licence plate capture
- Thread starter koffi1983
- Start date
That sucks, but um, yeah this isn't the movies. Not gonna happen with that field of view....
Your only chance is if it had a front plate and it fell off, left behind a piece of the car with part of VIN on it, or someone else had a camera set up for plates.
Wrong angle, wrong camera, wrong setup. Not gonna happen.
You have to setup the camera to get plates, but at night that is all it will get.
This is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY 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. We need the fast shutter to capture the plate and take advantage of the reflective properties of the plate. 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 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):
At that shutter speed you will not pick up the outline of the car, people walking by, etc. Just like at a shutter speed to capture people at night, the plate will be all white due to the reflective properties of the plate.
See the LPR subforum for lots of examples.
Your only chance is if it had a front plate and it fell off, left behind a piece of the car with part of VIN on it, or someone else had a camera set up for plates.
Wrong angle, wrong camera, wrong setup. Not gonna happen.
You have to setup the camera to get plates, but at night that is all it will get.
This is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY 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. We need the fast shutter to capture the plate and take advantage of the reflective properties of the plate. 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 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):
At that shutter speed you will not pick up the outline of the car, people walking by, etc. Just like at a shutter speed to capture people at night, the plate will be all white due to the reflective properties of the plate.
See the LPR subforum for lots of examples.
Last edited:
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
bigredfish
Known around here
Have you tried yelling at the computer "ENHANCE!"
Unfortunately slim to none for a private incident. Only on TV shows and movies do we see them do that.
And unless they have it configured for LPR, it wouldn't provide much more than already provided.
bigredfish
Known around here
I suppose it depends on the jurisdiction, but in most any major city, slim to none.
