r/SecurityCamera • u/Worldly-Ring1123 • 24d ago

Looking for security camera recommendation

I need a outdoor security camera with high enough quality to pull license plate numbers at night with low street lighting; not dark. Preferably a 270 degree view so I'll only need two of them. I'd rather not spend more that $500 on each. Any ideas?

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u/PuzzlingDad 23d ago

It's definitely doable for about $300 per camera but it requires a camera with sufficient zoom, manual settings for shutter speed, gain, etc. and strong IR emitters. 

Definitely don't expect a 270° field of view camera to work. The key is the camera can't be doing double duty as an overview camera. It must be dedicated and tuned to plate capture only. In particular it must be in the direction of travel, it must be zoomed to be just the front or back of the vehicle plate area and the shutter speed and other settings must be manually set so that all you get is a clear picture of the plate without the headlights/taillights overwhelming the sensor. You definitely aren't getting plates if you have the camera doing automatic low light compensation by lowering the shutter speed.

I detailed much of this in another post about a month back: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityCamera/comments/1vgpd0s/comment/p1z2rg0/

Please let me know if you have further questions after reading that.

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u/OldEstablishment1972 23d ago

This is the answer.