PTZ security cameras provide users the ability to pan, tilt, and zoom in all areas, making it highly efficient for focusing and tracking moving objects in high-definition. These cameras are great for monitoring outdoor environments, especially large residential areas. Additionally, many PTZ cameras have in-built auto tracking software which allows the device to focus on a detected target by panning, tilting, and zooming on the object.

Related Article: 7 Reasons to Get a PTZ Camera

FAQs
1. How are pan, tilt and zoom functionalities effective for surveillance?
Panning

• The camera can swivel to the left and right, allowing it to have a wide area of coverage
• Pan can range from a complete 360 circle to smaller areas

Tilting

• The camera can tilt up and down, giving it a wide vertical range of coverage
• The amount the camera can tilt will vary by camera model, but goes up to 180 degrees

Zooming

• Optical zoom physically adjusts the camera lens, changing the focal length to zoom in and out; this allows the camera to maintain image quality

The amount of optical zoom is expressed as #x, such as 18x, and represents how much the camera can zoom (change the lens focal length)
2. What is auto tracking in PTZ?
An innovation to the PTZ camera is a built-in firmware program that monitors the change of pixels generated by the video clip in the camera. When the pixels change due to movement within the camera’s field of view, the camera can actually focus on the pixel variation and move the camera in an attempt to center the pixel fluctuation on the video chip.