Help with whitewashed license plate

[kamkar]

TBH i have no idea if a CPL will work / alleviate some plate reflection, but i dont think so ( having been using CPL for years ) the top video above with my X cam with the 12 mm lens it had no CPL filter.
The X cam was also build with the old / though still used OV 4689 sensor ( not particular good with low light compared to the best performers in that field today )

 

[kamkar]

And be advised even in the daytime a plate capture are still not a given thing, though then it is not reflections in a plate that is the problem, so getting in the habit of seeing and calling out plates are by no means a bad habit for a dashcam user.
Low light perils is not something you only see after dusk, even on a bright summer day with clear blue skies, if you drive into the shade of a building or trees, that can prompt the camera to select a night time setting that really are too slow for anything fast moving, and so you loose plates to motion blur instead of reflections.
Again also a issue that face all dashcams, and no one do particular good with

 

[SawMaster]

Even in daytime, plate capture is not certain. With reflective plates at night, it's the worst-case scenario for dashcams and none will do well.

In the daytime, a good 4K cam has advantages but they don't do so well at night. Nighttime you can sometimes do better with 'lesser' sensors like the IMX323, but not always, and those don't do really well daytime. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's no one dashcam that is going to do everything well.

IMHO and some will disagree, the best cam for nightime plate capture is probably the A119s, mostly because it has heaps of modified firmware done for it making it easy to fine-tune for a specific job just by loading a firmware that gets you the qualities you're looking for. The IMX323 sensor isn't so easily overwhelmed by brightness, but it's low pixel count also means less detail in general. In all other situations there are better cams to be had nowadays, but it's not too bad overall. It's a single-channel cam so it won't help with rear views, but nothing works decently capturing front plates at night due to the headlights of those cars behind you.

The DR900s isn't a bad cam so maybe keep it for daytime and general purposes, then add an A119s for night-time work and also as redundancy for the front cam. Every cam is a compromise in some way, no one cam does everything best.

Phil

 

[kamkar]

People also tend to forget that really dashcams are a defensive weapon, and as such it work 100% logging your driving day and night and even in the fog.
BUT it can of course also be used offensive against all the bad motorists out there, that haven't done any harm yet, but really with their driving thats just pure luck.
But that is also where the cameras will start to struggle, especially in the hopefully rare situations where a plate capture are all you need to get on with things.

 

[jokiin]

Curious...going forward, does Blackvue make a camera that would have done the job in this situation?

no

Does any camera do this night job properly?

there are certainly cameras that perform much better than Blackvue, still no guarantees, no camera will get the all the details in all situations regardless, much higher odds with some models though

Would the polarized lens filter have helped with the headlight reflection off license plate?

no, CPL is to help with internal reflections from your windshield

 

[TonyM]

If you're doing a lot of driving at night you might want to take a look at the A119 V3. I believe there is a beta FW that uses HDR, taking alternate slow and fast exposures.

There may be some blurring caused by movement between the two exposures, but the 'dark' frame seems to perform better than most cameras for number plate capture at night.

 

[Nigel]

Thanks all for your help. I drive for Uber and Lyft mostly at night. So I am dismayed that the one time I needed this $600 setup to work, it failed me. I will definitely say the license plate out loud the next time I'm in this situation. Curious...going forward, does Blackvue make a camera that would have done the job in this situation? Does any camera do this night job properly? Would the polarized lens filter have helped with the headlight reflection off license plate?

Another thing you can do is to turn your lights off for a second, the plate is then not overexposed by the reflection, and at least with filament bulbs you will get a good frame or two as their light fades out. Not something you are likely to remember to do in the situation above, but if you can get them at the traffic lights then that will work well.

The filter should make things a little worse rather than better.

Few cameras would have reliably done a good job of that, there was too much motion blur up until the plate was directly in the headlight beam and thus over exposed. You either need a camera with really good dynamic range or one with decent HDR, probably the most likely dashcam to have caught that is as TonyM suggested above, the Viofo A119 V3 using the recent HDR firmware upgrade. The Blackvue does have some advantages over the A119, but if you do a lot of driving at night then it may well be worth having an A119 V3 sitting alongside, it is reasonably small and doesn't cost much, and has a much better image sensor for nighttime use, along with a higher bitrate so will very often do better in daylight too, even though it is half the resolution.