to be covered? It will be quite difficult to cover 220 feet across with enough coverage to get clear face shots. Maybe post a couple of cell phone shots of the approach? Anything that one can see what the area looks like will help.

You never stated if this needs night coverage.

 

[bigredfish]

One camera isnt going to cut it for 1100ft of driveway

To @samplenhold point, you have to decide you want either ID for Law Enforcement, or an Overview camera just to see something happened but without the detail to ID the perps (I'd estimate over 75% of camera installations by people on this forum let alone Ring/Home Depot homeowners are the latter. Because most people don't know the difference.

LE needs either a face or a plate, or better, both

I'd do an LPR camera close to the driveway entrance particularly if line of sight to make sure I at least get plate numbers (others here can tell you about Ubiquiti point to point radios that can carry the video feed back to the house, but you'll still need power. Or dig the trench) Might just add an overview camera there as well with white LED's

Then I'd do a high end PTZ close to the barn that can see a fair ways down the drive with both IR and white light LED's and set to human or vehicle only to track anyone wandering around

EmpireTech PTZ8X4M-42X-Laser 1/1.8”CMOS 4MP 42X Starlight Laser Nonred

High-Quality Imaging with 4MP Resolution 42× Optical Zoom Provide Close Up Views Over Expansive Areas Triple-Light Illumination: Combining 600m Laser, 120m IR and 50m Warm Light for Superior All-Weather Visibility Smart Pan-Tilt Correction Delivers 0.05° Positioning Accuracy for Reliable...

empiretech01.com

EmpireTech 2×1/1.8" CMOS 8MP 42x Starlight Dual Light Network Panorami

Panorama: 2 × 4 MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor Detail: 8MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor 42 x optical zoom IR distance up to 300 m Auto tracking Perimeter protection Face detection Wiper IP67 Sound and light alarm PoE++(802.3bt)

empiretech01.com

I assume the barn and home already have cameras for ID at main access points....


Otherwise, you're just looking at slapping something up thats going to have limited distance capabilities, IR at night (no color) and to be able to say "it looked like a pickup and two guys"

 

[bigredfish]

Example

The easy part first.
Simple scene, targets at about 60ft

Standard varifocal camera see this: Not bad for 60ft and low light near dusk, but face ID? License plate? *

View attachment HOAEntrP2P_ch7_20260512193433_20260512193451.mp4


Now with a high end PTZ

View attachment HOAEntrP2P_ch1_20260512193432_20260512193501.mp4





Now lets look at real distance
600ft+

The standard varifocal sees this: "Yeah there's a vehicle, I think its silver." Thats it.



The big PTZ (assuming proper preset and IVS rules and, even better, help from the entrance cameras as spotters)

View attachment HOAEntrP2P_ch1_20260512201301_20260512201337.mp4

 

[bigredfish]

*The squirrel in the first video is demanding $$$ or says he'll sue for copyright

 

[wittaj]

And the PTZ only option doesn't take into account it could lose tracking before getting the money shot and/or more than one person spread out and completely misses the 2nd group.

 

[bigredfish]

And the PTZ only option doesn't take into account it could lose tracking before getting the money shot and/or more than one person spread out and completely misses the 2nd group.

Yep. PTZ as a single stand alone asset is bound to fail some percentage of time. Spotter cameras both at entrance and close by the barn would help a lot.

 

[samplenhold]

Glad you guys tapped in.

 

[cmx]

OK, fine.

Is there a choke point that could narrow down the width that needs to be covered? It will be quite difficult to cover 220 feet across with enough coverage to get clear face shots. Maybe post a couple of cell phone shots of the approach? Anything that one can see what the area looks like will help.

You never stated if this needs night coverage.

Night coverage would be nice but i don't think that is possible. There is zero light poles around. It's always people just walking to the river no plates to ID.

I would also need to put up a pole, do you guys think a 10 foot x 2 inch Rigid Conduit would hold a 10 pound PTZ? I would have to cement it into the ground about 3 feet or so, i just worry it would move in the wind.

 

[Ri22o]

Night coverage would be nice but i don't think that is possible. There is zero light poles around. It's always people just walking to the river no plates to ID.

I would also need to put up a pole, do you guys think a 10 foot x 2 inch Rigid Conduit would hold a 10 pound PTZ? I would have to cement it into the ground about 3 feet or so, i just worry it would move in the wind.

Night coverage is possible with the right camera. This area is very, very low light and a B54IR-Z4E is able to capture people 65' away without issue.