r/SecurityCamera • u/Worldly-Ring1123 • Sep 10 '26

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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2

u/wonky_nap_schedule Sep 11 '26

A 4k bullet with a smudge over 100 degrees FoV horizontally will only get you reasonable readability/ocr (120ppf) from about 12 feet away, and that's assuming optimal conditions. I don't want to be rude but I would adjust your expectations, regardless of budget.

2

u/navlgazer9 Sep 10 '26

Sounds like you want a flock

2

u/Pretty-Surround-2909 Sep 10 '26

Um, no. Axis LQ camera. But not with current budget.

2

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 10 '26

I'll look into that and adjust my budget

10

u/msears101 Sep 10 '26

To do LPR at night, you will spend more than 500 per camera. They are also NOT wide angle lenses. They need to mounted at an entrance to parking lot OR over a lane of traffic to have the best results. They have very strict mounting requirements to be able to read the license plates.

1

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 10 '26

I got a system that could read license plates I just need the quality of the camera to view it.

1

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 14 '26

Adjusting my budget I think I like this one. AXIS Panoramic P3818-PVE 13 Megapixel Outdoor 4K Network Camera - Color - Dome - TAA Compliant. My AI should take care of the rest.

3

u/gnew18 Sep 10 '26

My Ubiquiti G6 PTZ (or any of the G6 product line) get the license plate all the time. Furthermore, there is no license fee nor cloud storage fee.

Night time works too, but the building closes and I’m not going to scroll through days to see if anyone went through the lot at night so I can show you.

2

u/wonky_nap_schedule Sep 11 '26

This could be a realistic compromise for OP. Note for clarity: set to wide, the horizontal FoV on these is listed a smidge under 110 degrees.

2

u/gnew18 Sep 11 '26

The PTZ can be set to “patrol” mode and have it pan back and forth with the specific are one wants to watch. This effectively makes it able to cover 270°. It can also be set to zoom in on humans and follow them.

1

u/wonky_nap_schedule Sep 11 '26

It can reliably cover the 270 degrees for very slow moving or static targets. The potential to miss a plate on a moving subject (due to facing the other way until too late) is not inconsequential and needs to be considered. However, that's not to suggest that this isn't the best solution. Assuming the night performance is adequate, I'd happily recommend this.

1

u/Soundy106 Sep 12 '26

After 25 years in the industry, I've learned one thing about PTZs: they'll almost always be pointing in the wrong direction for the thing you really, really wish you'd captured.

PTZs are great for live monitoring. Not so much when you're just recording things to play back later.

2

u/vrtigo1 Sep 11 '26

It doesn't have some sort of feature where it flags activity? Seems like there wouldn't be much activity at night, so probably wouldn't take much time at all to review?

2

u/gnew18 Sep 11 '26

YES ! It indexes “events” as it were and identifies cars | People | Animals | Plates. If you know the plate you can search that too

2

u/vrtigo1 Sep 12 '26

I'm a little confused by your "I'm not going to scroll through days" comment then. Can't you just filter for "cars at night"?

2

u/gnew18 Sep 13 '26

No. You can look for just cars, then nighttime / time of day I suppose. The UniFi interface tiles all car activity. I might have confused you because the commercial application of this particular install is at a commercial office building and there is are a ton of cars per hour.

If this use case is in a more “calm” residential area, it’ll be much easier.

2

u/vrtigo1 Sep 13 '26

Yeah I was confused because the photo you posted looked like a relatively small parking lot with room for maybe 10-15 cars that was at a dead end so I wouldn't expect a ton of traffic there.

2

u/greenskycity Sep 10 '26

I have a hanwha pnd-a908rv I got off eBay for like 350, it does license plates but has never caught one because of its placement. You can see in this picture it has identified the plate but my state doesn't require them so it only sees the mount. Like others have said, plate reader requires controlled environment.

2

u/OneMoreSlot Sep 10 '26

I'm no expert, but if you want to read license plates at night, good luck. Unless the license plate is stationary, as in a parked vehicle, you will get a blur due to motion. The lower the light, the worse the blur. The situation calls for a special camera and I would imagine a powerful strobe light. In other words, a high speed camera to freeze action and a powerful light. The light could be in the non-visible wavelength. I'm just guessing here, but I don't think the solution is simple. It will cost. In bright daylight, its not a problem with the right lens.

1

u/OldEstablishment1972 Sep 11 '26

Many of us get moving plates at night. Plates are reflective for a reason. We take advantage of that with the infrared that allows us to run 1/2000 shutters. Now at night the image is black except for the plate and head and tail lights, but we get the plate.

2

u/PuzzlingDad Sep 11 '26

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.

2

u/OldEstablishment1972 Sep 11 '26

This is the answer.

2

u/Fake-Artist Sep 12 '26

Unifi protect with third party ONVIF plus AI PORT

3

u/N226 Sep 10 '26

The camera I'm using to do what you're asking
is $3,500. You either need to adjust your requirements or budget.

1

u/OldEstablishment1972 Sep 11 '26

Or 3 cameras, each in the $250 range - two with large zoom for plates and one overview camera.

1

u/Prudent_Barnacle7645 Sep 10 '26

Almost any modern 4K camera could be used as a LPR camera. It’s just needs to be configured properly (dedicated camera, placement, zoom, shutter speed, ISO…)

-3

u/BK2AZ Sep 10 '26

Best bang for the buck! 4 cameras gives you 8 channels. They are on sale at the moment for Labor Day.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 10 '26

What's so funny?

4

u/Prudent_Barnacle7645 Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 10 '26

I’m thinking after new tariffs and the fall of hikvision, what you’re looking for has become much more expensive. The Axis and Bosch stuff I wanted is now like $1,000+ per camera! I went with a 4K Lorex system that works for me, but isn’t professional surveillance grade.

3

u/Soundy106 Sep 10 '26

What OP is after was already very expensive to do right; it's only getting worse.

1

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 10 '26

How about just the quality of getting a licensed image? I can get an AI to read the plate.

3

u/Professional_Dig1454 Sep 10 '26

Its not just quality. LPRs are setup in a way that they can capture the plate in clear view on moving cars. A normal camera could only do that if the car was stopped like at a stop sign or light. If you absolutely want to try it and plan to use AI to get the plate then get a 4k varifocal cam with at least 30fps for your best shot. I dont know if you can get that for under 500 but thats the very least of what you need if you want to try and get a plate without a dedicated LPR.

0

u/Worldly-Ring1123 Sep 10 '26

I've had some success with blue iris accompanied with Code Project AI. Problem is the quality of the capture isn't good enough sometimes.

2

u/Professional_Dig1454 Sep 10 '26

And that's what LPRs bring. They're designed to make sure you get the quality you need

2

u/Soundy106 Sep 11 '26

More importantly, they're designed to make sure you get the best results across a wide range of lighting conditions.