What you want is to read the DHCP options that this network camera should be passing. Typically any consumer device will output its vendor identifier string in option 43 of the DHCP packets. Interface with your DHCP server, and you can have the DHCP server send you a notification when the camera has been connected to the network.
This procedure is different for each dhcp vendor. Do you know what DHCP will be running in the network?
Otherwise I suggest installing a simple DHCPd. It should be easily configurable to react to the proper option 43 value and talking back to your application.
