Using IR illuminator with street light and ambient light

[Billyjack5]

Like other members (thanks biggen!), I bought an Axton IR illuminator (5w, 30 degree Nano version) to improve LPR capture. My capture distance is only about 85 feet so even with street lights and some white landscape lighting on the side of my house I figured the 30 degree beam would light the area up well for LPR purposes. To my surprise, I saw no improvement, even playing around with aiming the illuminator with my phone in-hand at night to monitor any changes in real time. Before I return it and try the 11 watt, 10 degree version, I'm just wondering what other folks' experiences are using IR illuminators with the presence of white street lights. Does passing through ambient landscape lighting and street lighting degrade the IR beam that much?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Are you running in color at night? If so the IR is invisible to the camera

 

[Billyjack5]

Are you running in color at night? If so the IR is invisible to the camera

Are you running in color at night? If so the IR is invisible to the camera

Running the LPR in black and white

 

[sebastiantombs]

Have you tried pointing the beam at closer objects to confirm it's working?

 

[Billyjack5]

Have you tried pointing the beam at closer objects to confirm it's working?

Yeah, it's definitely working. Doug from Axton told me that at that range anything less than 90 degrees would be overkill, but after hearing other folks' experiences I went with the 30 degree version. I could be that I just need a more power version with the narrower beam.

 

[wittaj]

What camera are you running for LPR and what shutter speed?

Are you zoomed in tight enough to mostly get plates or is there a lot of overview?

Post a day and night image.

I have not seen any studies on it, but I know when I was testing an external IR for just my regular overview camera, I think the lights on the house did "absorb" or take away from the IR as I never really saw an improvement.

 

[biggen]

You should be able to see the difference though from the Axton being on/off. Make sure your camera IR is turned off and just use the Axton unit for testing.. You should see a very clear difference unless your scene is so well lit by powerful street lighting.

I know you have read my thread about the Axton unit I have, but here are the pictures showing what my scene looks like with the Axton unit on/off. You can see I have a street light that my Axton unit shoots directly through towards the top right. That white truck is blasted by IR when the Axton unit is turned on.

 

[bigredfish]

With a lot of ambient light and a wide FOV you may not see a huge difference across much of the scene, but if zoomed into plates for LPR, you should see the difference on the reflection (brightness, clarity) of the plate as it reflects back.

 

[Billyjack5]

You should be able to see the difference though from the Axton being on/off. Make sure your camera IR is turned off and just use the Axton unit for testing.. You should see a very clear difference unless your scene is so well lit by powerful street lighting.

I know you have read my thread about the Axton unit I have, but here are the pictures showing what my scene looks like with the Axton unit on/off. You can see I have a street light that my Axton unit shoots directly through towards the top right. That white truck is blasted by IR when the Axton unit is turned on.

View attachment 90049View attachment 90050

Thanks again, @biggen.

You should be able to see the difference though from the Axton being on/off. Make sure your camera IR is turned off and just use the Axton unit for testing.. You should see a very clear difference unless your scene is so well lit by powerful street lighting.

I know you have read my thread about the Axton unit I have, but here are the pictures showing what my scene looks like with the Axton unit on/off. You can see I have a street light that my Axton unit shoots directly through towards the top right. That white truck is blasted by IR when the Axton unit is turned on.

View attachment 90049View attachment 90050

Thanks again, @biggen. Those photos are really helpful. I'm wondering if the 5 watt and 30 degree angle dispersed the IR too much--or possibly I have really crappy aim. I think I'm going to try the 5 watt 10 degree variation next, just because for my application that small form factor works best. If that doesn't work I'll make the jump to the 11 watt line.

 

[Bitslizer]

Thanks again, @biggen.

Thanks again, @biggen. Those photos are really helpful. I'm wondering if the 5 watt and 30 degree angle dispersed the IR too much--or possibly I have really crappy aim. I think I'm going to try the 5 watt 10 degree variation next, just because for my application that small form factor works best. If that doesn't work I'll make the jump to the 11 watt line.

If you don't mind tinkering and want to save some money, check out my DIY IR spotlight hack/conversion (fairly easy). $25 bucks will get you a 4W version with pretty good results (good enough to get by @ 240ft). you can decide what degree you want to try from 5-15 degree I'm guessing it depends on your zoom

What camera are you running? if you have one of the Z12's, their built in LED should be plenty already for 85ft and you may just need to tweak your exposure correctly

the DIY start midway through page 1 and spread through the rest of the pages. I'm updating the version 3 as we speak

Need Help tweaking HFW5231E-Z12 for night @ 240ft

First of all, my minimum viable goal is human readable plate, ANPR capable output would be a bonus. Anyone have luck with such long distance and want to share their settings? Second, daylight is already good to go, although dawn/dusk would be hit or miss due to the challenging lighting...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[biggen]

Thanks again, @biggen.

