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Game Cam Home Security
HandLoad
Member Posts: 15,998 ✭
Was over at Cabela's last week, went into the Bargain Cave and found a 5.0 MP camera for $72.00 - only thing missing was a USB cable. Everything looked new, was still bagged, so I bought it.
Now the neighbors will not be able to deny their cats are hunting the birds at our feeder, and their dogs are coming over to do their business. I'll be e-mailing them.
Additionally, I have posted it where it has a full view of two sides of the house, and some of the grounds. Works pretty good - you can juuust make out license plates of cars that come up the driveway.
Now the neighbors will not be able to deny their cats are hunting the birds at our feeder, and their dogs are coming over to do their business. I'll be e-mailing them.
Additionally, I have posted it where it has a full view of two sides of the house, and some of the grounds. Works pretty good - you can juuust make out license plates of cars that come up the driveway.
Comments
If you got robbed the cops would love it if you had photos of the bad guys, and license plate numbers.
I have been testing the aimpoint, and mountings, and have taken over 50 pics in the last week - No appreciable loss of battery strength in a week - still shows @99%.
The field of view kinda sux, though - on this camera, it is only about 25 degrees. The Motion detector has a small flaw - it will only trip the shutter if the motion is left to right or vice-versa.
Motion towards or away from the camera only trips the shutter at close range.
It also seems to not notice up-down movement.
Still, for 72 bux (plus an SDcard), it is an enhancement to the rest of my security measures. I may pick up a couple more to have the whole compound covered.
I have a couple set up on my place and caught pics of different neighbors on my property and they sure would get a surprised look on their faces when I asked them what they were doing carrying that bucket in my woods, or how I don't appreciate their kid riding on my track when I am not home and the other heighbor who used to "borrow" tools stopped after I asked him why he took my floor jack without asking.
All caught on my game cam.
I also mention I have them spread out and consantly moving them and I have never caught any of them on my property without me knowing since.
[and I have never caught any of them on my property without me knowing since.
Uhh, what? Don
A neighbor has a place out in the country he is trying to sell but keeps having problems with vandals. I suggested he use a game camera to protect his property. He response was that the flash would give away the location of the camera and the vandals would destroy it or steal it. How have ya'll dealt with the flash issue?
Infrared flashes are available on some game camera systems a little more in price but a possibility.
I have seen some fairly inexpensive wireless security color tv-type cameras. I was thinking of installing two or three of these things (one night vision-type) and running them to a couple of old computers set up to record on the hard drives.
Has anyone done this?
will it trigger a pic, from just the birds at the feeder? that would be a cool way to see what kind of birds visit when you aren't around.
Just this AM, had a really plush and glossy Raccoon checking out the leftover seeds and suet at the base of the feeder, and I was wishing I had it set up for a close-up pic of him/her.
Right now, it is mounted on a tree about 125 feet from the entry door of the house - too far to trigger if a goblin was slinking along the face of the house, but since the topography pretty much dictates an approach up the steep driveway (Very steep hillside on the left, and fifty foot dropoff on the other) I am pretty secure that any miscreant who comes up will have his mugshot.
It would have to have a (Max) 4GB SD card for much usefulness in Video, I suspect. Also, the video resolution is much worse than Still mode...Still is 2560 X 1920 bits, but even "High Resolution" vid is 640 X 480 bits. It lists capacity of 103 seconds for 1 GB SD storage, so 4X that = 412 seconds with the biggest card the cam will take.
The good security cams have good low-light lenses = big money for each camera. Zoom = more, and remote tracking/pan&tilt = more.
I figure that if I have a combo of three or four gamecams, each with a view of another, and about half of them hidden, I will have a pretty extensive record of all the police need to know.
He sure was all big eyed, and red faced, and I let it slide this time but warned him he better not try it agin or I'll change my mind....
I love those game cams......
You just hook up multiple little (relatively) inexpensive digital video cams to your PC and they'll begin recording due to motion based on pixel changes. The cool part is they're constantly writing to the hard drive, but over-writing if no movement is detected. When motion is picked up they begin saving images to your drive starting several seconds prior to the actual movement. You get to see the entire scenario play out instead of your recording firing up after the action has begun.
It's important to remember that small infrared LED's wired up near important areas will allow any digital camera to pick up images even in total darkness. These are only a couple of bucks apiece at your local Radio Shack, you just need to get power to them.
You can also set one of these up so you can access live video of your place through your cell phone. It's even possible to set one up to alert your phone when motion is picked up, allowing you to confirm activity before responding.
It's also nice that it doesn't take much of a PC to run a system like this. I know of people who have such systems in their home or business that record to a hidden bare-bones PC (up in the attic, etc.) to prevent it's theft too.