823A 16x 7 minutes of random usage - ***SEE NOTES IN DESCRIPTION

[@OneTapOG]

Amazing Mblaser, thanks for posting this gives me a much better idea of the cameras current state. I can't wait to get my hands on one I've been waiting for months now.

[@ben.1604]

👌

[@BrentSteenburgen]

Is that auto zooming and auto tracking or are you moving the camera's view?

[@mblaser]

That's me moving it. This camera doesn't auto zoom. Only the Trackmix can do that.

[@MustBBrent]

@@mblaser thank you.

[@elmojito]

Quality appears very good but you say in answering a question that it does not auto zoom. When do you find the great zooming range useful if only activated manually? The Trackmix is zoom limited for my use. Thank you for the videos very useful to show the video quality potential with this camera.

[@mblaser]

I see usefulness for this cam in 2 scenarios... 1. You want to watch something that's far away, so you leave it permanently zoomed in on that target. Think of if you have a large property with a long driveway and you want to keep an eye on that. Or a garage that's a couple hundred feet away. Things like that. It's not a good camera for the average urban or suburban properties, to be honest. It's good for large properties. 2. Or as a camera that you use as a regular security camera, but want the ability to manually zoom in on things farther away than a normal camera can do. The reason this can't auto-zoom like the Trackmix is because it has to physically move the lens to zoom and focus, which would be much too slow to auto-zoom. The reason the Trackmix can do it is because it's not a varifocal lens, both of its lenses are fixed in place, so no physical parts need to move in order to zoom and focus. I really only use my 16X as a wildlife camera. I currently use it zoomed in on my bird feeders, which I watch throughout the day while I work, and also to zoom in on other things when they pass through my yard. Like you see in the 3D Zoom video I uploaded the other day: kzbin.info/www/bejne/laHChIWvaM-bmas

[@elmojito]

@@mblaser Thank you very much for your fast reply. In my case the area where I am looking a camera for L shaped with the camera located in a post and covers 90º with the short end being about 50 ft. and the long end 150 ft. The current camera does not cover all as it has a 75º coverage and definitely not much detail in the long run. Don't know if the Trackmix can effectively cover this on the long end. Area lighted at night with a 50W IR light under camera so no need for its own IR. Any suggestions for my case?

[@mblaser]

​@@elmojito Well, that 90° number presents a good example as to why I don't typically care for PTZ cameras. My philosophy is that you should have zero blind spots... no one should be able to sneak up on a camera without being seen by that camera (or another one that's watching its back). And if you've got a PTZ camera watching an area larger than its stationary field of view, then it has a blind spot. The FOV on the 16X is only 54°. So it can't really watch that much territory. Yeah, a PTZ cam can move around to watch a larger area, but it can't watch it all at once, so you have blind spots. Think of the 16X as binoculars... Yeah, you can see far away, but you can't see anything close or wide. I always say if you're considering a PTZ camera, treat it as a stationary camera that just has the bonus of being able to be moved manually. The only PTZ camera I'm using as an actual security camera is the Trackmix, but like how I just said... I have it set so its stationary field of view leaves no blind spots in my coverage. Anyway, I kind of got off on a tangent there lol... but maybe the standard 823A would be a better cam for your situation? It still has their 2nd best optical zoom at 5x, and its FOV is 105°. I'd only use the 16X in your situation if you wanted to zoom in on the 150ft spot and leave it looking at that spot. Or maybe even 2 cameras in your case.... The 16X zoomed in on the distant view and another one for the closer views.

[@elmojito]

@@mblaser Again, many thanks for your fast reply. Difficult to explain setup as the camera in question is actually looking in at the house and when the camera operates at the 90º FOV it covers the entire area. Yes, camera you could sneak-up to it but the system is part of an 11 camera setup where there is another camera looking at that camera so it would be covered. As part of my security system there are sensor controlled lights and a garden electronic barriers to the central alarm system so main use is also to identify if possible for prosecution and a minimum number of pixels required for that. Main event so far was capturing a herd of boar that tore the fence and seriously screwed-up the garden. Unfortunately, these were on view for just a few seconds as when they moved around departed cameras FOV. Will read up as suggested on regular 823A a bit more as yes, maybe this would work better for may case. Another question if I may, I have my system hooked to a Synology with their Surveillance Station. Do the Reolink pair up well with systems other than their own? I have read a bit on issues with Blue Iris and was wondering. Today my cameras are Mobotix and Hikvision and all beginning to become obsolete although trouble free for many years so slowly looking at a replacement plan for many of them. Also, for some reason Hikvision do not communicate well for setup with Mac PC's and forced to use a Windows PC for many changes. I control the actual detection zones at the camera level instead of the Synology which I should probably change as I no longer use the Mobotix on-camera storage for backup. BTW, I live in Barcelona, Spain. Anyway, thank you for your help.

[@mblaser]

@@elmojito I don't use any 3rd party systems, but I do know a lot of people over on the subreddit use them with Synology SS, so you may want to go over there and ask or do a search for previous posts (www.reddit.com/r/reolinkcam/). They support ONVIF and RTSP, so they should work with any 3rd party system that supports those. A lot of the hardcore Blue Iris users (*cough*ipcamtalk*cough*) have this weird vendetta against Reolink, but I've also read a lot of people that don't have any issues with it.