IPC-HFW5231E-Z12 - What is the focus issue?

[FlipNJ]

@FlipNJ - the 5241Z-12E is still the go to camera.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night. This is 175 feet from my camera:

You will be fine at 80 feet LOL. But I wouldn't try a lesser zoom camera. A member here tried the 5442-Z4E with 32mm focal length and it struggled beyond 60 feet.

More zoom is good for getting plates.

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

www.amazon.com

My circle is F****n BLACKKK! Here is the idiot...

 

[wittaj]

WOW - WTF was the horn blaring for at this hour?

 

[FlipNJ]

@FlipNJ - the 5241Z-12E is still the go to camera.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night. This is 175 feet from my camera:

You will be fine at 80 feet LOL. But I wouldn't try a lesser zoom camera. A member here tried the 5442-Z4E with 32mm focal length and it struggled beyond 60 feet.

More zoom is good for getting plates.

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

www.amazon.com

That is good for 175 feet. I'm ordering the 5241Z 12E. Tried to use my Hikvision 4mp for LPR a few years ago but the sensor is absolute crap at night. noise city.

 

[Flintstone61]

Bitslizer was using reflective tape out on the road by pole or a curb or something to hold his camera's in focus for LPR with some success.

 

[FlipNJ]

WOW - WTF was the horn blaring for at this hour?

No idea but I would be embarrassed to have my truck smashed and have all these cameras with no way to identify the vehicle. The other cameras saw enough and have time stamps so at least I can find out who's insurance is paying up. Glad they didn't hit anything.

 

[wittaj]

Yep, you got the good cameras and good PTZ, so now time to get into LPR as that is what is needed!

 

[Bitslizer]

No idea but I would be embarrassed to have my truck smashed and have all these cameras with no way to identify the vehicle. The other cameras saw enough and have time stamps so at least I can find out who's insurance is paying up. Glad they didn't hit anything.

I would think aiming the LPR to the left away from the circle would be better, 1 cam can get both coming and going. pointing at the circle you risk missing the back plate due to angle issue.

 

[FlipNJ]

@FlipNJ - the 5241Z-12E is still the go to camera.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night. This is 175 feet from my camera:

You will be fine at 80 feet LOL. But I wouldn't try a lesser zoom camera. A member here tried the 5442-Z4E with 32mm focal length and it struggled beyond 60 feet.

More zoom is good for getting plates.

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

Amazon.com : Loryta IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E IP Camera 2MP Starlight WDR IR Bullet AI Network Camera English Version

www.amazon.com

Ordered! Now I can't wait to get it. Thursday should be the day.

 

[FlipNJ]

Had a delay from Amazon on the camera so after 3 days of no tracking progress I ordered a second
IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E
Both arrived a few days ago and after setting up the one camera for LPR, I decided to keep the second one as well, even though it was obviously a returned unit. Messed up lens protective film and privacy masking set up in the camera, fingerprints on the lens. Not a big deal since Andy has been stellar in customer satisfaction. I am very happy with the results. At least now if someone comes through on a rampage and destroys something, I will at least have a plate number instead of " It was a white pickup truck."

So anyway, I will say that getting the settings just right for LPR is a challenge. When I say I made fine adjustments, I mean the smallest unit of adjustment. One tick on any setting makes a massive difference. Also, someone else's settings may very well not even be close to what will work on your system. After having things working well, I figured let me widen the FOV just a little because it seemed that the angle of the way the "Illuminator" hits the plate, straight on, the plate was a little washed out and as the plate started to change to a sharper angle, the plate was clear as day. It would seem an easy fix, just move the camera a little left. Problem is that a car parks right there every night so couldn't do that. Wham! waaay off, plates can't be read, amazing how the littlest thing makes such a difference. As someone mentioned on here, I used my own car and parked it in the FOV to make adjustments. Great idea! This 5241 is perfect for LPR as far as my needs. I don't have a use for populating data in regard to who came around my circle and how many times.

