high-resolution outdoor night/day security camera - any reco

[silversnoopy]

For my home, I want to purchase 1 to 3 very high quality night/day security cameras.

What I am looking for is:

* a camera where I can extract single frames and produce photo-quality images

* works well during the day or at night

* at night, I live by a street, and so the cars will come and go, and I have street lights.

* if something happens, I want a high enough quality image where I can read a license plate or identify a person up to 100 feet away from the camera - day or night.

* system will be unmanned

* auto-tracking would be fantastic if it works well. The sidewalks are probably 50 feet from where the camera will be mounted, and so if it could track someone walking down the sidewalk (or around the cars parked along the sidewalk) that would be great

* high-quality: if I'm going to spend $1000s, it would be nice to go at least 5 years without any problems

* I don't need audio support. Though it would be a nice bonus to catch what the SOBs are saying.

Right now I'm looking at cameras from $250 to over $5000. If I'm going to install a camera, when something does happen I want an excellent quality image.

Ideally, it would be nice to hook it up to a PC and capture at least 7 days of video before it overwrites captured video feed.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

[Mr Sots]

multi-megapixel cameras are definately becoming more mainstream and available however suitable lenses are not so you may find you'll be stuck with what the manufacturer provides with the camera. Mobotix, IQ Invision and arecont would all be worth looking at as camera manufacturers.

It's also worth checking your rights as here in the UK it would be against the law to install cameras to monitor the publick footpaths and roads surrounding your property... Sucks but true...