Best Home Security Cameras

Well here is the background, just recently my little bro was outside playing and noticed that the rear window on my mothers old car was cracked, by a rock being thrown at it. The same thing happened about 2 years ago, came home on thanksgiving and found all the side windows busted out. This car is always parked on the street, some neighbors regularly park cars in the street also but nothing has happened to them. We live in a quite neighborhood in a good area so it was pretty shocking.

I am looking to get some home security cameras to put around the house for peace of mind and security for my mom and little brother since im leaving to OCS later this year. What would be the best cameras for catching license plates, approximately 50-60' away. I think they are just random punks but i want it to stop and make them pay.

 

I use to work for a home and business security tech company so here's my take on it. The problem you're going to run into with what you're wanting is that a shot of a license plate is really hard to get unless it's in a confined space. Especially that far away. You would literally have to have 2 cameras able to zoom, with clear quality, into the street both ways and hope you're lucky enough it catches their license plate as they drive away. That still, is a slim to none chance. Other than that, you can zoom in to the width of a street and digitally enhance zoom a still shot of the video. Again, you would need a higher quality picture which means, higher quality cameras. At night, I doubt you'll be able to see a thing from that far away. I would get some IR cameras on the front of your house looking into your driveway and front door area or wherever else you see, fit. The more cameras, the larger the DVR will need to be. You can find a decent/ok quality 4 camera & DVR system for a good price these days. Just don't get your hopes up about getting license plate shots. I can't tell you how many cameras I've put up just for license plate shots. Most of them (for businesses) are in really confined, one way in, one way out, zoomed straight shot on type settings. It's just a really slim chance to get it any other way.

 

IP cameras, the best are Axis. Military grade quality. you will see them in most airports. get the higest mega pixel you can, that way when you review and zoom in you get a legible image for the plate or face. make sure POE as well, meaning power over ethernet so it gets power thru its data cable. And if you up north like me Outdoor doesn't mean it can handle -30.