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How Far Can A CCTV Camera See?

When it comes to monitor your home the quality of your CCTV camera is extremely important and the footage captured by your surveillance system will only be as good as the camera itself. 

You can determine the quality of the camera by several factors like focal length, field of view, resolution, lighting and weather resistance.

To ensure you get the most out of your CCTV cameras and have an understanding of it works we have gathered for you few optics principles.

The Focal Length

The focal length is the distance between the center of a curved lens to its optical center when focused at infinity. This sets up how far and wide your camera can see expressed in millimeters.

  • Short focal length (4mm)
  • Long focal length (6mm)

A 4mm lens is good up to 20 feet, while a 6mm lens can see up to 120 feet

Field Of View

Field of view means what you can see through the camera horizontally and vertically. It’s measured in degrees and wide angle lenses are usually 2.8mm or 3mm. 

A 4mm lenses cameras offer an angle of 62 degrees with an approximate line of sight of 100ft while 6mm lenses have an approximate line of sight range up to 120 feet away .

Resolution

The resolution or image quality captured by your camera is determined by pixels per square inch. The higher this figure is the sharper and clearer the image will appear onscreen and anything up to 8 million pixels per square inch should provide excellent results. 

Common resolutions found on security cameras include 2MP (megapixels), 4MP ,5MP ,and 4K Ultra HD (high definition).

Some Other Factors

In addition to these considerations that affect how clear and how far your camera can see other factors like lighting within an area being monitored, infrared lighting for night vision and weather resistance like fog or rainstorms should also be taken into account as well. 

Buying high quality equipment does not guarantee perfect results but getting the best possible set up certainly increases chances for success.

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