## Camera Tips for Documenting Perp Activity

### December 19, 2004

When perpetrators physically damage your property in some way that is clearly not natural, such as sawing through a piece of furniture, that is a terrific opportunity to photograph and post the evidence.

The problem is that most cameras don't have closeup capability, at least the lower priced cameras. There is a way around that. You can tape an eyeglass lens directly over the camera's lens. Ideally, the eyeglass will be something like 2x (2.00 power) or more.

When you do that, your viewfinder will give too wide a view, but that's OK - just be sure the damage, such as the sawed end of a furniture leg, right at the center of the photo.

If you don't have glasses handy, some relatively inexpensive reading glasses are available at pharmacies. Choose 2.00 to 2.50 power. You can remove the lens from the frame to make it more convenient to tape over the camera's lens.

FLASH is BAD for getting clear closeups. You'll usually get bright white, totally washing out all detail.

The best light for closeups is near a window, or outdoors, on a bright day but NOT IN THE SUNLIGHT - same problem as with flash - you'll usually get everything too bright. Household electric lamps are OK - just don't get them really close or you can wash out the details of the damage.

Position the cut/torn or otherwise damaged object so shadows make the damage more obvious. If holes are involved, put something of contrasting colour behind the holes to make them stand out.

When you are holding the camera, remember without flash, a camera needs to be held steadier than usual. If you have a tripod, use it, but if not, move some piece of furniture near the item to be photographed so you can steady your arms and camera on it.

Take SEVERAL photos at different distances. A digital camera will give you an on-screen preview but even there, a couple of different distances will ensure you get at least one good photo. With a 2x or more powerful lens taped over your camera's lens, you should be able to get somewhere from 16" close and hopefully down to 10" or so.

When you post the photo on a web site, or send it to someone for posting, please be sure to supply the date and some sort of identification, even if you want to keep your identity anonymous. A date on a photo and even a false name are far better than nothing. Also, supply a sentence or two about what happened before you discovered the damage. Such as: "I came home from work and found this ... " etc.

If you digitize (scan) a photo to be posted, please learn how to do these three things to the photo before sending it (check your scanner's help screens, especially the Index for instructions):

- CROP off the excess unused space - a scanner normally produces an 8.5" x 11" image which is HUGE (Save the photo.)
- Reduce the BITS PER PIXEL, also called number of colours. Many scanners scan at 24 bits per pixel, when all that's needed are 8 bits per pixel (256 colours) (Save the photo.)
- IF the size of the image is wider than a screen, which is usually 800 pixels wide, RESIZE (sometimes called resample) the image so that the image fits within one browser screen. I normally choose 750 pixels as my maximum width for perp damage photos. (Save the photo.)

Just scanning and sending a digitized photo can mean you are sending a one MEGabyte file, which is way too big to be sent by email to people who have dial up service, and that is most targets, because high speed service is expensive.