Re: Car Park Fees


"Alex Heney" <me8@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g1ll54d7sqeukhvm0djjtt28hhkv1g4e0t@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:57:08 +0100, "PDR"
<peter.rieden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Alex Heney" <me8@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jgui54llrr8jotln0ec7mblk77si87euun@xxxxxxxxxx
Possibly, although unless the accused were alleging malice on the part
of the parking attendant, it is hard to see what he could possibly
gain by taking photographs of two different vehicles and claiming they
were one.

Perhaps he might have a bonus scheme based on the number of "offending"
cars
he finds each week.

He probably does.

That still gives ZERO incentive for him to photograph a different
number plate.


On the contrary, it provides an incentive for him to boost his bonus by
issuing more tickets than he is legitimately entitles to.

If two photos are needed, then all of them would have to be in pairs,
so if you are thinking he could photograph one windscreen followed by
several number plates, that would not work.


No but he could photograph one windscreen followed by an unrelated number
plate. Then another windscren followed by another unrelated number plate
and so on.


Particularly since there would undoubtedly be enough of the colour and
shape of the vehicle visible in the "dash" photo to be able to tell it
was the same model range and colour at least.

If the car in question were a Ferrari or a vintage 4.5litre Lagonda then
this owuld help.

Or almost any other car in existence.


There are certain types of car which do seem to occur in quantities higher
than average.


But what if it were a silver Focus, Silver Mondeo or (even
more common) a silver 3-series BMW? I'm sure it would be quite possible to
show that in a typical carpark there would be at least a dozen of each of
each per hundred cars at any given time [this is a guess, and the figures
are for illustration purposes only].


On average,, there might be as many as two of the same colour of any
given common vehicle in a sample of a hundred vehicles.

If you got a dozen, then you would have a car park commonly used by
people with company cars from the same company.


I grant the exmple was probably exagerated, but similar coloured cars of the
same type do occur in car parks. Obviously not the rarer types or colours,
but the more common types often do.


My living room would almost certainly be significantly darker inside
than out, so what you suggest would be true.

If you can easily see what is on the other side, then so can the
camera. It uses the same light, even though it may be at a lower
resolution.

Not really.

Yes, really.

It is the way light works.


The analogy to the living room ignores the curvature of the
glass.

Which is utterly irrelevant.


Certainly isn't


Most domestic windows have flat glass and so reflectsions can be
avoided by positioning the viewer/camera to suit. Almost all car
windscreens
are made from curved glass, which means that it is almost impossible to
avoid reflections from *any* vantage point.

So are you claiming you can't see the ticket with the naked eye?


What is visible to the naked eye is not necessarily visible to a digital
camera. Whereas the eye as an analogue receptor has the ability to resolve
an enormous colour, contract and brightness range, it would have little
difficulty picking out the subtle contrast change of a ticket on a dashboard
behind a windscreen reflecting the sky. But a digital camera can only
resolve 256 levels of each of just 3 colours. It can easily fail to resolve
what the eye can easily discrn.

I suggest you go and have a look through a car windscreen some day.
You might be surprised.

Or are you suggesting that reflections are for some reason only
visible to a camera?


Thety are visible to both the eye and the camera, but they will obscure
whats behind the glass far more effectively for a camera than for the eye
for the reasons given above.


Secondly the camera focus system
would "see" the glass rather than the ticket behind it, so the picture
would
be unlikely to show the required detail.

What rubbish.

It would have to be using a ridiculously wide aperture for the depth
of field to be so little that anything within six inches behind the
main point of focus was impossible to make out.


Practiclly all simple and cheap snapshot cameras operate at full aperture
until the shutter speed can no longer be reduced. Only then does the
aperture then start to close. Car park operators rarely procure the more
expensive and more capable cameras for their operators. And I am aware of
some *very* cheap cameras that don't have any aperture adjustment relying
entirely on the shutter speed.

I have quite often taken photos of things in display cases using the
most basic of digital cameras, and have never had the slightest
difficulty in getting the items in focus, even though they are further
behind the glass than a parking ticket would be.


This would depend on the auto focus system. Better cameras, and I assume
yours if of this type, use the image itself and a bit of fuzzy* logic to
focus the image on the sensor - it's actually quite a complex thing to do.
Cheaper cameras adopt the cheaper and easier system of using a rangefinder
system based on infra red LED's and sensors. Such a system cannot focus on
any object behind a piece of glass, because glass is completely opaque to
the infra red used - this is usually documented in the user manual. The
former system can also focus on the glass if there is dirt or some other
surface feature on the glass that the logic can latch on to. A splattered
insect can be more than enough.

*Unfortunate name but it has nothing to do with fuzzy images.

And the only times I have had any issue with reflections have been
when trying to use flash.

Whilst this could be negated to
some extent with better cameras and operator training (using manual focus
and probably setting it to infinity might do it) I don't see many carpark
operators providing more expensive cameras and phot0ography training
courses
within their minimum-wage business model.

And there is ZERO possibility that it could be necessary.

Try it, next time you are in a pay and display car park. If your
mobile phone has a camera, I am quite sure that will be good enough.


It may be good enough for a simple staged example (no sky reflected in
windscreen), but I very much doubt that it would be consistently good.


.

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