PTZ camera
Pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras can be remotely controlled to pan across an area, tilt up and down, or zoom in and out to cover more area with a single camera.
What is a PTZ camera?
PTZ stands for pan, tilt, zoom, and that’s basically what they can do. Instead of viewing the same location like a dome camera, you can remotely pan PTZ cameras left and right or tilt the angle up and down to cover more area. Once you see something of interest, you can also zoom in for a better view of what’s happening.
Note that, while you can pan and tilt the camera to see different locations, only images in frame are recorded. This limits the value of PTZ cameras compared to fisheye cameras.
Find suspicious cash handling within your business
Learn how easy it is to uncover suspicious cash handling in our self-guided tour.
Why are PTZ cameras important?
PTZ cameras give security and loss prevention professionals more flexibility in camera placement. With the handy zoom function, PTZ cameras can be placed further away from the point of interest. Furthermore, while PTZ cameras can be more expensive than dome cameras, a business may be able to use fewer security cameras and save money overall.
PTZ security cameras brought a lot of value to loss prevention when they were first released. However, since then, fisheye cameras have mostly replaced the technology. With a fisheye camera, video is recorded in all directions at once.
We have a separate article that describes all the different types of security cameras for business, including PTZ cameras.
