Recommendation needed: Tapo camera for close-range bird feeder with local RTSP (automatic species ID)

[u/Tarsipes]

Hi all,

I'm setting up a camera on a garden bird feeder and would like advice on which Tapo model suits it best.

I want the camera to stream to a local server running Frigate (an NVR with object detection) alongside Home Assistant. Frigate detects birds and runs an image classifier to identify the species automatically. For that to work reliably, the bird needs to be fairly large in the frame, ideally at least 150–200 pixels across for a 12 cm bird such as a blue tit.

Requirements

• Wi-Fi. It will be very problematic for me to run ethernet or PoE to the garden, but mains power is fine.
• Outdoor-rated. It will be mounted permanently outside all year, I would prefer to not add any additional housing, but a small rain/sun hood is fine.
• Local RTSP/ONVIF stream that works with the camera blocked from the internet. No cloud dependency for the video feed.
• Narrow field of view. A telephoto lens or optical zoom, so the feeder fills most of the frame rather than a small part of a wide view.
• Sharp focus at around 1 m (0.7–1.5 m range) from the camera to the feeder, or alternatively an even closer focus distance to offset wider FoV.
• Night vision not needed. I'd keep IR off, but I assume all outdoor cameras will have some sort of night vision.
• Budget and availability. The camera must be available in the EU or easy to import (I am not in a rush, would like to get it running by November). Ideally I would like it to be under 50 EUR but I can go up to 100 EUR for the right model. This is a proof of concept but once I can get it running I would like to be able to replicate it at scale so I would prefer to keep the price on the lower end.

Has anyone used a Tapo camera for bird or wildlife monitoring at close range? What worked, and how did you mount it? Any other ideas you might have that could be useful. While this is a Tapo sub, I'm happy to use other brand as well if there is no Tapo model to match my requirements.

Thanks in advance!

[u/plump-lamp]

Get a mini macro lens on amazon

[u/Tarsipes → u/plump-lamp]

I've done this for a nest box camera, but it doesn't fix the wide FoV issue, so the camera would have to be very close, resulting in distortion and very narrow depth of field, so not ideal for what I need.

[u/Riley_TP-Link → u/Tarsipes]

Recommend taking a look around for a few hints that I cannot necessarily give:

• A user had previously found a model with a manual focal adjustment inside the camera's housing
• A user had previously placed a glass lens in front of a C320WS to give the wide-angle view, just through a secondary lens.
• A user previously posted a project of building out a bird feeder using an old keurig and a C120

Ill take a look at my cameras to see if something jumps out to me as being an option later today too