Bullet Cameras — FC5B 5 MP Full Colour

Where a bullet earns its place

A bullet camera is the right answer when the position is fixed, the target is predictable, and you would rather everyone know the camera is there. Perimeter fence lines, car park edges, service yards, long external corridors and building facades all suit it. The visible form is part of the job: on a fence line, being seen is half the deterrent.

It is the wrong answer for a hotel corridor or a retail floor, where a bullet at head height is both ugly and easy to turn. Use a dome for those positions instead.

What the F1.0 aperture changes

The aperture sets how much light reaches the sensor. At F1.0 the camera gathers roughly four times the light of an F2.0 lens with the same sensor, which is what moves the colour threshold down to 0.1 Lux. In practice a fence line lit only by occasional street lighting stays in colour rather than dropping to black and white, and colour is what lets you describe a jacket or a vehicle afterwards.

The honest limit: below 0.1 Lux, the camera relies on its own illumination and produces black and white. Nobody can make colour out of no light — read the night vision comparisons before you promise a client colour in an unlit yard.

Installation points that decide whether it works

• Aim slightly downward and keep the horizon out of the top third of the frame. A camera staring at the sky exposes for the sky and turns everything on the ground into a silhouette.
• Keep the run under 100 m from the switch, or use an extend-mode port at 10 Mbps up to 250 m.
• Allow roughly 25 percent headroom on the switch PoE budget when you add the camera to an existing switch.
• Mount on a solid surface. On a pole or thin sheet metal, wind vibration produces motion alerts all night.
• Leave a service loop at the camera and seal the connector. Water in an RJ45 is the most common outdoor failure.

Recording settings that make the footage usable

The default 2880 × 1620 main stream at 25 fps is what you want for identification. If storage is tight, drop the sub-stream to the recorder and keep the main stream available rather than lowering the main stream resolution — a 1080p recording of a face at eight metres is not identification.

Set the frame rate deliberately. For a doorway or a till, 25 fps. For a car park overview where you need to follow a walk, 12–15 fps is enough and costs proportionally less storage.