New Camera Shopping part 2

[srvfan]

Alright, results are attached. I feel a little funny about posting pictures of license plates; hope there is not a privacy issue in doing so. Seems to be a major improvement in the capture of the license plate. I really do not want to zoom in anymore as I would also like to be able to obtain vehicle description. I'm thinking about lowering the FPS down just a bit more, but as you can tell, the video does not seem as choppy at 15. Could be better, but I guess that's where I will be having to dial in a little bit more.

I originally thought about trying to zoom in more to capture county information, but so many people now have "In God We Trust" in place of the county sticker of flat out have a frame covering that info. As long as I have vehicle make/color and the license state and #, I think I should be OK. I might move slightly more to the left in the near future, but as of now, the cam seems to be pointing in a decent direction. I will just have to monitor the angles when someone is turning around in the driveway in the picture.

Thanks to @wittaj and @looney2ns for your helpful suggestions. I'm sure I will be reaching out here again to deal with the night images once I dial in the day.
View attachment FrontLeft.20210308_162000_1.mp4

 

[sebastiantombs]

Keep in mind the vehicle description will only apply during the day. At night all you will see is head or tail lights and the license plate.

 

[srvfan]

Keep in mind the vehicle description will only apply during the day. At night all you will see is head or tail lights and the license plate.

Gotcha. I'm definitely going to watch over the next few nights to see if I need to make any adjustments to the zoom or the position. That's the bad thing with working with the luxury of day; you think you have it dialed in, but then realize that you were so wrong (at least in my case).

 

[wittaj]

Alright, results are attached. I feel a little funny about posting pictures of license plates; hope there is not a privacy issue in doing so. Seems to be a major improvement in the capture of the license plate. I really do not want to zoom in anymore as I would also like to be able to obtain vehicle description. I'm thinking about lowering the FPS down just a bit more, but as you can tell, the video does not seem as choppy at 15. Could be better, but I guess that's where I will be having to dial in a little bit more.

I originally thought about trying to zoom in more to capture county information, but so many people now have "In God We Trust" in place of the county sticker of flat out have a frame covering that info. As long as I have vehicle make/color and the license state and #, I think I should be OK. I might move slightly more to the left in the near future, but as of now, the cam seems to be pointing in a decent direction. I will just have to monitor the angles when someone is turning around in the driveway in the picture.

Thanks to @wittaj and @looney2ns for your helpful suggestions. I'm sure I will be reaching out here again to deal with the night images once I dial in the day.

That looks much better, but do not be afraid to zoom in more - the goal is to get the plate. Does no good to get the vehicle type but no plate. That is what an overview camera is used for.

Especially at night you want that plate as large as it can be.

Then after you get comfortable with this, go to OpenALPR that is $5/month and then use this utility that someone here created to pull vehicle descriptions and keep a history of the plates...

OpenALPR Tool - Save and Query CSV Exports Steps I took To Get Mine Working. ZERO Programming Experience.

The LPR_Viewer and LPR_Downloader are free Windows programs designed by @Gymratz & @DLONG2 which allow you to automatically collect, store, view and manage plate data from your IP cameras. It does require a $5 a month subscription to the 'Watchman' plan available at OpenALPR.com. Also there is...

ipcamtalk.com

Or as an alternative, if there is a particular vehicle you want description of, you could run it through autocheck.com

 

[wittaj]

And until you get the sunrise/sunset utility up and running, set a schedule to change for day/night and force night into B/W with IR on full blast and a 1/2000 shutter. It will be a black image, but the plate will show up.

And it is important to set the night schedule to happen about an hour before sunset or it will not find a focus and your plates will be blurry!

 

[srvfan]

Ok, luckily I was able to stop the daytime and switched to night, but not sure if I got it stopped in time.
Below is a clip of the vehicle I posted earlier returning. Looks like a ghost ship going by. I have not had a chance to drive down the road myself for comparison, hopefully tomorrow.
Update; posting a video of myself passing by. Couldn’t wait until tomorrow. As shown, I cannot make out license plate too well. Wondering if more zoom is necessary. Have it set to 1/2000.


View attachment IMG_7125.mp4

 

[wittaj]

Ok, luckily I was able to stop the daytime and switched to night, but not sure if I got it stopped in time.
Below is a clip of the vehicle I posted earlier returning. Looks like a ghost ship going by. I have not had a chance to drive down the road myself for comparison, hopefully tomorrow.

OK - we can fix that.

• Go to auto shutter
• hit autofocus
• Change the speed to 1 and write down the focus number
• Go back to exposure and change it to manual shutter
• Change shutter to 1/2000 - hit save
• Change gain to 0-30 - hit save (this was the parameter probably still on auto)
• Change NR to 40 - hit save
• Go to backlight and put on HLC and try 20 - hit save
• Make sure IR is set to full 100 and hit save
• Go to focus and make sure the number is the same as above
• Now wait for someone to drive by, or go do a test drive.

Most of us have someone stop in the center of the frame and then hit autofocus and then do a small adjustment if needed. So if it is out of focus, do that.

And you are seeing that more zoom is needed at night! With that sunrise/sunset utility you can then have two zooms - one for day and one for night.

