I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can
anyone recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good
'hobby' job?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

Sacha wrote:
I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can
anyone recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good
'hobby' job?

I think some cheapish security / surveillance cameras have infra red
options and you can link them directly to your VCR or whatever. Kills
two birds with one stone... keeps an eye on the place at night in case
of burglars and you can watch the wildlife too.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night. I'd
love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

I have no knowledge of IR so I googled and found this
http://www.hoagieshouse.com/IR/

It seems that an ordinary webcam will detect IR quite well but has a filter
built-in to stop the IR messing up the image. Remove the filter and you
have an IR camera! Of course it's a bit more complicated than I make it
sound.

It obviously won't be as good as a dedicated IR camera but hey . . .

R.

"Sacha" wrote I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden
at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?

I have no doubt Maplins sell something suitable, surprised if they don't.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:04:05 -0000, Ragnar wrote:

It seems that an ordinary webcam will detect IR quite well but has a
filter built-in to stop the IR messing up the image. Remove the filter
and you have an IR camera! Of course it's a bit more complicated than I
make it sound.

This is true but this is near infrared not far infrared (heat) that
the IR cameras on Police helos use to spot scroats hiding in the
bushes.

You can certainly use a webcam and near infra red but you will
probably have to provide an IR light source. A couple of IR LEDs
"borrowed" from a TV remote probably won't be enough.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...


"Sacha" wrote I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden
at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?

I have no doubt Maplins sell something suitable, surprised if they don't.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/

I have just seen this and yes, Bob is quite right because we bought some a
few weeks ago!

On 2009-11-30 12:57:26 +0000, David in Normandy
said:

Sacha wrote:
I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can
anyone recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good
'hobby' job?

I think some cheapish security / surveillance cameras have infra red
options and you can link them directly to your VCR or whatever. Kills
two birds with one stone... keeps an eye on the place at night in case
of burglars and you can watch the wildlife too.

It's really just for the wildlife. Without going into detail, other
security measures are in place. ;-))
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

On 2009-11-30 14:18:58 +0000, "Ophelia" said:


"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...


"Sacha" wrote I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden
at night.
I'd love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?

I have no doubt Maplins sell something suitable, surprised if they don't.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/

I have just seen this and yes, Bob is quite right because we bought some a
few weeks ago!

Lovely! Thanks everyone - I shall continue to search and then drop
large Christmas or birthday hints. ;-)

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night. I'd
love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


Hi Sacha,

Our house is bristling with CCTV cameras which see at night, but you may
need to specify 'night vision' to get reasonable images. We can see if a
burglar approaches ... but we don't want to admire him! We are on our
second set of cameras now, and we could afford slightly better the second
time round ... they are *so* much better. Whatever you buy, you'll wish
you'd stretched your purse strings. Just a thought, if you persuade Ray to
have CCTV for the nursery, you could charge it against tax and slip in your
personal 'critter camera'!

If you go ahead, you should be aware that if you place the camera anywhere
near a light source, moths will be attracted. If moths are attracted,
spiders will be attracted and you will have webs obliterating your view :~(.
It's a regular occurance here due to our many approach lights. Also, since
your camera will probably use an infra-red heat-detecting device (so it's
only on when it sees something), you should avoid putting it where your
boiler flue (or similar heat source) will trigger it. You will quickly
learn that scrolling through CCTV footage is rather tedious. You want to be
looking at limited images of something worthwhile.

Spider

On 2009-11-30 15:12:44 +0000, "Spider" said:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
I'd quite like to get a camera that will record the garden at night. I'd
love to see what comes and goes in the hours of darkness. Can anyone
recommend one that isn't silly money but does a reasonably good 'hobby'
job?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon


Hi Sacha,

Our house is bristling with CCTV cameras which see at night, but you may
need to specify 'night vision' to get reasonable images. We can see if a
burglar approaches ... but we don't want to admire him! We are on our
second set of cameras now, and we could afford slightly better the second
time round ... they are *so* much better. Whatever you buy, you'll wish
you'd stretched your purse strings. Just a thought, if you persuade Ray to
have CCTV for the nursery, you could charge it against tax and slip in your
personal 'critter camera'!

If you go ahead, you should be aware that if you place the camera anywhere
near a light source, moths will be attracted. If moths are attracted,
spiders will be attracted and you will have webs obliterating your view :~(.
It's a regular occurance here due to our many approach lights. Also, since
your camera will probably use an infra-red heat-detecting device (so it's
only on when it sees something), you should avoid putting it where your
boiler flue (or similar heat source) will trigger it. You will quickly
learn that scrolling through CCTV footage is rather tedious. You want to be
looking at limited images of something worthwhile.

