Optical Zoom CCTV Camera

[AdamSi]

Hi all, we moved onto Exmoor a couple of months ago and living the dream as they say, I have built a wildlife corner with bird feeders and a mini reflection pool. I have some cheap APEMAN outdoor cameras which are ok but fixed and not the best quality but looking to get an optical zoom pan/tilt camera, anyone have one that they can recommend, Amazon is a minefield with so many on there.

Any recommendations from personal experience appreciated along with any other set up’s people have done themselves

 

[footman]

When I installed CCTV for the house a few years ago I used this company
Use-ip.co.uk
They were very helpful with a good range of products, the after sales support was excellent too.

 

[hunnymonster]

All depends on how tech you are - I've built my bird table/nest box up using HD IP cameras from China (always with a 1/3" or greater Sony sensor) - some of the firmware is a bit rough but the output is superb... channeled into a Linux video recorder based on Zoneminder. (In the nest box have added IR LEDs so can see what's going down without the disturbance of the illumination at night - most of these cameras have a setting that allow auto IR in the dark)

PTZ cameras come at a ferocious cost compared to fixed focus which is to be expected of course... and also with the "joy" that the panning and focusing is often noisy or sudden enough to scare off the birds you were hoping to watch (sigh) at least at the outset (and let's not go there when you have the hoopoe on the table and it decides that is the exact time it should pan to the sparrow instead)

 

[AdamSi]

When I installed CCTV for the house a few years ago I used this company
Use-ip.co.uk
They were very helpful with a good range of products, the after sales support was excellent too.

Thank you Laurence will take a look at them

 

[AdamSi]

All depends on how tech you are - I've built my bird table/nest box up using HD IP cameras from China (always with a 1/3" or greater Sony sensor) - some of the firmware is a bit rough but the output is superb... channeled into a Linux video recorder based on Zoneminder. (In the nest box have added IR LEDs so can see what's going down without the disturbance of the illumination at night - most of these cameras have a setting that allow auto IR in the dark)

PTZ cameras come at a ferocious cost compared to fixed focus which is to be expected of course... and also with the "joy" that the panning and focusing is often noisy or sudden enough to scare off the birds you were hoping to watch (sigh) at least at the outset (and let's not go there when you have the hoopoe on the table and it decides that is the exact time it should pan to the sparrow instead)

Thanks Jason, the Apeman are good quality just not movable remotely and the zoom would really help, I will not remove the existing ones but want to add to it and have options, I will look at the suggestions for the nest boxes as want to do this type of thing too, its been the dream to set up a full recording suite of various options from rodentarium (if thats a word) mouse houses with feed station for nightime viewing as we are already seeing field mice on the logs with seeds on overnight, refelection pool camera and bird feeding station camera, plus ability to look out over the field behind us where the buzzard and other wildlife frequent.