ZoneMinder Forums

I want to capture images of license plate of vehicles driving by.
I have traffic going by at under 25 mph in a residential neighborhood.
Will I be able to capture license plate info with an analog camera?
License plates are always on the rear of the vehicles so I am not concerned with dealing with
reading plates between the glare of headlights.

I noticed that many $100 600 tvl analog cameras allow contrast adjustments so that license plates lettering stands out.

Is this possible to do in this price range or do I need a specialty camera or IP camera?

Yes. An analog camera will be fine at the lowest resolution if it is positioned directly in-front/behind the vehicle at a height of 0.1m and the vehicle goes directly over the cctv camera. On the other hand if you are standing to one side at a distance of 20m even an HD camera wont pick it up.

There is a simple way to check if you have any chance of reading the license plate. Take a picture using your digital camera at the spot where the camera will be mounted. Adjust the cameras zoom so it matches the field-of-view angle on the proposes cctv camera. Put the image on a PC and adjust the pictures resolution to match whatever the cctv cam will give you. I would recommend you even go lower resolution than the CCTV resolution because these days even a cheap digital cameras will get far superior image quality that cctv based units. Can you read the plate now?