LPRs

[Ssayer]

To all you guys using a cam as a LPR... I'm betting none of you live back on a dirt road, eh? My second oldest cam is on the tree very near the street and it's finally giving up the ghost,, so... I've been up there a few times as I'm checking which of my cams I might put up there until I get a good one for that spot. Watching the cars go by from that vantage point, it occurred to me that 99% of the cars going by had rear ends (aka license plates) that looked dirt colored and were completely unreadable (I wonder why!).

Don't get me wrong, you can get a ticket for that in Michigan BUT if it's been raining recently, it's part of living where I live. Do not live around here and be a clean car freak or you're going to be extremely disappointed.

 

[Ssayer]

Incidentally, I'll be going with a Refurbished B5442E-E from Andy when it arrives. Should be a humongous improvement. I just wish I could justify the cost of a PTZ with similar optical specs.

 

[Mike A.]

^ bot

 

[Parley]

Incidentally, I'll be going with a Refurbished B5442E-E from Andy when it arrives. Should be a humongous improvement. I just wish I could justify the cost of a PTZ with similar optical specs.

What is the distance from the tree to the road? If close enough the B5442E-ZE should work as it does go to 12MM. I am quite happy with my B5442E-Z4E's as LPR cameras.

 

[Mike A.]

I use one for LPR duty. Works well but it will need to be very close to the road. Mine is in a tree right at the edge of typical sidewalk/berm/road. Even being right there it needs to be at full zoom. I'm looking down and at an angle. If you have a longer straight run at it you might have a little more range. But it does the job fine.

 

[Ssayer]

About 40 feet from Cam to point of interest as the crow flies, so Yep, it should be spot on for what I want.

 

[wittaj]

I use one for LPR duty. Works well but it will need to be very close to the road. Mine is in a tree right at the edge of typical sidewalk/berm/road. Even being right there it needs to be at full zoom. I'm looking down and at an angle. If you have a longer straight run at it you might have a little more range. But it does the job fine.

Yep I always seem to favor more zoom too!

 

[Mike A.]

40' is probably about the limit. You'll wish that you had more. But there's enough to get readable plates at that distance. I try to get mine to trigger more ~25'-30' but still can read most of them when they get outside of that.

 

[Parley]

Here are some license plate captures from this morning with my 6mm Hikvision that is mounted close to the street. One a front plate and the other a rear plate.

 

[Parley]

Now here are the same vehicles taken from my Dahua 5442E-Z4E, which is not all the way out. So I would suspect that your 12mm would be somewhere between the two. Now I am using this camera for LPR duty, but as you can see, it does double duty in the daytime. At night it goes to black and white and the IR takes over.

 

[rfoust]

@Parley Impressive -- how does it look at night? I need a camera to read license plates across the street from me going into a public parking lot. So I'm trying to figure out what to get. Thanks!

 

[Parley]

@Parley Impressive -- how does it look at night? I need a camera to read license plates across the street from me going into a public parking lot. So I'm trying to figure out what to get. Thanks!

Just fine. Especially with the extra illuminator. I have another thread showing night pictures from the worst of the plates. Here is the link. Also I would stick with less than 70' with this camera.

Review- New Design Tendelux 10 Watt IR illuminator. | Page 13 | IP Cam Talk

 

[Ssayer]

Ok, I put the new PTZ at the road along with the bullet from Andy yesterday (still have a TON of tweaking to do on both! Anyway, today just for shits and giggles, I pointed and zoomed the PTZ to the only spot that I might get a good shot of a plate. It took two dozen or so vehicles, but I finally got one that wasn't so dirty that all I saw was dirt. Because of that, I won't waste too much time playing with this aspect of a cam at the road.

 

[Ssayer]

HAHA, I got two cars in a row right after my last post that were clean! Where did these city folk come from anyway??

 

[Parley]

HAHA, I got two cars in a row right after my last post that were clean! Where did these city folk come from anyway??

You definitely have a rough situation for trying to get good plate readings.

 

[Ssayer]

I've read all the posts and keep the @wittaj guidelines nearby and I know my rural area makes me a little unique here with the lack of ambient light at night, but... even though my refurb'ed B5442E-ZE is better than the previous 1/2.7 or 1/2.8 cams I had out at the street, I just can't seem to make it as much better as I'd hoped it would be. I'm probably just not getting it yet, and will continue to work at it, but to be honest, the 1/2.5 off brand Hik cams seem to do a little better for me (brightness of image and quality of video at night) when looking out to the same distance. Still working at it...

My best attempts thus far:

 

[Mike A.]

Try faster shutter. Also take sharpening and noise reduction down a bit.

 

[wittaj]

+1 above.

To capture a moving vehicle, the shutter speed needs to be faster. Add external IR if you can.

And then balance the sharpness and NR until it is acceptable to you.

 

[Ssayer]

I'll keep trying and I thank both of you very much for your advice. Shutter speed is already set at manual & 1/120 though. If I try faster it'll get darker fast. Also, I'm right at the point on noise reduction where each drop shows more noise on the image fast. As I haven't worked with it yet, I can no doubt change sharpness quite a bit. I have gain up way higher than I'd like, but then once again, it gets darker real fast turning it down. I own a Tendelux DI10, but it's a 180' run to the cam and I already have 2 cams out there on the single cable I have going to it. So unfortunately, I don't think putting external IR out there is going to happen.

Per your tips, I no doubt just haven't gotten the right combination yet, so... I'll keep on keeping on.

 

[Parley]

Time for two more cables out to the tree.