r/reolinkcam•
BdaBng

Optical Zoom/Distance Question

PoE Camera Question

TL/DR: will a 4K camera with 5x optical zoom capture license plates at 30m/100ft?

I am in the process of purchasing and setting up a security camera system on a new construction home that will use POE cameras and a NVR. During construction I thought far enough ahead to run Cat 6 Ethernet cables to every conceivable location I could think of at the time and in many locations such as the corners I ran two or more depending on the location. I even ran Ethernet to the doorbell location in hopes that future doorbell cameras would hit the market which they now have.

I have enough other camera locations to cover the whole lot which will likely be CX410s so I can dedicate a camera just to capturing license plates. The home is located at the end of a dead end street and there is an excellent choke point visible through my driveway entrance to the road where vehicles will be driving at a relatively low speeds before the road ends. I measured this out and the farthest mounting location on the front porch that gives the best angle of the road is right at 30m/100ft. There is also a relatively bright LED streetlight at the end of the street that illuminates license plates as the vehicles come down the road so I am hopeful nighttime performance will be decent. If I move the mounting location a little I can shrink the distance by approximately 3-6m/10-20 feet but the angle to the road increases which may/may not be better.

My question is will a 4K camera with 5x optical zoom such as the RLC-811A bullet camera or similar give me enough zoom and clarity to capture license plates? I understand there are higher zooms models, up to 16x zoom, but they are big and I’m trying to maintain some aesthetic and the bullet cameras will almost be invisible the way the porch eaves are constructed and painted. I also have seen people recommend LPR cameras for this application but every review I have read on the affordable ones is that they are near useless.

Open to other suggestions as well.

Posted Sep 23, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

15
mblaserModerator•

The short answer...

At night, absolutely not.

During the day? Probably, but it depends on how fast the car is moving.

1
TroubledKiwiModerator•

TLDR 2.0.

Maybe, but more than likely not reliably for a North American plate.

1
shwaaboy•

Yes, but only at very low speeds and without contrasting light from that direction. We can two cameras pointing at our ‘IN’ driveway and our ‘OUT’ driveway at our company. At least one of them gets the plate.

1
livingwaterRedSuper User•

There are several YouTube videos about reading license plates. Some expensive cams are made specifically as license plate readers. The average home security cam will not work good for this especially at night but you can try.

1
BdaBngOP•

An LPR camera was my first thought but the only ones that seem to work are in the $600-1000 range or more. The $150-300 cameras seem to have very poor results or only work for a few months to a year before burning out. I was also hoping to stay in the ReoLink ecosystem. I will likely give it a go and if it doesn’t work I will use that camera elsewhere and maybe there will be better options coming in the future. Seems like this is a decent need as the police have said that without a license plate or a good face shot there isn’t anything the can do. Obviously stolen plates/vehicles requires further investigation but if they can tie to other events there could be other information that can help.

1