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    ALPR: anyone have a 100mm lens they like?

    In my state both front and back plates are required, but that is seldom enforced based on what I see. Most new cars here have no plates at all (allowed for 90 days after sale, until a new law takes effect in 2019). Plus some plates are dirty or otherwise unreadable. I'd say it's a good idea in...
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    ALPR: anyone have a 100mm lens they like?

    FYI, in case anyone else wants to do something similar. I wanted to try a lens with manual adjustable iris, so I got a used Nikon f/2.8 100mm Series E lens, plus Nikon F mount to C adaptor. This works pretty much as well as the Canon lens, at lower cost. I ended up leaving it open (at f/2.8)...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    Four images for comparison. Wide and Tight, with Internal IR On (manual: 100%) and Off. From the tone of the car in the driveway in the two "no IR" images, it looks black zoomed in, but is gray in the wide shot. So like most lenses, this lens gets dimmer as it is zoomed in. All photos same...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    In this position, the internal IR lights up the lawn in the foreground, and the taillights on parked cars even across the street, but relatively little effect on skin or clothing in the position where I'm standing, which is about 50 feet away from the camera. That is what I'd expect, since they...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    I may be asking too much of it. I've got the internal IR turned off to avoid bugs etc. As you see from the shadows I have some IR spotlights mounted on the garage where the camera is looking, Nearly but not quite fully zoomed in, 1/30 sec, Manual, Gain 0-20, 3D NR Off. H.264 CBR 10 FPS, 4096...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    My unit finally arrived. It looks better in low light, but it's tricky to compare these cameras when the exact noise-reduction settings make such a huge difference. I thought I had a great image with everything static, Manual, 1/30 sec, Gain 0-50 and 3D NR ON. Then someone walked by, and it was...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    I got notification my HDW5231 is being shipped, after a month of waiting. EDIT: I see the news already popped up here as I was typing it. Thanks for the updates.
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    door checkers caught

    To clarify- the PIR sensors trigger on changes in heat. If the sensor is pointing only at the garage, it won't see the headlights shining on the garage, because the garage hasn't been heated up by them. But if the sensor has a view of the road it will see the headlights, because the headlight...
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    IR Cannon w/Adjustable Focus

    Mine's still OK, but it's only been running for 1 month, and it's cold outside now. I assume failures would happen more in summertime due to heat.
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    door checkers caught

    Thanks for the tip. I just got an Optex LX-802n and it will reliably detect me walking by slowly at 60' away in the default ("medium") sensitivity setting. The pattern is really tight, so I can avoid the plants to one side that always wave in the breeze. More expensive than what I had before...
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    (on sale for $234) FLIR TCX T4325BN Thermal IP camera

    The demo video for that PathFindIR II camera is pretty impressive. A bit pricey for the typical consumer but I assume prices will come down further with time.
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    Feed two PoE cameras with one network cable

    Nice tip about fully utilizing the 8-conductor cable. I'm curious about your FLIR T4325BN camera, which I gather has a resolution of 80 x 45 pixels. Does that give you a useful image?
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    ALPR: anyone have a 100mm lens they like?

    The lens works fine without auto-iris. I guess most security cams except for box-cams have fixed iris. The camera compensates the exposure by using a shorter exposure time during the day. It is true, wIth most lenses you only get the best resolution somewhat stopped down, but as you can see...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    The Starlights are good cameras, but while we wait for availability you can still make do with earlier models the old fashioned way: add a lot of light to the scene. It's easier if you have a fairly narrow angle of view, you can choose more focused fixtures that make a given number of watts go...
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    Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

    I tried to order a HDW5231R-Z from aliexpress (BEC Technology) on Nov.22, but no shipment yet. Today got this note: "i just have a bad news to share here, the HDW5231R-Z now having a little delay, dahua reply there has some problem for the chips of the batch they are producing. They are solving...
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    LED Floodlight Placement?

    The setup sounds possible. For plates, you want as head-on a view as you can manage. If your camera has a good view down the street, it is easier to capture plates looking along the street into the distance, because then the car's motion is mostly towards or away from you, and motion blur...
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    LED Floodlight Placement?

    I don't know if you expect to get plates or not. If so, all of the license-plate reading cameras I have require manual exposure control; I can never depend on auto-exposure to give a usable image at night. Auto-exposure might work if I could use enough lighting to literally turn night into day...
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    LED Floodlight Placement?

    I find that with the light a few feet away from the camera, the insects (and the spiderwebs that follow them) don't interfere much with the camera view, but it's still close enough so the illumination is almost the same as right next to the camera, for reasonable distances anyway. You can...
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    ALPR: anyone have a 100mm lens they like?

    As a side note, either my settings are wrong, or the designers of the camera haven't used it much with a lens this long. During the day, when a car occupies nearly the entire frame, it is not detected as an object, so the "line crossing" feature is not triggered with larger vehicles. It works at...
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    In the spirit of Christmas, I'm going to war... who's coming with me?

    In my experience the IR lights that use many small LEDs like the one you linked (198 LEDs) are not as good as those that use fewer but larger LEDs. I have some 6-LED UNIVI brand lights that are much more effective than similar-priced lots-of-small-LED lights. In your case, I'd think a...
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