First LPR... bit of a challenging location, but we'll see if it can work.

[Tygunn]

Here is how I have my LPR camera set up right now temporarily. I'm not super happy with how the possible locations are shaking out for this. I would like to move it more toward the street; ideally down behind the mailbox, but there is a power transformer vault and two utility boxes there and I'm sure the telcos and power company would destroy a camera if in that area. The neighbor down the street also has TEN (yes 10) cars so its inevitable that there will be something parked out front. I guess I could pull it back more close to the grey cable demarc (because let's be honest, Comcast will never touch that and aim it across the telco box. That might get a better angle down the road.


I definitely have a lot of tuning to go; this isn't an amazing dusk image. The Dahua IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E has great zoom though. I can get nice and close.


The night image is pretty decent though.


Sidewalk visitors are sure... unique though.


Unlike all my other cameras I'm relying on the motion detection in the camera and ONVIF event reporting; just seeing how well that works.

I picked up a Dahua IPC-HFW7442H-Z4-X to try out as well. I'm curious whether the HDR witchcraft it claims to do to expose plates properly in the dark will live up to expectations. We'll see.

 

[Tygunn]

My wife informs me the camera is FAR too obvious and she thinks it'll walk away. This is too big to "birdhouse-ify", and a ground birdhouse would be unique. I'll have to think about this more; I might be able to hide it in the lemon tree; downside is it'll be a lot of work to keep that pruned out sufficiently.

 

[Flintstone61]

For as close as you are, to the road, you might be able to get away with a 5442 ZE turret. and the the " far too big" comment may fade away.

 

[Tygunn]

For as close as you are, to the road, you might be able to get away with a 5442 ZE turret. and the the " far too big" comment may fade away.

That's a good idea; I do have a 5231R-ZE (2MP starlight) that isn't in the best spot right now. It is close enough I could jerry-rig it into that spot for testing purposes.
Although the onboard IR in the bullet works great I'll have to mount an external IR; being near to a tree this this is a bug magnet.... or we're being invaded by giant spiders and moths.

 

[Parley]

I vote for the lemon tree.

 

[Tygunn]

I vote for the lemon tree.

I'm thinking this will be the easiest option as well. I can either try to fashion a bracket that will attach to a branch on the tree, or I can simply just mount the camera higher up on a post that goes into the tree. I suspect the latter will be easier given this tree doesn't have extremely thick branches. I'm sure a black pole going up into the tree is going to look better than a camera down below it.

 

[Mike A.]

Have to see it but think I'd probably agree. Down low at plate level is nice where you have a longer view but you've got so many cars parked there that it leaves you with a fairly small window to capture things. If you get up higher, that may give you more opportunity.

 

[actran]

Related, if you have a camera mounted near or on a tree, you may want to add something like this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079HXKRW1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

to protect from lightning.

The goal is to avoid lightning getting back to your switch and perhaps the rest of your network.