Looking for camera suggestion

[username]

I have a Hikvision 7716 (16 POE ports) with 10 dome cameras, all mounted outside under the eaves of my house. Today I recorded a vehicle driving up to my mail box and helping themselves to a bunch of junk mail (I hope it was junk mail!). The distance is just a bit to far to capture important details, like manuf of vehicle, faces and plate number.

What I'd like to do, and don't know if it is workable, is to install a POE camera, probably a bullet, that would record a plate number and other details. The distance from the corner of the fence to the mailbox is around 15 ft. But if I'm going to go to this trouble, I'd like to be able to record details from both directions of travel, which would be parallel to the aim of the camera.

To do that, I would need to run 150 ft of ethernet, the last 60 would be outside, along the fence rail. And of course, the camera would be fully exposed to the weather and hot sun in summer. I know that is ok for packets, but I don't know about power.

Is that too far to run POE? If it is not too far, what would be a suitable camera? I would place the camera inside the fence to view throught a cut-out it would not be too obvious, I guess the infrared bulbs would be visible to a keen observer at night. I'd rather not fiddle with an enclosure for the camera, but that might be necessary. It would need ventilation due to temps in high 90's and occasional 100's. It would be easy to vandalize then lense in that location.

Alternatively, I may just get a locking mailbox.....

 

[looney2ns]

Search here for license plate cam's. It's very doable and many posts about it.

POE should be fine at that distance. Use cat 6 as it has a larger gauge wire, thus less voltage drop at long distance. Be sure to use pure copper wire, not copper clad wire.

 

[username]

Thanks, I should have searched first. There is a lot of good info here that I failed to check on.
I was so bent outta shape over the theft and at same time my wife got phished and my mind just went into overload.
It's taken all day just to clean up after clicking on that link.
The ethernet info is very helpful.

 

[nayr]

Camera Calculator / Design Software and keep PPF as high as possible, over 100 preferably.. I'd say 8mm for 25ft to plate w/1080p camera, a varifocal camera will help alot and let you nail the focus down.

You need to measure distance from camera to your plate reading area, you want as little of an angle as possible for easiest reads.. You want something with alot of IR as you'll be running high shutter speeds and need to get that plate as bright as the headlamps pretty much.

leme grab my test plate and see how the The Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z) does.

edit: it does great, check out this post (#758)

 

[Jack B Nimble]

Also make sure wire is UV rated for outside, I used a gel filled cable that can go underground. I have one run at over 300 feet no issues on a PTZ.