I'm looking for advice and recommendations on a basic camera setup to step up my security game. The requirements are:

I live out in the boonies, running on solar power with a tight electricity budget (can and will expand, but power efficiency is the foremost concern with all electronics). Power via small solar panels and/or rechargeable batteries is a must.

I don't have a WiFi network and would prefer to keep it that way.

System needs to operate standalone, without relying on a network or service I don't control. Anything cloud-based is right out.

I need to be able to put up 4-6 cameras that I can then view from my computer (to avoid additional screens sucking down the watts), and they will need to be able to communicate back to my computer from as much as a half-mile.

They need to be able to spot a human or coyote in the dead of night, preferably with a detection/vision range measured in the tens of yards at a minimum.

So, what are my options, or what general types of equipment should I be looking at? I know nothing about trail/security cams, so I'm reading and learning now but any help would be much appreciated.

Do you have cellular?

If so cellular cameras are the answer

I knew I'd forget something in my list!

Cloud-based or relying on any network that is not my own, is a firm NO. It has to be standalone and operate without any assumption of services, companies, or other products also being operational.

If you are barring WiFi and cellular from consideration, it sounds like you’ll need to invest in some fiber optics and run your own physical network.

That sounds interesting, definitely closer to what I'm envisioning in my head. I know there are radio-based weather stations that just use their own Tx/Rx units, I figured there had to be some sort of security camera equivalent for those of us that don't want to subscribe to some cloud service just to make our shit work normally.

I could do WiFi if that's absolutely necessary, but it would be a major PITA to put together enough mesh coverage to get signal to all the places I want cameras

An interesting challenge, especially with the minimal power foot print.

So that I understand, "viewing from half mile away" is the application that the four to six cameras are a half mile away from your laptop?   Or the entire installation is spread over a half mile?

At my day job, we use Ubiquiti cameras for a lot of things, including monitoring automation and post-mortem diagnostics when issues occur.   These cameras are powered and communicate over POE (Power Over Ethernet) which MIGHT work well for your installation.   One Cat-5 cable is run to each camera, a max length of 328 feet from the POE switch.    Switches can be added/daisy-chained in large numbers with the only penalty in your installation being power for the switches and wire.   So, using one POE switch you could place cameras out 100 yards in each direction.    This could cover a decent sized area.

Link to a camera:   https://www.ui.com/unifi-video/unifi-video-camera-g3/

I think that we have nearly fifty cameras installed, some of which are being run in somewhat hostile environments and they have all held up.

This equipment doesn't require an internet connection and the software to monitor and record COULD be run directly from your laptop.    The downside to doing so is that the cable running to your laptop would require significant bandwidth and your laptop would have to stay on and connected 24x7 for this to record 24x7.

To record, we use these:   https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Network-Recorder-UVC-NVR-2TB/dp/B07MSCSG31/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Ubiquiti+NVR&qid=1577636504&sr=8-4 and we position them so that they are wired directly to the switch that connects the cameras.   This keeps a lot of traffic off our network backbone.

The system can be configured to record motion only.   It can be configured to record what took place XX seconds before the motion was detected and what took place XX seconds after the motion stopped.   Each camera can also be configured to watch for motion in certain parts of the camera view.    We have used this to ignore the fact that the ceiling fan is running and only record when a part comes along on the conveyor.    I don't remember if you can configure alerts to be texted or emailed.   We don't  have a use for that feature.

Cameras can be added at will.    Ubiquiti says that their recorders support 20 cameras but we have run into I/O issues when we have that many cameras on one NVR.   I wouldn't plan on putting more than twelve cameras on one NVR using a Gigabit connection.

The trickiest part here will be choosing the best switch for your application.    Nearly any Gigabit POE switch will work but since your application is low power then it may be better to choose a switch that doesn't work directly from 110Volts.    A number of smaller switches use wall-warts to convert 110 volts to a lower DC voltage.   MicroTIK specifically uses 24 volts DC.   Since the switch is powering your cameras then finding something that is already compatible with your power source might improve efficiency.    The NVR itself uses 19 volts.

To view a remote Ubiquiti installation you could use Ethernet Extenders to cover distance.s beyond 328 feet.   There are a lot of different devices to choose from here.   An example:   https://www.amazon.com/Netsys-NV-202EKIT-HyperXtender-Ethernet-Extender/dp/B0067N3C4A/ref=sr_1_11_sspa?keywords=ethernet+extender&qid=1577635873&sr=8-11-spons&psc=1&smid=A2SLAPA1195D1Q&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzVjgxR1M1RkxCQjZUJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTgwNjU3M04yOFRHNVA4WlA3OSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjY0MTM3M0wzSlZNQlRIQ1VLMyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX210ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=   Again, the longer the distance the more important the recorder is close to the cameras and you are just using your screen to view the live images or download videos.

One additional point that I will add is that this approach is modular.   You can add cameras, recorders at will.   You can add/move switches.  You can change the technology that connects the remote laptop, or whatever.   One part failing will not junk the whole system.    You will just need to replace that part.

I can provide more information if it would be helpful.

2Hut8

I'm somewhat familiar with Ubiquiti's networking offerings (thanks /r/homelab), this might be a good way to go! My only question is, does it require their cloud management thing or a phone/ipad app to interact with it, like their routers and such do (or did, it's been a bit since I looked)?

Cloud Management/APPS is NOT required.   We run our systems blocked from the internet without issue.   One thing that I noticed with my home system is that it was phoning home often.   Although I expect it was an issue of each component checking for updates I found it unsettling so I added firewall rules preventing any of the components from accessing the internet.  This was done years ago and it still runs fine.  Now I only allow internet connections to perform updates once a year.   Updates aren't required but a good practice to adhere to so I do it.

It does require some type of network to interact with it, but if you have a laptop then it shouldn't be an issue.    I would statically assign IP addresses to each component and then manage the system by pointing a web browser on your laptop at whatever IP address is assigned to the device you want to interact with.    If you recording then it would be the simplest to point the browser at the IP address of the component doing the recording (NVR or Computer) and then you can see each camera and its recordings from there.

2Hut8

Perfect! We seem to think alike with the networking, I run a pi-hole/DNS server and block everything; don't run DHCP so everything is manually configured already. I will be looking very closely at these Ubiquiti options, thank you