IP video surveillance has become used widely for homes and businesses to get their properties protected and reduce the threat to human safety. IP security cameras provide better image quality thanks to their improved data processing technology and high definition lens. In a surveillance system, effectiveness is highly asking for consideration to obtain an optimal surveillance performance. To achieve this goal, some of the security cameras are designed with advanced features, like varifocal zooming or pan-tilt-zoom monitoring, making it easier to realize. Today, we are going to tell you how to get an effective IP video surveillance and give a brief introduction to varifocal and pan-tilt-zoom cameras.
Above we mentioned effectiveness in an IP video surveillance or security camera system, some may wonder what does effectiveness means here and why it is important. Effectiveness actually can be understood as clear enough images with desired details that are useful. Then why this point is important? Try to imagine, when doing a regular check or occurring unexpected things that are required playback on the recorded video data, can only find blurry images that lacking crucial information like facial details or license plate, and are disqualified as evidence, it is regretful and frustrating that the surveillance too useless to prevent losses, especially when quite a few investments have been wasted. Consequently, never estimate the effectiveness of video surveillance. In the following, let’s find ways to make the camera’s image quality and monitoring performance clear detailed enough to realize an effective IP video surveillance.
Simply only two things need to take into consideration, one is to choose the correct security cameras, and the other is to use the cameras properly. Cameras have different types and features, among them there are two factors that are mainly demanded extra attention from the installers or owners, which are image quality and lens. These two things large determine how clearly images and desired monitoring area are able to be viewed and recorded. In other words, it is more potential to capture useful information to prevent loss.
High Quality Image
Resolution is the matter of how clear the image is being captured, higher resolution definitely provides clearer images, that being said, sharp video can be viewed and recorded. The concept of resolution actually accounts for two factors, namely pixel information, and megapixels count. To sum up, the higher pixels of the camera, the better will be the resolution or vice versa.
To meet the increasing demand for higher resolution, camera manufactures have made much effort to develop more megapixels. There are various options of megapixel cameras available in the market, range from 2MP to 100MP. It is known that the more megapixel requires a higher investment. For home or business common uses, 2MP or 5MP cameras can meet the surveillance requirement greatly with an affordable and rational cost. You should have heard of 480p, 720p or 1080p cameras, which are popular used previously. These kinds of cameras provide lower resolutions, it can barely capture sharp details like facial features or license plates, especially when the camera is installed a little bit remote from the site.
One more thing, I guess you have experience when zooming picture or image by digital zoom function in smartphones, it is found that the large picture you get, the picture tends to become more blurry or pixelated. Higher resolution or more megapixels does better in serving potential to avoid losing resolution when zooming the cameras to get details. Low resolution can meet maintain effective surveillance to some extent. All in all, if budget permitting, try to utilize cameras to support higher resolution.
Zoom Lens
Regarding security camera surveillance, for different monitoring places, and different surveillance requirements, what range is needed to be captured by each camera is generally different. Let’s look at the below two pictures, you can see that under the same megapixel and distance, the left one looks like everything in the picture are smaller and farther than the right one, and the right one seems closer and larger with more clear details. And this is just because they differ from the field of view, which means they are using different sizes of lenses, in general, the smaller the size of the lens, the larger the field of view is. Cameras with a zoom lens are the answer to various surveillance needs. Here we are not talking about the common digital zoom mentioned earlier, it is a matter of optical zoom, which isn’t going to generate resolution or pixels losses. The zoom lens is in comparison with a fixed lens. Fixed lens implies that the lens is fixed, what the size of lens equipped, then what field of view and what range can be obtained can’t be changed through adjusting lens. While zoom lens offers the possibility to adjust the lens and get desired monitoring range to satisfy specific monitoring requirements. Zoom lens security cameras roughly are divided into two types, one is varifocal lens cameras, and the other is pan-tilt-zoom cameras.
Cameras with Vari-focal lenses
To fit different needs, some want a large range containing more information, some want a narrow range with clearer details, others perhaps just have no idea what field of view meets the specific surveillance points perfectly. In these situations, cameras equipped with varifocal lenses come out. Thus flexibility is one of the most obvious benefits that varifocal lens cameras avail for video surveillance installation. Varifocal cameras give you the chance to adjust the length of the lens to make the image closer or farther so as to meet specific needs. Varifocal cameras cover where with a range from 2.8mm to 12mm lens, you are capable to zoom the lens via web remotely at home or control center with no need to do numerous adjustments and testing to get an optimal and effective monitoring effect.
Cameras with Pan-tilt-zoom Lenses
PTZ cameras, stand for pan-tilt-zoom cameras, it is one of the most commonly used cameras for surveillance covering a large area or range. The zoom function work simply by manual or automatically zoom to a specific remote point that needs to capture clear details when encounter situations asking a further confirmation with clear details. This kind of zoom cameras with a powerful zoom capability, 20X or 30X due to a range of 5mm to 120mm lenses. Apart from zoom function, they also support pan & tilt features, which allow the owners to pan the lens to capture scenes from left to right or vice versa and tilt the lens up and down for a large monitoring range. That’s the reason why the PTZ cameras are well suited for remote monitoring for large area surveillance.
Recommended Products
Have grasped the key to make effective IP video surveillance, it is time to start purchasing suitable cameras to get the system set up. FASTCABLING dedicated to IP video surveillance for decades, we are very welcome for a consultation about the video surveillance systems. In the following, several types of varifocal cameras or PTZ cameras are truly worthy of placing in the purchase list.