You will probably have to also go in and add some contrast to it and probably lower the sharpness.

 

[srvfan]

OK - we can fix that.

• Go to auto shutter
• hit autofocus
• Change the speed to 1 and write down the focus number
• Go back to exposure and change it to shutter priority
• Change shutter to 1/2000 - hit save
• Change gain to 0-30 - hit save (this was the parameter probably still on auto)
• Change NR to 40 - hit save
• Go to backlight and put on HLC and try 20 - hit save
• Go to focus and make sure the number is the same as above
• Now wait for someone to drive by, or go do a test drive.

Most of us have someone stop in the center of the frame and then hit autofocus and then do a small adjustment if needed. So if it is out of focus, do that.

And you are seeing that more zoom is needed at night! With that sunrise/sunset utility you can then have two zooms - one for day and one for night.

You will probably have to also go in and add some contrast to it and probably lower the sharpness.

Thank you for the detailed instructions. Since I had to screw with the NR grade and gain, I had to go off of shutter priority mode and place in manual. I’ve ensured that all of the other settings matched what you stated. Going to leave now for a quick run by and will advise. I’m sure I will have to work on tomorrow, but am anxious to see what all of those changes did. Thanks again.

 

[wittaj]

Thank you for the detailed instructions. Since I had to screw with the NR grade and gain, I had to go off of shutter priority mode and place in manual. I’ve ensured that all of the other settings matched what you stated. Going to leave now for a quick run by and will advise. I’m sure I will have to work on tomorrow, but am anxious to see what all of those changes did. Thanks again.

#whoops - I always get shutter priority and manual mixed up LOL - but you figured it out! Looking forward to the update video!

 

[srvfan]

Well, I guess this will be my last post tonight as I have to get up extremely early in the morning for more training. The adjustments you listed actually got me pretty close. I attached a copy of a snapshot from that test drive. I did edit out the first 3 digits of the plate just for safety; however, I left the majority of the plate for review. It appears as though I may need to zoom in just a tad more and adjust focus. I might also need to find a way to brighten up the visibility of the plate just a little bit, but not sure if that is the Gain setting or what else would do the trick, so I await your recommendations. Then again, tomorrow, I may need to get out there and try to perform the auto focus in the middle of the frame as you listed.

Either way, I want to say thanks again for the valuable advice. Man, just this camera alone has made me realize my lack of knowledge; I never knew there were so many settings on a surveillance camera. Seems like something as small as a squirrel's fart could trigger a huge change to the overall pic.

 

[wittaj]

Looking good!

Gain can certainly go up some, but not much as too much will amplify the noise.

You can use the brightness, contrast, and gamma to lighten without causing too much noise.

Since you are on a deadend street, you could also slow the shutter down which will brighten the image. You could probably get by with 1/1500 or 1/1000 and still capture.

Yep, you are now also seeing how so many people get lulled into the consumer grade cameras that produce a nice bright image, but motion is crap! You need to have the ability to dial it in to your specific setting.

 

[bigredfish]

You can within reason brighten it by opening the iris as well. Try 60 assumning its at default 50

 

[bigredfish]

You sure you have IR set to manual Max?

 

[srvfan]

Alright, sorry for not getting back until now; been one whale of a day.
I have written down the fine tuning you folks have mentioned. I figured I would try one setting at a time so I don’t screw something up and not be able to figure exactly what I did. The latest adjustment was to tweak the Iris up to 55 from the default 50 as @bigredfish mentioned.
@wittaj, thank you for those awesome detailed instructions. That really got me going in the right direction; now all I have to do is small tweaking.
@bigredfish, you asked about IR being at manual max. I hope you mean the Illuminator menu; that is currently set to ZoomPrio with a correction of 50. If I were to change that to manual, would I need to change both near and far light to 100?
Finally, I got a halfway decent picture from a moment ago. You can see the license plate a little better; please forgive me as I had to make a snapshot through the app. I normally use NVR but I’m away from computer right now.

 

[bigredfish]

Improving. Yes Illuminator. Looks like it needs more IR. Try manual 100% and use that as your baseline.

 

[wittaj]

Looking good - I think max IR will clean that up nicely.

 

[bigredfish]

Of course there are bad plates that dont reflect well, need a bigger sample size

 

[srvfan]

Improving. Yes Illuminator. Looks like it needs more IR. Try manual 100% and use that as your baseline.

Roger that. I will move both to 100 and check in a bit. What’s amazing is the amount of IR light I can see from a camera that is watching this cam. With it being at 50, I almost envision it looking like day through the other cam.
I’m hoping that I will be able to post a pic even from the app where I have to do a lot of editing to blur out my plate, lol. I think I am about at that point bc it is getting a lot better using you guys’ advice.
Update; yep it almost looks like daylight out there where the 5241 is pointing. This view says it all lol.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, I have found the Z12 to be an IR light cannon. Even more so than the Dahua PTZ that is supposed to have a longer range.

 

[bigredfish]

Yep, you can always tame it if need be with a faster shutter or the Iris or gain. But use manual max and you’ll know it’s not an IR problem.

One can never have too much ammo, bourbon, or IR