ronp

To chime in with a completely non-technical but very practical issue... If you go with outdoor IR cameras instead of separate IR floods or highly sensitive night-vision cams prepare to invest in a pole and feather duster. Here in NC, from May through October, I have to clear off the spider webs EVERY night. When I'm out of town (when I really need the cameras) I'm SOL. The IR is a spider magnet.

Here's mine. A neighbor had a weathered 2x6 laying in his back yard that I used to box it in. Perfect match to the existing railing. I also had to carve a "notch" in the bush. The camera is zoomed 100% (22mm) and focused to about 30' from the camera so I get the whole back end of the cars and about 100pixels for the plates. I do get a fair number of dog noses and tails, too.

Maybe try putting a small piece of black tape over the light sensor. That should make the IR LEDs come on with more ambient light (dusk/dawn). You may also need to play with the Day-->Night and Night-->Day values to have the camera switch to B/W mode with more light or set it to only B/W mode (I think you did that at one point). Too bad the IR LED's aren't controllable through the menu or tied to the D/N, N/D setting. So you've settled on 1/10000 vs 1/4000? Your high contrast setting must be helping to make that work. I'll give it a try, too.

Let me know how the night images are at 1/10000 - especially at dusk/dawn before the LEDs come on. 1/10000 may not let enough light in but it's worth an experiment. Do you know if the LEDs are locked on in B/W mode during the day? The manual doesn't say. If you have a digital camera or probably a cell phone camera just point it at the the video camera and the LEDs will be glowing white if the're on. It sounds like it's easier for you to experiment than me. My camera is just beyond wifi range so I don't have a way to see a screen to adjust the settings myself. It's a comedy show doing it over the phone... FWIW I used my camera last night. Had univited guests to our dead-end. Called my police buddy, gave him the tag #, and he came up and rustled them out.

Two cameras, one for day (Auto shutter) and one for night (1/4000 shutter), would be perfect though I suppose there might be a $300 single camera solution somewhere out there. But it does seem that for $150, with a little tweaking, these EN-V150K-70 do the job. Couple of notes about the settings: - The default Delay CNT on my camera was 1 (second). I upped that to 10 because I wanted to prevent potential oscillation between night and day mode due to car headlights. - With the shutter fixed at 1/4000 I'm concered a bit about dawn and dusk when the LEDs haven't yet turned on but the camera is still in color mode. It's unclear in the manual if Day-Night and Night-Day settings control the LEDs or if they are controlled independently with the sensor on the front. I bumped mine up from the default just in case figuring switching to night mode in more light would be better, anyway. Maybe a piece of black tape over the light sensor... Eventually I want to try an IR cut filter ($20 on ebay), night mode, and permanently leaving on the LEDs. - I'll play with the contrast and sharpness, too. Upping the contrast can be troublesome if set too high because it can make M's turn into H's, D's turn into O's, etc. There might be a happy medium, there, though. thewireguys: Show off !! " title="Applause" />

Besides 1/4000 and AGC=6 I have White Balance/ATW/Environment=Outdoor Backlighting = BLC (not HLC) ATR=On Day/Night = Auto Delay CNT = 10 (default was 1!?) Day->Night = 20 Night->Day = 30. I'm going to experiment switching to B/W mode and maybe putting on an IR filter to improve the day-time images. I have other cameras that would get car color if needed. Ron

I'm now having good luck with night captures. I have it set to 1/4000 and AGC set to 6 (the default). Bright day pictures are washed out but the plates are still readable. See below. Note that the picture of the Jeep in my previous post was with the shutter set to Auto. It makes for a better day picture but if I had to sacrifice (and apparaently I do for $150) I'd rather have a good night picture. P.S. The manual I got with mine was a single page poorly translated POS. Here's a link to documentation for a camera that appears to have the same software: http://www.smarthome.com/manuals/76190.pdf. It helped me a great deal in understanding the settings.

I think I answered my own question. This afternoon I changed the shutter from auto to manual at 1/4000 and turned on the backlighting to BLC. Daytime pictures are a bit washed out but license plates are still easily readable. Below is a night shot I just took. Perfecto for $137 + $10 shipping.

Despite all the negative comments about a good license plate camera for under $150 I took a gamble on one currently for sale on ebay for $137. It's an EN-V150K-70: 1/3" Sony Super HAD Effio, 700TV Lines, Vari Focal Lens 9~22mm, Electronic Shutter 1/60-1/100,000 Sec, IR 850nM, IR LED Distance 200FT. I have the camera mounted 2' off the ground about 2' off the road. I zoomed in to a FOV about 8' wide at 25' from the camera. The day-time shots are perfect for reading the plates (see pictures, below). But, the night shots are washed out from the IR reflecting off the plates. My question is what settings should I adjust to attempt to make the plates readable at night. The documentation that came with the camera is minimal and in poorly translated Chinese to English (not unexpected for $137). A couple relevant menu options are: Lens (manual/auto), Shutter/AGC (Auto/Manual), Backlight (Off/BLC/HLC), ATR (Off/On). From what I've read, ATR appears to be equivalent to WDR and the HLC setting blacks out the overexposed areas. Do I just need to try manually setting the shutter speed? To what? Maybe try BLC and ATR? Ron

I just installed a license plate cam in a similar situation. I went for 100 pixels/foot. With a 700TVL camera and D1 recording that's 1/7th of the image in width - and only the width of a car. With cars moving less than 30mph I can get several good pictures of the plates as they pass through the field. At 50 pixels/foot I think the plates would be barely readable and I agree with ssmith10pn that this would be the minimum resolution. If you have to cover three lanes you will proabably need two cameras. My camera is a EN-V150K-70, 9-22mm (currently on ebay for $137). I have not gotten it to work at night, however, and have some questions about the best settings for that which I'll put in another post. -Ron