As others mentioned, when the camera switches from day to night and back, the focus and settings get screwed up. So I keep the focus set to manual and keep the camera on BW. It hasn't had the issue of going out of focus. Not sure why focus changes based on color mode but all I care about is a clear read.

Definitely a great camera so far. I am guesstimating the targets are roughly 90 to 100 feet away. Also, my street is almost pitch black.

 

[wittaj]

Glad you got it worked out! And yes, it is very sensitive to one's own environment, but at least now you can catch the plates...and before long you will end up pointing the other Z12 in the other direction of your house LOL.

Get this next to your PTZ and run the other Z12 down that side of the street LOL and not need to run another cable!:

https://www.amazon.com/Loryta-Extender-Repeater-Ethernet-Splitter/dp/B07RQ569MF/ref=sr_1_25?dchild=1&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1618167815&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-25&tag=ipctk-20

Here is a great older post that goes into detail how the focus for daytime and nighttime can be different because of IR. For some they are the same, but for a lot of people, it is different:

Infrared focus shift - explanation

While reading the forum's threads, I found some posts with complains about soft image while the camera is going from color to IR or the opposite. In this Testing roundup IPC-HDBW4431EP-AS versus IPC-HDBW5431E-Z thread, TVT73 is complaining about soft focus in IPC-HDBW4431EP-AS camera. Here Any...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Bitslizer]

Glad you got it worked out! And yes, it is very sensitive to one's own environment, but at least now you can catch the plates...and before long you will end up pointing the other Z12 in the other direction of your house LOL.

Get this next to your PTZ and run the other Z12 down that side of the street LOL and not need to run another cable!:

https://www.amazon.com/Loryta-Extender-Repeater-Ethernet-Splitter/dp/B07RQ569MF/ref=sr_1_25?dchild=1&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1618167815&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&sr=1-25&tag=ipctk-20

Here is a great older post that goes into detail how the focus for daytime and nighttime can be different because of IR. For some they are the same, but for a lot of people, it is different:

Infrared focus shift - explanation

While reading the forum's threads, I found some posts with complains about soft image while the camera is going from color to IR or the opposite. In this Testing roundup IPC-HDBW4431EP-AS versus IPC-HDBW5431E-Z thread, TVT73 is complaining about soft focus in IPC-HDBW4431EP-AS camera. Here Any...

ipcamtalk.com

Actually I found this to be better than that v repeater extender if you aren't planning to cascade it further, especially with higher power draw like ptz and camera with high power ir for long range zoom. Each get their full share of power and they don't even need to be on the same switch.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JS45B89/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_77N9QNRSDCNAH448V8AS?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The other side of the house like the backyard... Whistle innocently and fade away

 

[Robert G.]

With LPR, the bottom line is you can never get every plate.

I have two cameras, 1 up the street & 1 down the street. OpenALPR does a fairly good job of using both cameras to get the numbers correct most of the time using images of both front and rear of the vehicle.

No matter what you do, with angle and lighting some plates are just difficult. Not only is your angle to the plate important, people will have damaged plates, plates covered in dirt or the plate on the car is mounted at an angle that makes your lighting not work. Here are some examples, same camera minutes apart from each other. You can see PLATE3 is terrible.

 

[wittaj]

Actually I found this to be better than that v repeater extender if you aren't planning to cascade it further, especially with higher power draw like ptz and camera with high power ir for long range zoom. Each get their full share of power and they don't even need to be on the same switch.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JS45B89/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_77N9QNRSDCNAH448V8AS?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The other side of the house like the backyard... Whistle innocently and fade away

Oh I had seen those but hadn't heard anyone here using it - works good? I have a spot that would be perfect for!

 

[biggen]

With LPR, the bottom line is you can never get every plate.

I have two cameras, 1 up the street & 1 down the street. OpenALPR does a fairly good job of using both cameras to get the numbers correct most of the time using images of both front and rear of the vehicle.

