LPR setup help

Decided to move the camera a bit to the right. For cars turning right onto the street this ends up a head on shot. Turning left onto the street is still a prett bad angle, but will see how things look at night.
Picture #1 is the head on shot, while picture #2... it almost looks like they took the paint/coating completely off. I realize the car is dirty, but that plate is messed up.
 

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Just curious what/how everyone sets up for zoom? If you take a peek at the pics I've posted, you'll see the zoom I have at the moment. I could zoom in closer, or obviously bring it back out....
what does everyone think?
 
wittaj said:
As long as you are capturing the plates day and night at that current zoom, that is all that matters!
Click to expand...
Yes and no. Cars turning left onto that street, causes some misses of the front plate. Bringing it out a bit might help capture, but then I run into problems with the mailbox (black square) as shown.
The best method would really be putting another camera up to capture from the other direction, but WAF.... lol.

I'll test things out a bit more this week with trying a few different zoom levels.
I'd like to purchase a dual camera for the opposite view... but not sure the price is worth it or not at the moment. Will have to think about that one.
 
If you want to grab plates of those taking the left, then zoom out a bit and may have to reposition the cam. The only way to know is to try it.
 
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Another question for everyone.
I'm thinking I want to be able to get information like I've seen showing license plate, car make, etc... my options....

1) Purchase a 5216 I/L from Andy. Pretty expensive, but this would give me everything I would need, along with the ability to add more LPR cameras down the line.
2) Does BI software do this by itself? If I were to use an old laptop/computer for 1 or 2 cameras just to get license plate, car make, info... Or does it need another software like ALPR, Plate Recognizer etc.. ?
3) Purchase a ANPR camera from Andy. Which I think is around $650. If paying that much, I think it'd be smarter to just get the 5216 I/L.
4) Any other option?

Thank you
 
Timokreon said:
Another question for everyone.
I'm thinking I want to be able to get information like I've seen showing license plate, car make, etc... my options....

1) Purchase a 5216 I/L from Andy. Pretty expensive, but this would give me everything I would need, along with the ability to add more LPR cameras down the line.
2) Does BI software do this by itself? If I were to use an old laptop/computer for 1 or 2 cameras just to get license plate, car make, info... Or does it need another software like ALPR, Plate Recognizer etc.. ?
3) Purchase a ANPR camera from Andy. Which I think is around $650. If paying that much, I think it'd be smarter to just get the 5216 I/L.
4) Any other option?

Thank you
Click to expand...

Even a true ANPR camera (one that can actually read and log the plates) would still produce the dark black image at night unless you have a ton of light, so you would need two cameras - an overview and a camera for plates.

Most here do not have a true ANPR camera.

Most here have found that using the 5241-Z12E for LPR and then simply manually reading the plates when we need is sufficient.

And then many of us use the Z12E and then use a 3rd party reader like OPENALPR with the logger utility a member created here or the Blue Iris custom model that a member here created to read plates and is far superior than the ANPR built into these cameras, especially for USA plates - it is proprietary and hard to manage. And of course YMMV.
 
Thanks. I was thinking of replacing the 5241 with the ANPR camera, but... not sure I want to really spend $600+ just for that camera.

Think I'll either get the 5216 I/L NVR, or just continue as I have been and manually look things up.
 
The proprietary plate format of the data could be a deal killer for ANPR, plus many people in the USA have said they are not very accurate.

The monthly OpenALPR ($8ish/month) option with the utility I linked or the free custom model for BI I linked would be cheaper and give you the most flexibility.
 
I'll look into OpenALPR more.
Yes, I saw the Dahua ANPR cam Wildcat1 reviewed. That review, and his dual cam review is what I was looking at possibly purchasing. If I'm going to spend $600+ for that camera, then I'm leaning towards just spending another $100+ for the Dahua NVR.

If I bought the NVR, then I'm thinking I could pick up another 5241 down the road if needed and have complete coverage of front/back license plates.
Of course this reminds me that Andy stated a new mini-ptz was coming out around August. I could really use one of those in the front. :sigh: Too many things to purchase and me not being a billionaire. lol
 
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The local energy company came down my street today, and what do you know... they changed out the light fixtures. Went from the "yellow" sodium lights, to the bright LED's.
To say the light output increased is a understatement. Wow...

I may fool around with things to see if I can get color night shots.
 
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May I ask what people are using for color settings at night? With the energy company replacing the street lights, and I just replaced my front garage lights with brighter bulbs, I'm really close to being able to get plates captured in color at night.
If I could just get my neighbors to replace their garage lights, I'd really be good.
 
Timokreon said:
May I ask what people are using for color settings at night? With the energy company replacing the street lights, and I just replaced my front garage lights with brighter bulbs, I'm really close to being able to get plates captured in color at night.
If I could just get my neighbors to replace their garage lights, I'd really be good.
Click to expand...

It still comes down to shutter speed - can you run it in color and get a plate at 1/2000 or 1/1000 shutter (depending on speed)?

Very few here have the ability to run color for LPR, so it would really be field of view specific as to the other settings.
 
Cars are coming to a stop, or just getting going from turning a corner. Generally under 25mph... though on occasion we get the idiot flying around the corner faster.

I might be able to get 1/1000, 1/500 seemed close but was out of focus, and I didn't feel like fooling around with the focus tonight.
 
Cant wait to see your pics. It would be awesome if you can get color. At 1/1000 at that speed you should get most the plates if you have enough light.

To fix the focus, simply take the shutter and move it to like 1/12 or slower and do an autofocus and then switch it to manual and then go back to 1/1000 and that might get you close enough at least for testing in color.
 
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Thanks for the tip. I'll try that later tonight, maybe.. just got sat down in the easy chair and going to watch the new episode of Andor. :)
 
Well, I can kind of get color pics depending on a couple of things.

If I turn on the light from one of my 4k-x cameras, I can get plates the majority of the time. However, by doing this I don't really like having this bright light coming from the camera, being very obvious there is a camera sitting there.
If I don't have the light on, it depends on the type of license plate. The newer ones, that also sometimes have trouble being picked up by IR, I have trouble picking up in color as well. The older plates, and dark background with white letters, I can pick up without any problems.

With this knowledge, I'm pretty sure I can pick up color plates if I were to point the cam in the opposite direction, because there is a street light directly above where I would be picking them up.
As it is for now? I'll probably play around a bit more with color in the current cam direction to see if any other settings make a difference. Might try to convince my neighbor into putting higher lumen bulbs in their garage lights. Their lights barely light up 10 feet of the driveway.ANPRLightOn92922.jpg
 
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Yeah... that's a newer style of plate, with the light on from the 4kx. The older style and dark background with with lettering comes in perfect.
But I really don't want that 4kx light turned on.
If I purchase another 5241 I'd most likely get color from the other direction. Or I'm still thinking about getting an ANPR, replace the 5241 in that spot and then point that 5241 in the other direction.
 
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