Need thoughts on new camera

[FoxCR]

Guys I am trying to decide if it is beneficial to change between two cameras to look at the end of my driveway (property line) and cross a single car lane (20ft) at my parking spot immediately across.

I have a 8MP Hikvision bullet 4mm installed which works well during the day and lets me identify a license plate of the car parked across the street using a bit of digital zoom. you can read the plate but it is not crystal clear, there slight pixelation. I would say this does the job. However night performance is not all the great being a standard 8MP 1/2.5" camera.

I have the option of changing that to a 4mm or 6mm 4MP 1/2.5" "darkfighter" camera. How is this going to affect or impact being able to read the license plates during the day in terms of (pixelation).

As a side note, at night I am not sure the either camera will read plates which is okay.
In terms of surveillance, you want to catch peoples faces - at least I do, but for that you really need them close to the camera and almost looking at it regardless of MP. Agreed?

This is the 4MP camera:
DS-2CD2045FWD-I 4 MP IR Fixed Bullet Network Camera-Hikvision

versus what is currently installed:
DS-2CD2085FWD-I 8 MP(4K) IR Fixed Bullet Network Camera-Hikvision

 

[looney2ns]

Study this: cliff notes
Also, see the LPR subject area of this forum.

 

[FoxCR]

I must be an idiot.. I have read the cliff notes more than once and I am still asking stupid questions - sorry

 

[FoxCR]

@looney2ns I went to back to page 8. So what you are saying is that based on those parameter I must just choose what is going to work best.
Too bad the "cube cameras" are not outdoor cams. They would be perfect as they are small to have 2 or 3 clustered.

 

[aristobrat]

@FoxCR, try playing around with the IPVM Camera Calculator V3. it should let you position a camera model on the outside of your house, let you drag the locator to the far side of the street and see what the image should look like from that camera. Try it with your current camera, then drop in the other camera's you're curious about and see what the est. image quality will be.

There are some cameras with good optical zoom (like the 5231-Z12 turret) that let you get very detailed images of people/things that are 100+ feet away. The disadvantage is that the width of the picture is narrow at that point, so you don't get much in the picture.

 

[FoxCR]

Great idea, thank you. I have been looking at the LRP section, wow impressive stuff.