camera to read number plates at night

[sut1576]

hi

i could do with some help please. i have had several attemps to steal my wifes motorbike and while i have video cameras that catch them in the act the police are not interested unless i can get perfect face images or number plates of the cars coming up the road.
the videos i have just show the car number plates as bright white and no detail can be made out at all. ( i will try to upload a video so you can see what i mean. )

can anyone recommend a good camera i can add to my system ( floureon model A6908NHS-UK ) to allow me to view car number plates at night,

or even a setting that may need changing to improve how the camera picks up at night.

thank you for any help,

 

[Darkness]

I have installed quite a few Hikvision DS-2CD4A25FWD-IZS & Hikvision DS-2CD4A26FWD-IZS for that exact job this past 18-Months.

If it was just for daytime then cheaper cameras would have done but these type of cameras are essential.

I must look to see if there are any other recent cameras that fit the bill.

If you could use floodlighting in the area, you could use ultra low level cams to produce a nice colour image and not need to worry about IR issues.

 

[bernardgreen]

Having the light source remote from the camera will help.

Number plates are designed to reflect light from another car's lights back to the driver of that car in order to make them very visible at night.

The camera is swamped by the light reflected back from the number plate if the light source is next to the camera lens

 

[secureiam]

Light reflecting back is an issue, but as the light you see coming back form a camera is IR, some cameras can filter out the IR so that can help.
There maybe other light sources to account for though.

LPR/ANPR cameras usually have higher specs, including frames rates (not cheap), I would have a look at what features the LPR cameras have and see if you can get something close to that spec on a normal camera, tall order possibly, then its trying to find footage of these cameras looking at number plates in the day and the night.

Faster the car is travelling the higher the frame rate of the camera the better chance you have or reading the plate.

remember that higher frame rates means more data, so storage can then become an issue unless the camera only stores captured plates in one stream and a lower frame rate for the vehicles actual movements.

The question is what is your budget? The above mentioned HIK camera is about £400 each seem to be discontinued and haven't found the Hik replacement equivalent

 

[secureiam]

https://www.eezycctv.co.uk/hikvision-2mp-ir-lightfighter-bullet-ds-2cd4a25fwd-izs-802-p.asp are saying they have it in stock, but may not be the case

 

[Sally2000]

ANPR cameras on car parks or over roads work well because the car is moving directly towards them, so there is no lateral movement of the image. The image gets bigger but is relatively static. My cameras clearly identify the number of a car coming into the front gates, but not one driving past because the plate is moving across the screen.
As for the IR reflection, all of my cameras are set to permanent daylight with no IR. There is enough light from streetlights and house lighting to get a reasonable colour picture on a 3Mp Hikvision.

 

[secureiam]

there is an optimal angle for anpr but cant for the life of me remember what it is.

you may want to look at you camera settings so that if the street lamps fail you still get b&w, I had a HIK camera on permanent day mode, but when the street light failed it was pants, so set it up now so if the street lamp fails I still get good images albeit b&w

 

[Notch7]

i have had several attemps to steal my wifes motorbike

Cant you just ask her for the keys......

 

[sut1576]

thank you all for the help and advice,

 

[Keithmac]

What bike is it and is it parked on the drive or in the garage?.

 

[Bodgeitandleggit]

tbh I think it will be a waste of time as the van will probably be stolen or on false plates... this has been happening alot in yorkshire and the reg number is useless

 

[Sally2000]

Even on stolen plates, if the number is flagged on the ANPR database the vehicle can be detected and stopped. It happens!