For CCTV camera owners, the zoom feature is one of the must-haves of your security system. This ensures that any suspicious activity will get caught in full detail, especially if a certain incident happened somewhere around the range limit of what the camera can capture. With the right camera specifications, the zoom feature can play a more important role since zooming will not get the footage’s quality affected if the camera specs are really good.
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Take note that not all CCTV camera systems are capable of providing a good zooming feature, since some models are not built to have a zoom-in-and-out feature on their lens. But take note that those that have the zoom feature have more imaginable advantages than those who don’t. In this article, you are going to learn what are the types of CCTV cameras that have this feature installed, as well as the two main types of zoom found in the finest CCTV cameras in the market.
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PTZ Cameras: The Best Camera For Zooming
The PTZ Camera is what you need if you really want a camera that has the capability to provide a zooming feature. PTZ cameras were made since most of the finest CCTV camera types do not have the pan-tilt-zoom feature. The pan-tilt-zoom is a mechanism that allows the camera to move on any direction you want the camera to view, and you can also zoom it in for a clearer means to capture scenes that are quite far if the lens are set at default magnification.
The PTZ cameras function so well just like a CCTV camera, but with the capability for you to completely control the camera. This is one of the best types of cameras that you can have if you own a business or a large property like a warehouse, but with guards that are monitoring the while security system. In this way, your personnel can have an easy time capturing any suspicious activity because they can take a closer and more detailed look if they spot something even when the PTZ mechanism is not yet in use. Talk to your local PTZ camera installation expert about the best locations to put your cammeras.
The Two Types Of Zoom
Now that you’re familiar with the best type of CCTV camera available in the market, you should be familiar with the types of zooming features that you can access not just with PTZ cameras, but with other CCTV systems that have decided to add such a nifty feature. Here are the following:
Optical Zoom
This is the standard zoom mechanism present in some camera lenses. Basically, this is the physical means of zooming an image through the lens, whether you are using a wired or wireless camera. This is the feature that’s present in PTZ cameras and other high quality CCTV systems. The quality of the optical zoom may or may not get affected if you zoom closer. This depends on the megapixel of the camera lens, as it determines how much pixels will be in use when a footage gets zoomed in.
For the best optical zooming features, it’s always best if you can get the maximum magnification possible for zooming in with the camera. Security cameras that range from 3x to 20x optical zoom. Though there are even models that can provide up to 50x zooming capability, but these are extremely expensive as they are more on the higher-end technology scale compared to those that have 20x optical zoom.
There are three known types of optical zoom camera lenses. The first one is the manual varifocal optical zoom cameras, which is known to be manually adjustable even before you start operating the camera to capture some footage. These are oftentimes waterproof as well, ensuring utmost durability, and has a knob to help you adjust the varifocal lens on the camera when needed.
The next one is the Motorized Optical Zoom cameras, which can let you adjust the magnification of your zooming features remotely using an app that’s connected to these cameras. That’s why this is present in most IP cameras rather than the other CCTV camera types. Last is the classic PTZ camera that we highly recommend if you really need the best camera for your zooming needs.
Digital Zoom
The other one is the digital zoom, which is basically a feature present in the surveillance app only, rather than being present on the camera’s specifications. This does not assure a quality that’s exactly as good as the optical zoom, but it can still do the magic of zooming in more details. However, digitally zooming a video usually affects the quality of the footage, which often leads to a blurry image. This is not recommended when zooming on very far areas of the video.
With all of these in mind, it is safe to say that technology has gone a long way in making our cameras more useful than ever before. Just remember that zooming is not impossible with CCTV systems, as technology improves over time in a way that will make our lives much easier. If you are in doubt about what camera to get you could always get advice from your local CCTV installers. They will be able to advise you on what is good for your specific circumstances.
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