Spider

Many thanks for all that useful info. I did find one at a place called
fly on the wall.uk.com, which describes itself as an Infrared CCD
Wildlife Camera with Built-in DVR. Any (polite) comments would be
welcome.
http://tinyurl.com/ylgmjrz
I looked at the Maplins site but couldn't see anything similar. This
one would have to be mounted where we can get at it to change the SD
card (no, I have no idea either!) But all our security lights are set
at a height where they would be triggered only by humans or the
occasional branch waving in front of them and the boiler is in a little
room on the corner of the house near the courtyard, so we wouldn't be
pointing the camera in that direction. There are absolutely no street
lights round here, I'm happy to say, so that shouldn't be a problem.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
--
Sacha


Not that you will take any notice of someone who knows what he is talking
about if his name is 'Mike', but perhaps one of your 'kissy kissy' buddies
will pass the message on, make sure that the recorder of your cameras ONLY
triggers when there is something to recording.

Four cameras at my daughter and son in laws house/grounds would be
Booooooooooooooooring if they recorded everything.

A screen can and is on their case divided into 4 and is registered when and
if something moves.

Foxes, which trigger the outside floodlights

Hedgehogs

People?????????????????????? Only once when someone was taking a short cut
across the estate!!!!!!!

'suppose this is a waste of time trying to HELP those asking questions :-((

:-(((

You can help people some of the time
You can help most of the people most of the time
But .................................................. ...

:-(((


--
Mike

The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association
www.rneba.org.uk
Luxury Self Catering on the Isle of Wight?
www.shanklinmanormews.co.uk

In article ,
Sacha wrote:

I looked at the Maplins site but couldn't see anything similar. This
one would have to be mounted where we can get at it to change the SD
card (no, I have no idea either!)

An SD card is a very small item for memory storage, as used in
cameras etc.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:21:21 -0000, wrote:

In article ,
Sacha wrote:

I looked at the Maplins site but couldn't see anything similar. This
one would have to be mounted where we can get at it to change the SD
card (no, I have no idea either!)

An SD card is a very small item for memory storage, as used in
cameras etc.



There is certainly an attraction in having a self-contained unit like this
rather than a separate camera and recorder, but I would be cautious.

The most important specification of all is missing - what is the camera
definition for video? It takes 8 MB stills, but with an auto PIR trigger
the single frame will be unlikely to catch the best shot and you will very
likely want to use video.

The fact that this camera has such a modest storage card - limited to 2GB
max - suggests to me that the video picture size will be rather small and
correspondingly less detailed. It will use heavy compression. No doubt it
will show the presence of a fox or a badger, but you will not be able to
see much of what it is doing.

Personally I would want to know the video storage specification, and
perhaps ask for a sample bit of video.

RG

"'Mike'" wrote in message
...

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
--
Sacha


Not that you will take any notice of someone who knows what he is talking
about if his name is 'Mike', but perhaps one of your 'kissy kissy' buddies
will pass the message on, make sure that the recorder of your cameras ONLY
triggers when there is something to recording.

Four cameras at my daughter and son in laws house/grounds would be
Booooooooooooooooring if they recorded everything.

A screen can and is on their case divided into 4 and is registered when
and if something moves.

Foxes, which trigger the outside floodlights

Hedgehogs

People?????????????????????? Only once when someone was taking a short cut
across the estate!!!!!!!

'suppose this is a waste of time trying to HELP those asking questions
:-((

:-(((

You can help people some of the time
You can help most of the people most of the time
But .................................................. ...

:-(((


--
Mike

The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association
www.rneba.org.uk
Luxury Self Catering on the Isle of Wight?
www.shanklinmanormews.co.uk

I think 'estate' is pushing it a bit Mike, more a large garden, but then
you're never one to understate are you!!

1whoknows

"Will" wrote in message
...


I think 'estate' is pushing it a bit Mike, more a large garden, but then
you're never one to understate are you!!

1whoknows



4 cameras covering the buildings?

Damn site bigger than my garden's'. ;-))

When does a 'garden' become a 'large garden' and when does a 'large garden'
become an estate?

How many buildings constitute 'an estate' ?

Kindly define

I look forward to your learned answer.

Kindest possible regards

(Another of the 'Let's have a go at Mike Brigade'?)


--
Mike

The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association
www.rneba.org.uk
Luxury Self Catering on the Isle of Wight?
www.shanklinmanormews.co.uk