Day/Night for LPR

[loudog212]

Trying to obtain a license plate for a car that continually drops off food donation to our church. We are not a food pantry, do not have full time office staff, and they leave permissible food at 330am. They have also left trash before. Unfortunately we just have to throw it out by the time we get it.

Because of the exterior lights I thought I would leave the IR off and only run the camera in daytime mode but its obvious that it didn't give me any results. Their license plates light appear to really blow it out too. Would my results be better using night node, or is there any other adjustment I can make to try to capture a clear image.

Thank you

 

[gwminor48]

You're probably not going to have much luck trying to use that camera as an overall view and LPR too. You can look at some of the LPR threads but most of us have a camera set up for LPR only. It can be tedious setting up an LPR camera and when you get it right it is only good for plate recognition and nothing else. Some others might have suggestions you could try with that camera but I suspect if you get it reading plates it won't look good in your overall scene.

 

[DsineR]

Great info found in the LPR thread & sticky.

 

[loudog212]

Thank you both! I read some of those threads and they were very helpful. This is going to be tedious. lol

 

[wittaj]

It appears your camera is on auto/default settings. Depending on the camera, since the car stops, with a shutter of 1/50 or 1/75 or 1/100, you might be able to still have a somewhat usable image and be able to read the plate if the car stops. I would try that first.

If not, then you would need a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. It is why you cannot read them now with your current camera.

For LPR we need to zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

 

[loudog212]

I read a lot of your posts. Thanks for being such a great contributor. I tweaked some settings, time will tell. This is a 4mp, 4mm LTS dome, I'm sure its not ideal. I also have one of these that I can try. The 12mm might get me a little closer. GW5050IP 5MP IP POE 4X Optical 2.8-12mm Varifocal Lens Bullet Security Camera

I may have to get over to the building at night to get it just right bc this isn't happening often. Thanks again

 

[wickedstangs]

I read a lot of your posts. Thanks for being such a great contributor. I tweaked some settings, time will tell. This is a 4mp, 4mm LTS dome, I'm sure its not ideal. I also have one of these that I can try. The 12mm might get me a little closer. GW5050IP 5MP IP POE 4X Optical 2.8-12mm Varifocal Lens Bullet Security Camera

I may have to get over to the building at night to get it just right bc this isn't happening often. Thanks again

Did you ever find a camera that works for you? maybe some new images?

 

[loudog212]

I installed the camera that I linked. But haven’t had a great chance to dial it in. I had someone stop by the other night and the image was pretty decent. The perp also hasn’t been back yet. Ha.

 

[Flintstone61]

Great job. Are you running both cameras on that spot now? Hopefully you are. Then you get the car type, and the plate.

 

[loudog212]

Great job. Are you running both cameras on that spot now? Hopefully you are. Then you get the car type, and the plate.

Thanks. Just the one camera for now. There are others covering the parking lot that will capture the entire car.

 

[loudog212]

Got him! Although dark, LPR was 86% confident of the plate number too. What settings can I change in the camera to help lighten this up for the next capture? Available settings from the camera menu are attached.

THANK YOU!!

 

[wittaj]

Awesome!

That is about as light as it will get if you want to capture them while in motion. You could start slowing down the shutter - try 1/1000 and 1/500 maybe to lighten it some, but then you run the risk of missing the plate.

 

[loudog212]

I will play around with the shutter speed. Thankfully I don't have to deal with motion. The car parks for about 30 seconds to unload expired food and then drives off.