Thanks again, @biggen. Those photos are really helpful. I'm wondering if the 5 watt and 30 degree angle dispersed the IR too much--or possibly I have really crappy aim. I think I'm going to try the 5 watt 10 degree variation next, just because for my application that small form factor works best. If that doesn't work I'll make the jump to the 11 watt line.

You should see a difference of "something" with it off and off. How is it being powered? Can you unplug/plug it in while you are viewing the camera? You should easily be able to see the scene illuminate/darken with the ir being during off and on.

Its possible its not concentrated enough (but you should still be able to tell its running). That is why I went with the 10 degree beam. Its like a damn spot light.

 

[richardgohth]

Like other members (thanks biggen!), I bought an Axton IR illuminator (5w, 30 degree Nano version) to improve LPR capture. My capture distance is only about 85 feet so even with street lights and some white landscape lighting on the side of my house I figured the 30 degree beam would light the area up well for LPR purposes. To my surprise, I saw no improvement, even playing around with aiming the illuminator with my phone in-hand at night to monitor any changes in real time. Before I return it and try the 11 watt, 10 degree version, I'm just wondering what other folks' experiences are using IR illuminators with the presence of white street lights. Does passing through ambient landscape lighting and street lighting degrade the IR beam that much?

try using camera of android phone to view the illuminator to confirm it is working.
try pointing your camera directly at the illuminator, at a distance say 5 to 10 meters, to see if the camera can see the IR.

 

[Bitslizer]

try using camera of android phone to view the illuminator to confirm it is working.
try pointing your camera directly at the illuminator, at a distance say 5 to 10 meters, to see if the camera can see the IR.

I use my overview cam to adjust the aim for the narrow focus IR spot light

 

[Bitslizer]

Re-reading the first post.

Lpr common misconception #1... Streetlight and visible light are in most cases counterproductive for LPR night time purpose.

Visible night have different focus point than IR light.
bright enough visible light sources would produce a fuzzy IR+visible light image.

Exception being... If it's super bright like sport stadium bright, then you can keep it in day light mode rather than night B&W mode

OP really need to upload an example of night lpr for us to help you tweak the settings

 

[biggen]

@Billyjack5 So did you decide to return the unit and go for the 10 degree one?

 

[Billyjack5]

@biggen, I sure did, and I should be getting the 10 degree version in the next day or so. I'll document my progress with photos. I'm finding surprisingly little on the impact of white light on infrared light, but you post was extremely helpful to see what's possible with at least an 11 watt 10 degree Axton illuminator.

 

[biggen]

I honestly can't imagine you will have an issue with the 10 degree model at your distance. I think Ken at Axton is used to recommending IR for people watching over a very large scene. I think that is why he is apprehensive on recommending anything more powerful in fear of "blowing out the subjects". For LPR, we need more concentrated power in a tight space to catch the reflectivity of the plates.

Keep us posted!

 

[Billyjack5]

Well, I installed the Axton Nano 5 watt, 10 degree illuminator and while the illuminator certainly worked, it didn't provide much noticeable improvement to my LPR capture. I'm running a HFW5231E-Z12E and have to thread a bit of a needle through two trees (see attached) with ambient light. From the pic, you can see the daytime capture area circle in red, which about 85-90 feet from the camera. I have a couple of cameras on the pine tree to the left, and the second pic shows the IR shining in the vicinity of the capture area (you can see the neat line where the tree trunk is blocking the IR). As you can see, the IR coverage extends across the median, even through ambient street light, which is actually pretty impressive for a 5 watt illuminator.

My settings aren't perfect, but when there's a license plate light on a vehicle I generally get at least a partially readable plate. I was hoping the illuminator would light up the plates that aren't lit by plate lights. While I do notice the existence of those plates with the illuminator, they aren't close to readable. I'm thinking I'm going to try the more powerful, 11 watt, 10 degree version.

The last pic is an example of a decent (by my standards, at least) plate read without the illuminator.

 

[Bitslizer]

Please post your night exposure setting. Frankly at less than 100 ft you shouldn't need supplemental IR

Was this a used camera you recently picked up? I'm wondering if the IR cut filter is working correctly

 

[wittaj]

Agree, post your settings and the camera being used.

Here is mine at 175 feet with no additional IR:



Now you may be getting some IR bounce the camera isn't seeing and some IR loss due to shooting it between two trees, but I think you have some tweaking left to do.