Tom S
Getting the hang of it
So I like the idea of having mixed cameras that show both an overview and some that are also positioned to where can get a quality kind of face shot.
I look at photos every day in a professional capacity of criminals caught in the act. The key part of that is photos not videos. These photos are published in places where it is hoped that someone can recognize the person in the photo to identify the suspect. I see endless photos that are useless unless it was your friend or family or you just happened to very recently encounter that person where they were wearing the same exact clothing. I have seem some that could have just as well been "proof of bigfoot" as a person. Being able to recognize someone from a still from a video of a person that you do not know well takes a damn good photo or a lesser quality video. But no one looking at this stuff has the time to look through dozens and dozens of videos a day, so a still image it is. You think it is easy to pick out the person in the video when you can recognize the mail man but that is because you know the mail man. Make that a total stranger and get the kind of video image that you can spot the person in the grocery store a week later is a whole different ball game.
This is a long way around of saying that in my opinion, there is importance that having a least a camera or two positioned to where you have a decent chance of getting a high quality up close face shot of a person if the goal is using your camera to catch a bad guy. Add in a quality photo of the vehicle they arrived in and wow even better a plate and now you have a decent chance. I agree with the thoughts here that to get that really good face image means having at least some of your cameras mounted low to where they are in a range to where they can be reached to get that good face shot.
In my opinion there is also a difference where an acceptable camera mounting height is if you were in the back alley of a commercial building then at a residence in a regular reasonably safe neighborhood.
I look at photos every day in a professional capacity of criminals caught in the act. The key part of that is photos not videos. These photos are published in places where it is hoped that someone can recognize the person in the photo to identify the suspect. I see endless photos that are useless unless it was your friend or family or you just happened to very recently encounter that person where they were wearing the same exact clothing. I have seem some that could have just as well been "proof of bigfoot" as a person. Being able to recognize someone from a still from a video of a person that you do not know well takes a damn good photo or a lesser quality video. But no one looking at this stuff has the time to look through dozens and dozens of videos a day, so a still image it is. You think it is easy to pick out the person in the video when you can recognize the mail man but that is because you know the mail man. Make that a total stranger and get the kind of video image that you can spot the person in the grocery store a week later is a whole different ball game.
This is a long way around of saying that in my opinion, there is importance that having a least a camera or two positioned to where you have a decent chance of getting a high quality up close face shot of a person if the goal is using your camera to catch a bad guy. Add in a quality photo of the vehicle they arrived in and wow even better a plate and now you have a decent chance. I agree with the thoughts here that to get that really good face image means having at least some of your cameras mounted low to where they are in a range to where they can be reached to get that good face shot.
In my opinion there is also a difference where an acceptable camera mounting height is if you were in the back alley of a commercial building then at a residence in a regular reasonably safe neighborhood.