so today I'm going to answer some questions for myself and for you hopefully I figured
people might be wanting to know the blink outdoor battery-powered cameras how close
do they focus why would it even be important well it's important to me because I have a
blank camera sitting inside this bluebird box it has a translucent panel on the back of it
just so that we can take videos and photos but getting information about the blink cameras in
particular and finding out how close they focus doesn't seem to be as easy as it should be the
manufacturer doesn't even tell us how close they focus so you get the blank cameras and you have
to have a blank module to sync them and I have several I bought a three pack when you buy a
three pack right now it's 83 dollars each I paid full price for this stuff and of course thereby
Amazon no big surprise and it has all the specs here but look what's absent from the specs 1080p
that's important for video quality but they don't tell us what the minimum focal distance is that
question was asked in their online Forum in the manufacturer says 10 feet or more
that is not true and I'm going to test it out with my fancy piece of paper here that's all metered
off 1 through 10 inches it wouldn't do us any good at all to put a camera inside a bird box if it
couldn't focus on the bird making its nest we're also going to compare this with the Arlo Pro 4.
and this is of course our Focus screen we're going to get the blink app going here you have
to download this onto your phone so you can access your cameras to see how things are going and of
course to change the settings so we're going to do a couple of different settings here too listen
to feedback on the audio there this shows you the camera view but of course I'm taking a video of
the phone not the camera itself so we're going to actually make video uh samples and we're going to
show you those direct from the camera but first we have to arm them there isn't a way to turn on
these blank cameras and make recordings direct it has to be activated and record on its own
it's okay though they're not very expensive and here we have the sequence that I made
we activate it motion wise and I want it to last a long time the other thing is uh
you pick how long it makes a recording for when it is activated and how much
time there is between activations so all of that is in control on the phone
so here we go sensitivity we maxed it out clip length 60 seconds re-trigger time that means
after it's recorded a cycle how long does it wait before it re-triggers 10 seconds
so I'm going to activate it and I'm going to share what the sequences look like again we're going to
move the camera so the focus grid is going to stay stationary I'm going to slide the camera
towards it and I'm going to tell you exactly how far away we are I think you might be impressed
this is the 10 inch mark
nine inch mark
this is eight inches
seven inches
six inches
five inches
four inches
three inches
two inches
one inch
so now we're going to do that in reverse we're going to start at the one inch mark
two inches
three inches
for
4 5
6.
7
eight
nine
ten
this is the 10 inch mark
a nine inch mark
eight inches
seven inches
six inches
five inches
four inches
three inches
two inches
one inch so I thought it was important to leave the audio the way it comes from the camera now
we're going to move to the Arlo Pro 4 very expensive camera they're 155 a piece compared
to 83 dollars a piece for the blink and being that it's a much better camera you would expect a much
better image quality and it probably is overall but we're talking about close-ups so we're going
to answer that question in this video sequence watch right off the bat the um field of view is
so much wider than with the blink system so we're at 10 inches right now and we'll move into nine
and then we'll go to eight
and now we'll go to seven
six
five
four
now we'll shift to three
two inches down to one inch
now we'll just reverse it
two
three inches
four this is where the blink cameras did pretty well four to five we're at five inches here
six
seven
eight
nine
and back out to ten so with the Arlo Pro 4 we started that first test was in the wide
video mode so let's change that to see if it has anything to do at all with focal distance
so for this round we're changing it to full which is 110 degrees let's see how that goes
focal distance 10 inches
nine inches
eight inches
seven inches
six inches
five
four
three
two
one
so at 10 inches right now if this were in a bird box I think Distortion wise we're
better off than with the blank camera let's drop it down to five or six inches
this is at five
and back to 10. so we're back to the Arlo Pro 4. we just did the full field of view 110 degrees
so I guess it's only fair we give it another shot now with the 125
standard 125 degree field of view and it gives us a little preview we can see it is distorted
a little bit because that camera is already set at 10. so let's go and get sequences captured
by the Arlo so Arlo Pro 4 standard field of view 125 degrees and we're at the 10 inch mark
nine
eight seven
six
five
four inches
three
two
one inch
and back to 10 for the Finish now this is back at the blink system settings so just to make
sure that we were on even ground uh you have a choice of saber standard or best video quality
and this was all done in the best video quality setting another feature though that I do like
about the blink is that it's giving me the outdoor temperature our low Pro systems do not do that so
that's pretty cool so that's it looking at the two of them let's do a comparison side by side to show
you which one has the best resolution here we go zipping it together the big surprise for me is
the blink is outperforming the Arlo Pro 4. so if you're going to put a small camera very close to
something that you want to check up on with your phone whether it be a bird box beehive Landing
boards things like that you want to see what the activity is somewhere and if you need to resolve
details the blink outdoor camera is going to outperform the all our Arlo Pro 4 close up
so of course this is not a testament to how well they perform 10 feet out which may be what their
actual design is but if you're looking to put something in a tight space to observe wildlife
it's going to be the blink I bought both of these full price this is not a sponsored
video the Arlo And the three pack is 155 each and the blink in a three pack is 83 dollars
each if you get them from Amazon thanks for watching I hope this video was helpful to you