IPC-Color4K-T180 LEDs

onyxlinkia

Getting the hang of it
Aug 16, 2015
188
66
Hi, has anyone run the IPC-Color4K-T180 without the LEDs at night? There's no IR for this camera, right? I just set mine up and still playing with the settings.
 
I do not run lights at night with my cameras with the exception of my LP cameras. Again, I have enough light. I forgot. I do have one camera in a darker area that has the lights on at 20%.
My street has no street lamp. So, I have to leave it on. But I noticed that 10% vs 90% illumination looked the same to my eyes.
 
It's hard to go wrong with more light than less. Short of it bouncing off a wall and washing out the picture or pointed directly at the camera. More less means slower shutter which makes it easier to get a snapshot of a target.
 
A slow shutter speed is not the answer to capturing motion. It works well for a stationary object but will result in a blurred image if motion is significant. If at all possible, like to stay above 8 ms (1/125 second) shutter speed.

In some cases 10 ms (1/100) or even 16.67 ms (1/60) could work for motion but would require testing for your specific application. i.e. object of interest direction, speed, lighting, IR, color, camera type, etc.
 
A slow shutter speed is not the answer to capturing motion. It works well for a stationary object but will result in a blurred image if motion is significant. If at all possible, like to stay above 8 ms (1/125 second) shutter speed.

In some cases 10 ms (1/100) or even 16.67 ms (1/60) could work for motion but would require testing for your specific application. i.e. object of interest direction, speed, lighting, IR, color, camera type, etc.

My dyslexia got me there.

More light means a faster shutter. I'm getting excellent results with 8.33ms on a Colour4K/X at night. Very slight blurring of people's faces but LED striving is keeping me from speeding up the shutter any more.
 
I'm considering one of these as a street-side overview cam to give context to some LPR cams. My concern is that I don't want to run visible light (huge christmas display in December, so can't run with visible light. Lol). There is a street light a few houses down, but I'm not sure that there is going to be enough ambient light for this to work well. When I tried turning one of my HDW5231R-ZE cameras to color mode during the night it looked pretty awful with the ambient light. Does anyone have any shots showing how this works with no direct ambient light? I'm thinking a relatively street light a house over, and commercial lighting a few houses away.

It may just be best for me to use 2 separate cameras than to try to hammer thisinto my use case.
 
If you use it strictly as overview with no plans to IDENTIFY, you can run auto/default settings and probably be fine. You will get car color, clothing color, etc.

Remember that even IF you had enough light, you won't get IDENTIFY at the street anyway with this fixed cam, but you can get color if used as overview with default settings.
 
If you use it strictly as overview with no plans to IDENTIFY, you can run auto/default settings and probably be fine. You will get car color, clothing color, etc.

Remember that even IF you had enough light, you won't get IDENTIFY at the street anyway with this fixed cam, but you can get color if used as overview with default settings.

Makes sense.

Maybe my first step is to relocate one of my HDW5231R-ZE temporarily to the spot where I'd envision mounting the camera for LPR use. This will get me a better idea of how much zoom I'll need. I've got a couple spots in mind that should give clear views of the street. I need to determine how much zoom I'll need on the varifocal cam.

1686244371673.png

That should help narrow down to either IPC-B5442E-Z4E or a IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E for LPR duties.

It might just make more to use another varifocal starlight off to one side to get the general street view to augment LPR duties.

Thanks!
 
Myself, I would use two LPR cameras. That way you can make sure that you get the front and the back of the vehicle. Now, if you live on a dead end street that may not be necessary.

That is a good point. Although plates are required on the front and back of cars, there are quite a few without front plates. Two cams would also increase the chance that something gets caught and that one is unblocked even if the other is.

With the spot to the right I can likely hide it pretty well, but with the one in the middle I'd have to get real clever with how I hide to to assuage any issues with the WAF. :)
 
I live in California and they do require front and rear plates. However, a number of cars only have the rear plate and Tesla's seem to only have the rear plate. Also like you said it gives you two chances to get the plate number.
 
I will also add that a "street light a couple houses down" is not likely going to provide enough ambient light to run decently fast shutter speeds with this camera (to capture nighttime movement without blurring).
 
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I will also add that a "street light a couple houses down" is not likely going to provide enough ambient light to run decently fast shutter speeds with this camera (to capture nighttime movement without blurring).

Good to know, thanks. As much as I like the idea of it, I think I'll stick with IR cams..

Half tempted to pick one of these up: FCD600 - Panoramic Outdoor PoE Dual Lens Security Camera, 6MP Resolution, 180° Ultra Wide Angle, f/1.2 Super Aperture, BSI Sensor, Color Night Vision & Infrared Night Vision, Built-in Mic, Active Siren & Alarm, Human & Vehicle Detection But then the reviews I've seen on here indicate they're not amazing. The sensor is tiny, so I suspect I'd hate it compared to my starlight cams.
 
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