License plate reading at night?

[wddossett]

Hi,

I bought the

EmpireTech Smart 2MP 1/2.8" CMOS Ultra Low Light Starlight IR Bullet IP Camera, Built-in MIC, Support POE and ePOE, Smart AI, 5mm–60mm Motorized Vari Lens, IP67,IK10, IPC-B52IR-Z12E S2 (White)​

quite a mouthful lol...

It's great at reading license plates during the day, I have it pointing down the street that leads to my house (that has been in construction for the last year after losing our original house in a wildfire 3 yrs ago ), more or less straight on at the moment. We are moving in next weekend WOOOHOOO. I will be moving this camera and putting a new post or something in the yard somewhere to mount it - so just wondering if placing it so its more of an angle or anything that could improve reading licenses at night is possible? At the moment the plates are just a blob of light, I guess from the car license plate lights overdriving the camera in IR mode maybe? any advice would be appreciated!
thank
bill

 

[wittaj]

Sounds more like the wrong settings for plate reading at night. The camera works fine straight on when set up to read plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that 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. 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:

See the LPR subforum for more details.


Post some examples at night and your settings.