IPC-B5442E-Z4E as an LPR

[biggen]

Picked this up from Andy last week and just got it up on the house. Its the longest adjustable varifocal (8mm - 32mm) bullet cam that Dahua makes right now in the 5224 series chip. Here is the link to the camera on Andy's Amazon store.

My camera mounting point to the road is approximately 75` which is at the upper limit of the zoom capabilities for this camera since its max focal length is only 32mm. If Dahua comes out with Z12E model for the 5442 I'll probably end up moving up to that. At any rate, I'm pretty happy with the results. Here is a cropped daytime and nighttime shot:






I'll play with the settings a bit more tonight but so far I'm liking the camera. Shout out to @bigredfish for making all those posts of his that have to do with LPR. I was able to immediately start fine tuning settings yesterday just by looking at those old posts!

 

[wittaj]

Those are pretty good shots. Is that the max zoom at that location?

You could probably increase the shutter speed at night to get the plate to pop a little more.

What is your shutter speed now and what is general speed in that location?

 

[biggen]

Those are pretty good shots. Is that the max zoom at that location?

You could probably increase the shutter speed at night to get the plate to pop a little more.

What is your shutter speed now and what is general speed in that location?

Yeah I'm at max zoom currently. Wish I had a bit more reach but it is still working pretty good from what I can tell.

Shutter speed is 0 - 2ms in daytime (1/500) and 0 - 1ms at night (1/1000). I think I'll try 1/1500 or 1/2000 tonight and see if I can get the plate to stand out a bit more at night. I'll also try upping the contrast a bit at night to see how that affects it.

Speed limit is 25MPH in front of my house.

 

[wittaj]

The speed by my house is posted at 25MPH but people go a lot faster.

I tried the range limits with mine at night, but I get the best plate images with a fixed shutter speed of 1/2000. My image is completely black except for a plate and head or tail light at night.

 

[biggen]

I'll try without range tonight as well then. No hurt in trying different settings.

 

[xtropodx]

Any chance of getting a comparison of this vs 5321 at same zoom level? This is great, looking at getting one of these.

 

[samplenhold]

I just got one from Andy yesterday also. My plan is for it to overlook the T-intersection (I live on a corner) to give vehicle color and other info on at night for my LPR cams. I hope to test it out Sunday night to decide exactly where to place it. I tested the idea with an old HDW5231R-ZE. The 5231 was doing driveway coverage and I replaced it with a T5442 in 6mm. I was not happy with the night color of the 5231cam in that test. So I also tested a T5442 in 2.8mm that I have yet to install and while the FOV was not what I wanted, the night color was so much better than the 5231, so I knew I had to go with the 5442 for the T-intersection duty.

But I wanted more zoom, so I went with the B5442E-Z4E. Just have not had the time to try it out.

@biggen you have motivated me to get on it.

 

[biggen]

@samplenhold You won’t be disappointed. I havent had any issues with it and wholeheartedly recommend it. My only issue is I’m at the max distance you would want for a 32mm focal length. But even then, I have no issue reading plates. It’s a good camera.