Camera placement thoughts

[arlomaster]

I have a camera on my deck. It's positioned on one side right by the door. On the other side of the deck is the stairs leading up to the deck.

Unfortunately, because movement in this area moves towards the camera as oppose to side to side, it's usually too late for the camera to detect motion and begin recording. I found this out yesterday when I was slowly carrying a big box, but my camera didn't record until I was less than 5 feet from the camera.

Two places I could put it are against the house, but I feel that the the FOV angle isn't wide enough to capture someone going up the deck and getting to close to the camera, or the long end of the deck, which is not going to look pretty. The stairs lead to the house side of the deck.

Thoughts?

[Hula_Rock]

Take a snapshot of the area that is being covered and post it to this thread, 

For Example:

[40calripken]

I have a similar angle covered on my front steps. It seems to be able to capture from when someone nears the first step up until the door but misses edge of the screen on the pathway. This works just fine for me. In the picture you posted, from what two points are you testing the motion detection?

[arlomaster]

Pardon the mess.  The deck area looks like this:

Basically, the right side of this photo is the edge of the deck.  Usually, if someone walks up from the stairs, the motion will not be detected until they are close to the water cooler on the left, and recording will not start until they are at the door.

[jguerdat]

I think it's a combination of distance and angle of the motion. Maybe move the camera more over the cooler aimed at the back of the deck?

[arlomaster]

Yeah I was thinking of doing that or even closer actually. My original concern was regarding the distance from the steps, I was afraid someone could just snag the camera before it could start recording since it's not very high up. 

Does anyone here happen to know if the camera is sensitive to light?  I was thinking of adding a motion light by the steps, so if anything moves up the steps at night, it would trigger the light and the camera would start recording. I suppose the day time would pose a similar issue to what I have now. 

[steve_t]

Sorry, a light turning on won't trigger the camera. It's sensitive to heat signatures moving across the FOV.

It's been my experience that people don't even realise the camera is there until they're looking into it. You could use a screw mount there so that if they wanted to steal the camera, they'd have to be there for a lot longer than if you use a magnetic mount

[arlomaster]

That's a good idea. I'll look tomorrow to see if I can mount it and have it look "good" at the same time.