Newbee looking for a LPR/8 camera system

[afrmthabay]

Hi I am new to this but I want to buy a decent camera system and I heard Dahua is the way to go for my house with a License plate reader. I'm looking to install 6 bullet cameras, one PTZ, and one LPR. Any recommendations for under $2,000 if possible?

 

[zero-degrees]

Welcome! Spend some time looking around the forum, there is a thread specifically for LPR and goes into great detail and even shows cams people have used.

As for your budget - you can easily accomplish what you want to on that budget.

Here is the LPR thread, just start working backwards: Dedicated License Plate Cam project

 

[afrmthabay]

Awesome so for starters my NVR will be
1. DAHUA OEM NVR4416-16P-4K 16CH NVR with 16-Port Built in POE Up to 5MP Recording
2. LPR: HF5421E 4MP for my LPR

The only thing is I am not sure how high I can mount the LPR on my house and I know from reading it is poplar to buy different lenses. I want to make sure I do this right and buy everything I need

 

[Kawboy12R]

How far from the camera will your plates be? PITA to go with 5421E with external housing and lens choice if a $100 12mm off the shelf HFW4431M-I2 would allow manual eyeballing of plates if that's all you'll be doing. 12mm isn't terribly long if you need a long distance plate cam though.

As for how high? Keep the angles (V and H) to the plate shallow while still allowing a clear obstacle free path to the target area. Remember you'll probably want to mount external IR near the camera as well.

 

[afrmthabay]

I wanted to mount it about 10 feet high angling it about 40 degrees if possible but I can do less or more or whatever is required and I needed it to go out about 100 feet. Thanks for the help

 

[afrmthabay]

here are some pictures of where I am trying to put a good camera system and were i hope the lpr could hit the license plate m

 

[Kawboy12R]

12mm isn't going to cut it at 100ft. Your best bet would be a good IR compensated varifocal and leave the field of view as wide as possible and still yield acceptable results. That's a wide intersection and you don't know where you'll need a plate read. I'd mount the cam temporarily and move it a bit if you aren't happy with the angle and the percentage of plates traveling through the intersection you can see.

 

[nayr]

Camera Calculator / Design Software keep ppf > 100

 

[afrmthabay]

Sorry guys being new its hard understanding so the ir compensated varifocal is that a different camera all together and I should forget about a lpr camera? Thanks for the help

 

[nayr]

imho you should forget about it until you have everything else in place and your willing to dedicated the time and experience towards the LPR

 

[afrmthabay]

Oh wow that puts a big hole in my plans because i am hiring an electrical guy to do the wiring and install my cameras

 

[afrmthabay]

So any recommendations on a camera that I could put near the corner of my house pointed there toward the intersection that would be good enough to see license plates if I was to replay the video and paused it or zoomed in for day and night?

 

[nayr]

at 100ft? nope; first of all it requires a dedicated camera.. at night it wont see anything at all thats not a license plate or headlamps due to the high shutter speeds.

there are some cheap ass ptz's around with enough optics for that range (60mm), but the failure rate is high and they are not reliable.

 

[afrmthabay]

at 100ft? nope; first of all it requires a dedicated camera.. at night it wont see anything at all thats not a license plate or headlamps due to the high shutter speeds.

there are some cheap ass ptz's around with enough optics for that range (60mm), but the failure rate is high and they are not reliable.

okay cool whats the max distance on the lpr camera with a decent picture ?

 

[nayr]

see post #8..

put in 1080p, 1/2.8, 12mm lens and distance of 100ft and see for your self..

answer: ~36ppf, my LPR camera is ~180ppf and nothing under 100ppf is usefull.. your going to need something with 60mm optics for that distance.

 

[afrmthabay]

I wanted to buy a good camera system that would at least read a license plate if the vehicle drove by in front of my house or the vehicle was across the street at a minimum is there anything you would recommend so that's about 35-45 feet I know that website says results can vary if you know from personal experience - going through the different cameras on the website right now

 

[zero-degrees]

@afrmthabay I think the main advice is "setup a system first". As long as you leave a channel open for the LPR you can add it later. By focusing on LPR you are skipping the first 8 steps of the process. Put the system in, get used to what you're doing, then add the camera for LPR. By this time you will be much more comfortable with the technology and what you are trying to do.

 

[afrmthabay]

Ok thanks

 

[afrmthabay]

Are most people buying their duhua products on ebay or where did you all buy it ?

 

[Kawboy12R]

Aliexpress for me.