Rubbish pictures

[Dodge 0]

Ok chaps you are the experts i have just got my first system a Geo 16 Camera card 100fps and one yes one day and night Camera vari focal lens 40 irs £200 worth.

The thing is that during the day i cannot make out my reg no on the car

which is about 40 foot away also at night it is all blured when i put my flood ligt on its fine .

Now i am thinking are these day and night cameras really up to the job

because if you can not make out a number plate at 40feet whats the point of cctv or are the box cameras with seperate lighting the thing?

Just for the hell of it i used my Digital photo camera pointed it a the reg no and was very clear yet this cctv set up in fuzzy.

I await your thoughts

[CameraGimp 0]

First thought. The number plate is blurry....Is it focused?

 

Seriously if it is blurred at night with lights off but ok with floodlights on it sounds like a focus issue. If your camera has a motorised lens then you need to focus the camera when the lens iris is fully open. This is due to depth of field reducing as the iris opens. You can either focus it at night or put a filter in front to simulate low light.

 

As to the issue of not being able to read a number plate at xx feet. There are two things that will influence resolution. The resolution of the camera and the field of view. The resolution is going to be pretty fixed, I'd guess you bought a high res camera with 480TVL? If that is the case changing camera isn't going to make things better (much).

 

Field of view. A camera a 100m away with a big zoom could have a better resolution of a number plate than a camera that is 20m away with a wide field of view. So the question is how large is the number plate as a ratio to screen size?