Camera Suggestions...

[ilmrfd]

Here's a couple of pictures. First one is the old Panasonic BB-HCM531 camera that was installed at the site, second is a Hikvision DS-2CD2732F-I(S). My boss wonders if there is any "Improved Quality" over the new Hikvision in the same price range.

The distance from the building to the fence is approx. 85 feet to the center of the gate.

My suggestion was to mount one of the DS-2CD2732F-I(S) on the light post seen in the old camera image. It's only about 20 feet away from the center point of the gate.

Panasonic BB-HCM531 (Old):



DS-2CD2732F-I(S) (New @ Max Zoom):

 

[networkcameracritic]

What do you mean by "improved quality"? You can put a fixed lens 12mm Hikvision mini bullet and get the same, if not better sharpness for less money than the 2732.

 

[ilmrfd]

What do you mean by "improved quality"? You can put a fixed lens 12mm Hikvision mini bullet and get the same, if not better sharpness for less money than the 2732.

He's wanting to be able to catch license plates and see faces clearly at that 80-85 ft for the price point of the 2732.

 

[networkcameracritic]

Yes, at 80-85' with 12mm you can see that a person indeed does have a face and a car has a plate, better than 2.8mm which I'm not sure you can tell if a person has a face or a car has a plate, LOL.

At that distance, you need at least 50mm to read plates. He actually needs a cheaper style of camera, not sure Hikvision has it, but he needs a box camera. I like the Axis Q1604 for that purpose, but the Samsung SNB-5004 does well and for half the price of the Axis, or the ACTi D21FA which is about half the price of the Samsung will likely work. Then put a fixed CS mount 50mm fixed lens on it and you'll capture an area about 12' wide at 80-85', perfect for license plate capture and good facial recognition.

The trick will be at night, to do it properly he'll need an powerful illuminator that can reach that far, maybe find one with a 10 degree spread rated at 100m. The ones we use are pricier than a handful of 2732 cameras. You know who makes a sweet little illuminator that may work for only $400 is Axton, the AT-6E-S. It's cool because they can do 10 degrees at 61m and it's PoE and has a PoE port, so you run one PoE cable to the illuminator, then plug the camera into the illuminator and pray that both combined is less than 12.9W, LOL, but doable because box cameras use very little power and the illuminator is only 6W. It's also pretty small, fits in the palm of your hand. If there's enough interest, they offered one to me do a review with, just been lazy about it.

 

[vector18]

With reflection from windows and windshield, it is hard to get facial recognition inside of cars. Your best bet is to have a call box installed to ring the house so someone can open the gate and install
a pinhole camera inside the call box. Than park a car in front of the call box and get a varifocal camera with up to 50mm lens and focus onto the license plate. That is your best bet.

 

[networkcameracritic]

Funny you say pinhole camera, Wrightwood just got those in HERE. I was going to use them on entry dialers to allow homeowner's to see who is calling from the gate.

As for the window reflections, you can use a circular polarizer filter on the lens on a box camera as I mentioned above. Polarizing filters are used to cut out reflections in glass or water as seen in the pictures below. Look for a lens that's threaded for filters.