Need camera opinion and placement recommendations...

[kwaugh]

Can some of the camera experts weigh in on this camera:

http://www.specotech.com/cart/produc...asp?prodID=286

Thanks in advance!

K

[rocco]

Is it inexpensive?

The one strong point it has is its sensitivity: .02 lux. Nothing else stands out.

It seems like a fine nighttime camera if you don't need color, and it is inexpensive. I could not find a price, but I would guess $50.

[Stevech]

The primary characteristic is the imaging sensor: CMOS vs. CCD.
The former is essentially useless - except for toys like X10's camera.
The latter is a minimum requirement. The newer CCDs have an on-chip signal processor, the most popular being Sony's.

[kwaugh]

Front door camera...

Rocco -

It would be a freebie, but I think the cost is in the $80 range, 100+ for a color version, but the color version has a lux rating of 1.0 (I have NO idea what that means, but I'm guessing the smaller the number the less light that is needed). It seems like the right choice for above a front door, but I'm open to other suggestions for camera types for that task.

The goal is for "who's at the front door" coverage in both daytime and night, with or without the front porch light on (I always forget to change the darn thing...)

Thanks,

K

[zimmer62]

Some camera companies LIE about the lux because they are providing IR emmitors on the camera... they might be a crappy 5 lux camera, and tell you that it's a .001 lux because it can see in almost complete darkness..

I've been really happy with any camera that uses the 1/3inch sony super had CCD sensor.

There are lot to choose from, mine was in the $150 range, and the quality is great. Another thing to pay attention to is the lens... some lens are not as wide angle as others, if your using it for security a wide lens is better because you can see more area, however distorts to picture slightly. remember that a 6mm lens is not the same on a 1/3inch ccd as it is on a 1/4inch ccd so that makes a difference too.

[rocco]

The goal is for "who's at the front door" coverage in both daytime and night, with or without the front porch light on

K, that camera may be great for that, especially for free. It doesn't have IR LEDs, so I would bet that the LUX rating is real. The fact that it is a CCD chip instead of CMOS means the picture should be pretty clear, even in very low light (the 46db signal-to-noise ratio is respectable, and well beyond what a CMOS chip can do).

My only concern would be that the 3.5mm wide-angle lens will be too wide for faces. A narrower field of view may be better for a front-door camera, depending on how close the camera is to the person. If you can, you might try the 6mm lens (though I know the camera is a freebie).

[kwaugh]

On it's way...

The camera is on it's way. Once I get it installed, I'll post some pics

No more peaking out the blinds to see if we want to answer the door - my Howard Hughes anti-social transformation continues!

As always, thanks to everyone for the help!

[x10pf]

What Lens?

I've got a Sony camera that apparently has a 2/3" CCD and a 25mm lens (was used for close-up work I believe). I would like to get a wider angle lens but don't know what would be best. Anybody have a suggestion? Is there some way to calculate what would work? I'm looking for a field of view of about 12 feet at 8-10 feet distance.

Thanks for any response,
Pat

[zimmer62]

Please anyone jump in if you find an error, or think this is wrong... I'm not an expert, but I did look into this in the past. And from what I remember this is what I came up with.

It's quite strange math to figure it out, becuase finding examples of lens on different ccds are hard to find...

First thing you need to know is size of film, and size of focal length are two different things... the fist is just your CCD size... the focal length will be described for lens, and the best way to figure out what you need is to see examples and do some math. You want to compare to something you can find examples of.
The easiest to find examples is 35mm camera lenses, there are example all over the place. 35mm being the "sensor" size in actualality it's the film frame size, but that'll work for calculation. The other is for the Digital SLR's lots of examples around those as well..

So for instance a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens is good for portraits...
the sensor in a DSLR is slightly smaller... the multiplier is 1.5... becuase it's somewhere around a 23mm sensor. so you would get about an equivlent picture to that 50mm lens with a 33mm lens on the DSLR

or that same 50mm lens would look like a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera.

VERY confusing stuff... but if you convert as 35mm film size (which is actually to inches it.s <!--StartFragment -->1.38 inches...
now... to figure out the multiplier for your CCD...

1.38 / (2/3), so it's around 2...

your sensor is about 1/2 the size of a 35mm frame

meaning that if you find an example of a lens on the internet showing the wideness of a 35mm camera lens, you'll want to divide that number by to to get the same thing.....

Those of you with 1/3 ccds the number should be about 4.14 or something like that... meaing divide by that instead....

this might shed some light on it..
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glos...tiplier_01.htm
http://www.panoramafactory.com/equiv35/equiv35.html

[zimmer62]

UPDATE:

I take some of that back..
read this
http://www.1394imaging.com/en/resour...nparawp.en.pdf

It will explain everything you need to know to calculate what lens you need.

[x10pf]

Joe,
WOW, thanks for all the in-depth feedback. I'll definitely have to get the 35mm out and check various lenses to get a baseline. Maybe even try some of the math.

Pat

[zimmer62]

Don't hold me to any of that stuff

I found a chart at one point for the 1/3" ccd's that said angles, and sizes at different lenghts.

I'll see if I can find that chart again.

[zimmer62]

okay, here is that chart I was refering to, this is for the 1/3" CCD's

http://www.eyespyvideo.com/faq/lenschart.htm