ok lets see if i can help
Technical Stuff Direction and Lighting
First of all we need to establish entry points.
You need to
limit entry points to where your camera will be looking.
prefferably 1.
Use bins etc to limit the path/size of entry point that your suspect can take. Get an average sized person
between 5ft and 6ft and get them to stand at your entry point, depending on their height angle your camera to compensate between these markers
What direction is your entry point? If it is east or west you
WILL have problems with the sun rising/setting
If this is the case you need to find a way to make your camera face north or south and still get
your suspect walking towards you.
Unless you are sure they will not turn up when the sun is in view (remember its
winter so the sun is
low in the sky!)
EDIT: Sorry forgot to add, Turn auto shutter on all the time(switch on back of most cameras) and turn auto iris on aswell if available(feature of the lense). both of these will help compensate for the sun
You will be shooting
night and day so you have to take into account of back focus, basically focus the camera at night time or with a filter and you should be ok.
Also,
keep your camera down, unless you live in a bungalow a camera on top of the roof will only give you a shot of the
top of your suspects head which wont get you far.
In order to secure an
evidential facial shot, the face of your suspect needs to take up
approximately 2/3rds of the screen though a court/cps
may settle for less than this.
If possible have a
second camera with a wide angle lense to capture what your suspect does and any
distinctive clothing they may be wearing.
Equipment
As we are dealing with night time id suggest a
watec camera for your evidential facial shot with probably a
fujinon lense (plastic is ok but glass will give you better quality esspecially at night time)
And for your second camera id suggest an
LJD wide angle vandle proof dome
Also see legal about placement
I wouldnt recommend a PC based solution as many people are tempted to USE the PC aswell which is a big
also it makes it complicated if the police come to recover footage and you dont know how to operate it.
best bet is a DVR with inbuilt cd/dvd burner. dedicated micros is good but a bit expensive
Storage
Because of legal issues you will want to record
24/7 (see Legal below)
You may be tempted to record for as long as possible BUT CHECK THE QUALITY! The longer your recording capacity the more compressed your image will be and less useful. You will want the ability to burn to
CD-R/DVD-R *Don’t use RW! (other than VHS this is prefered by most police forces and they may not accept it otherwise)
If you are never away from the house for more than 2 weeks and expect to notice damage within 2 weeks then use that as a bench mark if compression is too high at 30 days, just remember if you are going on holiday for it to cover all the time you are away!
2 cameras you should be ok with a 250gb HDD but it depends on DVR, normally you can upgrade them yourself but beware as some DVR's keep the software on the HDD or are locked to serial number of HDD
***********
Legal**************
As you are not a company or authority you
do not fall under the DPA. BUT and this is a very big but, you cannot use any recording facilities that monitor peoples actions. Such as stop start recording used with PIR or VMD (video motion detection) and PAN and TILT as this comes under surveillance which you don’t have authority for. Best bet is to leave it recording 24/7
You
CAN have your camera seeing adjecent properties but only as long as it is not the focal point of what your camera is looking at (
though if you are a tenant then you may be braking your tenancy agreement if your camera looks anywhere other than your property). Try to keep any neighbours property less than 1/3 of whats on your screen and make sure that any windows in the picture are not clear enough to distinguish what is going on in them.
also as you are not a company or authority you
CAN position your camera at any height you like
You should aim to let anyone entering your premisis
aware that they are being recorded, this will help cover your back,
BUT they don’t need to know how many cameras you have. Stick up your dome near on a wall that will allow it to see most of your property (if you make it obvious it is facing one direction the suspect is likely to break something
out of view)
As for your evidential camera hide it in a bird box or window behind your netting (
it will see through trust me 
) but make sure it is held in position and test to see if lighting in the room affects the image at night, the window will turn into a mirror at night unless the curtains are thick or the camera is touching the window.
If you have any questions make sure you ring the information commisioner and they will set you straight. or get in contact with your local police station. DONT ask your local council as they will fob you off with loads of BS
Any questions to me ask here and pm me to get my attention
hope i was helpful, i know it isnt well structured but its free advice from someone in the know
and if the camera is on the roof the only pic you will get will be there head, unless you specially look up for you! You would be better installing a camera low level hidden in a birds box or something. Stelth.
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