Security Camera Needs

After realizing the need and the reliability of security cameras, the key issue at hand is their placement. Because your home should feel as secure but not look like Fort Knox, situating your security cameras in an effective and yet inconspicuous manner is a matter of much importance.

Having multiple cameras poking out of the corner of your house may be a deterrent to a criminal who sees it, but it may also be a deterrent to your friends. The Fort Knox feeling begins to set in. No one wants to have the feeling that every motion they make is being observed. It is discomforting and may give them the feeling that they are not trusted. Reducing the obvious cameras to one or two cameras provides adequate visual deterrence.

Camera placement is critical to the effectiveness of the camera. The object is to get as clear a shot as possible and gather all the information you need. The most effective cameras are those that gather exact and specific characteristics of the intruder. While a wide viewing camera will provide information on an actual intrusion, this is little help to police who will need exact information concerning such things as numbers from a license plate or facial features or body characteristics. This means you will need to angle your camera for precision.

While tilting, zooming, and panning cameras definitely aid in providing all kinds of information, especially when all these actions are automatic, the best camera is the colored camera that is placed in the most opportune place. Since the most important information you can receive with the camera is facial features, you want to position your camera just above head-level. That would be right around six to eight feet. At this height, you can get a clear shot of the face. This height does, however, present an opportunity for tampering.

To prevent the intruder from tampering with the camera concealment is best. Of course, you might be concerned about the visual camera’s power as a deterrent. To solve this problem a sign stating that the area is being monitored by camera can provide an excellent deterrent. When you have such a sign in your yard and the cameras are concealed, the intruder knows there are cameras around, but does not know where they are. Not knowing the location of that camera can be more of a deterrent to the intruder than actually knowing where a camera is.

Another particular about placement, besides height, is actual location. When deciding on the number of cameras, you need to also consider what are the places that you want the cameras to view. You might want to consider two things here: watching specific items and watching entrances. If you have one item of highly significant value, positioning the camera to monitor the item and activity around that item is best. If the camera were to observe just the entrance to that room, you will know for sure whether an intruder enters or not, but you will not know for certain whether the intruder took the item or not. The importance is catching the criminal in the act of the crime.

The same applies to entrances. A camera that is well situated will monitor an actual entrance area so as to see the criminal making the actual breach of private property. But then on the other hand, if you only want to monitor activity in the area, the camera location is best where it is able to view a wider area. The camera’s location is based on the knowledge you want.

While cost will often interfere with the number of cameras you get, shopping around for good cameras – preferably colored cameras because you want to have as much information as possible, like hair color or clothes color, etc. – will let you know what is out there and how much you might expect to spend. Keep to your financial plan. By comparing price to your budget, you will also know how many cameras you can buy. With this information, you will then be able to proceed into where exactly you want to place your cameras.

Some good recommendations for balancing the cost of cameras is cutting on the nonessentials or upgrading a single camera with more affordable accessories. You may want to consider downgrading your household’s entertainment expenditure and upgrading your home security to keep it at premier performance. Another way of knocking camera cost is buy a panning unit that will pan the camera thus covering a wider area with fewer cameras. Keep in mind that this will leave an periodically area vulnerable.

You might also be interested in . . .

Digital Video Recorders