[jaggederest]

KH-11 had a theoretical resolution in the inches. "Not quite good enough to identify faces." Those were first launched in the seventies, so I assume they are doing much better now. I think it's safe to assume 5cm or better resolution on a minutely refresh.

[glasz]

makes you wonder why the imagery floating around with reporting on war zones and incidents are of such bullshit quality.

even the supposedly recorded-with-mobile footage is always so bad. as if the person is stumbling around not knowing their phone's cammera is rolling.

[c22]

I assume militaries don't provide news outlets with their highest resolution spy imagery as to not disclose the extent of their capabilities.

I'd also suspect anyone recording a news-worthy "incident" on their mobile phone in a war zone has other priorities than maintaining a stable image.

[ceejayoz]

> makes you wonder why the imagery floating around with reporting on war zones and incidents are of such bullshit quality.

Hard to say what you're talking about without examples, but stuff like military targeting cameras are frequently 1970s tech, and looking via infrared to boot. There's plenty of high-res footage from war zones available.

> even the supposedly recorded-with-mobile footage is always so bad. as if the person is stumbling around not knowing their phone's cammera is rolling.

Being shot at has that sort of effect. That said, there's some pretty remarkable 4k drone footage coming out of ISIS these days, along with lots of GoPro footage.