Night Settings Help LPC

ipcamman2

n3wb
Oct 21, 2020
2
0
USA
I put up 1 AmCrest dome in my front yard as a side project. The first night up it recorded the perfect SD video of people breaking into my car, which is useless. Now I'm trying to record License plates because that is the only thing local police will accept. I have read the forms and played with the settings on my camera (IP8M-2597eb-28mm) but wondering if anyone can offer some help. Do I need to invest in a new camera or can I make it work with this one?

The camera is in a tree about 10 feet from road and 8 feet high, cars go by at 25miles max. I only need it to work at night, the camera works fine under different settings during the day. I'm fearful to put really expensive cameras up because I feel like these people might just steal it.
 

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That camera has a good 1/1.8 sensor but it's still an 8 MP. I dont think just changing it to 1080p and boom it will work as a well as 2 MP at night but I could be wrong?

I also I think you need more IR, an external illuminator may help.
 
It still has the 8MP sensor, so it will have about 25% of the light of a 2MP camera.
I would use it for day time overview, and pick up a 2MP or 4MP camera to do it right.

Spend some time reading on a PC
Then hit the LPR forum for another read
 
Agree with posts above. Not the ideal camera for the task. You also don’t appear to have enough zoom

That said, the plate image is blurry. Could be focus shift like we see in the 2MP Z12 cameras commonly used here. Try keeping it in B&W 24/7, or using a manual schedule, force it to B&W 45-60 min before sunset while there’s still light.

When a camera switches from color to B&W it needs something to focus on. If you’re relying on the cameras light sensor to decide when to switch, it’s likely too dark already.
 
18 feet use Z12E is not good. The Z12E is good for 80feet-120feet
If you have good budget, can check IPC-HFW7442H-Z, wildcat has a review on it for the ANPR function.
 
Try it with a 1/2000 shutter - in some locations doing the range from 0-2 means that the focus will shift when the shutter speed does and then it will hunt all night trying to find something to focus on. Plus the other suggestions above such as having it go to B/W before dark so it finds something to focus on, etc.
 
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Here has a guy use the IPC-HDW5231R-ZE for lPR, maybe can use it. But need some adjusting :D
 
You mention that it's a dome camera. The dome itself, since it probably isn't truly optically clear, may be adding to the problem. A turret or bullet is a far better choice.