LPR help with IPC-B52IR-Z12E S2 Night is shot is blurry

[tcaos123]

Hello, new to the forum my name is Ben. First just wanted to thank this group! Prior to this forum, I thought the highest mp and Reolink/Amcrest was the best and only way to go. I have learned SO much from this group. I Have replaced all my cams with Empiretech some 5442's, 2- 4k 180s, and now can actually see moving vehicles, crystal clear video along with IVS.

Unfortunately, I have not mastered LPR... I purchased a Ipc-B521R-Z12E S2 for the front of my house. I used this thread as a starting point for setup LPR Case Study: Scoping, Planning, Proof of Concept, Installation, & Results
The cam is mounted on a post 7ft off the curb line 4ft high. The road has a slight bend, so it's not exactly straight on. Daytime is ok and getting clear shots. I'm having an issue with night reads, the plate is somewhat blurry but it seems like I'm close. Just not sure if it's a focus issue or a Camera setting. I see some setups are zoomed out further and still work. I posted some pics and settings any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need any other pics or specs please let me know. Thanks, Ben

 

[samplenhold]

It definitely looks like a focus issue. How do you have the focus set? Are you using a different focus for night versus day? While my cams do not have it different, many folks have the night focus different.

Try parking a car out in that area and manually focus the cam for the best capture. Record that value and compare it to the day value.

 

[wittaj]

Do not do a range for the shutter at night. Make it a fixed number like 1/2000.

The range can cause focus issues for this application.

Any chance you can zoom in a little more?

And yes you need to park a car or have someone stop in the center of the frame and get a nice clean night focus. For many people the focus is different day and night.

 

[tcaos123]

OK, I changed the shutter to 1/2000 and gain 0-25. I can zoom in further as well at night. When you use a car to set focus and zoom am I doing this from the live page with Auto Focus and Area Focus?

I can use my truck to adjust the "incoming front plate" and turn around for the "Rear outgoing plate". Is this somewhat correct?

Thank you for the help !!

 

[wittaj]

Yep that would be correct!

 

[tcaos123]

Excellent I will do it tonight. Thanks again

 

[tcaos123]

So I did as you recommended and it worked perfectly. The night image is really dark, but the area is dark. The street lamp in that area recently went out. The town claims it's getting fixed soon lol not holding my breath... Aside from adding an extra IR Illuminator can I do anything with the Exposure or gain settings to attempt to brighten it up? With it so dark I can't get the IVS Trip Wire and Fast Moving to function. It won't log events Any ideas?

 

[wittaj]

IVS will not work at night. The AI needs to see the car. You need to use BI motion or camera motion at night.

Remember the goal of this camera is to read plates. We don't care if the entire image is black except for the plate. You would have to add a ton of IR before you could start making out the car and it just isn't worth the expense.

Another camera is then used to get the actual vehicle.

 

[bigredfish]

It could use more IR but thats not bad at all. I find IVS not to do that well in those conditions with my LPR cams either. Hit and miss. So at night I also enable old fashioned MD in a small area I know the car has to pass through.

As @wittaj mentions, at night especailly its good to have an overview cam (or two working with your LPR cam

 

[tcaos123]

Got it... So I can use the 4k180 cam on that side of my house for the driveway and some overview. The LPR Cam is mounted on the small fence on the left, the closest post to the road. I could use the IVS on the 180 cam to view the model/make and time of the vehicle and use LPR for plate viewing. Is that OK?

 

[bigredfish]

Yessir

 

[tcaos123]

Awesome ! Thanks again for all the help.