No matter what you do, with angle and lighting some plates are just difficult. Not only is your angle to the plate important, people will have damaged plates, plates covered in dirt or the plate on the car is mounted at an angle that makes your lighting not work. Here are some examples, same camera minutes apart from each other. You can see PLATE3 is terrible.

View attachment 89081

View attachment 89082

View attachment 89083

That third picture is the reason I got an Axton illuminator. Those poorly reflective/mangled plates were not showing up with the built in IR.

 

[Bitslizer]

Oh I had seen those but hadn't heard anyone here using it - works good? I have a spot that would be perfect for!

Yes I did get the ipcam power one instead of the cheaper one because the cheap one have at the far end 2 female and a male plug when I need all 3 female. My ptz was wattage too much for the nvr to drive it through the pft1300 with one port. It also didn't dhcp the second camera correctly. Preventing using the virtual host function from working right. Also it allow me to keep using the single gang surface mount wall box. Where the pft1300 wouldn't fit. Lastly it allow me to keep the 2.8mm plug into the nvr poe port with the z12 to a different poe switch so the sunrise/sunset utility can reach. I heard that utility can't reach camera behind the nvr? I actually have 2 pft1300 and found that they aren't, For my application, the best solution

 

[FlipNJ]

In trying to diagnose a frequent "No Signal" which is random. I unplugged my 5241 for a minute and plugged it back in. Focus was off. I don't know if Blue Iris has anything to do with it. In BI, I made sure the PTZ screen is unchecked. I have set focus to manual and specifically had the focus at 1530. After camera restarted, it went to 1594, but the zoom went to where I had it. This will be a problem if we have a power failure. Any ideas on why it didn't go exactly where I had manually set it?

 

[biggen]

In trying to diagnose a frequent "No Signal" which is random. I unplugged my 5241 for a minute and plugged it back in. Focus was off. I don't know if Blue Iris has anything to do with it. In BI, I made sure the PTZ screen is unchecked. I have set focus to manual and specifically had the focus at 1530. After camera restarted, it went to 1594, but the zoom went to where I had it. This will be a problem if we have a power failure. Any ideas on why it didn't go exactly where I had manually set it?

View attachment 89158
View attachment 89159

Its not a BI issue as BI doesn't mess with the focus. Have you tried to replicate this? In other words, if you unplug the camera and plug it back it, does it never return to the manual focus you had set?

 

[wittaj]

@FlipNJ - My LPRs did that too, especially at night. The black image is mistaken by BI as a lost signal. It hasn't really lost the signal as I could watch it live and see a car come through at the exact moment it said no signal.

Make sure under watchdog that the "interpret monocrome as loss of signal" is unchecked - that will eliminate the issue as at night the all black screen is interpreted as loss of signal.

Or you can turn watchdog off and that will eliminate it showing those errors ever again LOL.

But yes, the problem will be any power outage at night or sunrise/sunset times will cause a focus issue. But depending on your field of view, it can happen in the middle of the daytime as well and the focus can be off due to that tight shot of basically asphalt with all of its little nuances in texture causing issues focusing. That is why you parked your car there to get a good focus.

Set your focus number to what you had for the vehicle and then hit auto focus without a vehicle in the scene and watch how out of whack the focus will get...mine jumps all over the place - it will be one number then I immediately hit autofocus again and it changes 28 spots on the focus number, then do again and it goes 15 the other way. As always YMMV, but I suspect that is the issue you are experiencing.

Which is also why many of us run the sunrise/sunset utility that bp2008 created It certainly helps because the focus is so sensitive at the tight zoom and shutter we run, along with the asphalt background.

 

[Bitslizer]

Oh I had seen those but hadn't heard anyone here using it - works good? I have a spot that would be perfect for!

Here's using the single gang box to stuff in all the wires and splitter

 

[wittaj]

I like the smaller form of it for this one area I want to keep junction box size down to a minimum. I found I needed a bigger box for the other splitter.