On the one hand, it raises unrealistic expectations among a gullible viewing public that a complex homicide can be solved in 26 minutes of TV run time, plus advertisements.

On the other, it has spawned massive interest which has pushed hundreds of would-be Horatio Caines - he's a star of the long-running TV show CSI Miami, for those who are unaware - into the science-based field, meaning that when operations like Australian Federal Police Forensics casts out the net for new staff, it attracts the best and brightest.

A recent round of recruitment at AFP Forensics attracted 580 applications, from which just a handful were chosen.

In a field which exposes its officers to dead and/or decomposed bodies as well as other confronting material. For evidentiary and investigative purposes, it all needs careful photographing, assessing and collecting. Needless to say, this is not a profession for those of a delicate disposition.

And television is incapable of reproducing another challenging element: the potentially stomach-churning odours experienced at a real life scene.

Simone Reynolds, an investigations team leader, felt something wriggling in her hair when she left a crime scene. It was a large maggot which had somehow found its way - or "jumped", as one colleague ruefully suggested - in under her personal protection equipment (PPE) after examining a decomposed body.

She simply shrugged at the recollection.

"It happens," she said perfunctorily.

There are 30 forensic crime scene investigators who serve in the ACT, based out of the federal police's state-of-the-art Majura Road complex. They work in three teams of 10 people, with rotating shifts which start at 7am and finish at 10pm.

Although assigned to Canberra, at short notice they may be deployed almost anywhere if a major international incident occurs, such as the 2004 tsunami off the west coast of Sumatra, or the 2005 Bali bombings.

Investigative tasks range from property crime to homicide, and everything in between.

Their mantra is: "Detect, collect and record."

Gone are the siloed days when crime scene investigators turned up, took photos and samples and disappeared back their labs.

These days, after a murder or a major crime is committed, it's a consultancy style of operation where detectives will usually sit down with the forensics staff and work through potentially dozens of samples that have been collected - whether it's DNA, blood, semen or perhaps a tyre, finger or shoe print - and determine those which need to be prioritised for processing in order to keep an investigation moving.

Detectives know full well that when investigating a major crime and chasing down suspects, the first 48 hours are the most crucial. After that, the trail starts to go cold.

That puts significant pressure back on the various forensics areas to turn results around quickly which, with a constant case workload to juggle and where complex scientific processes are sometimes needed to yield a result, isn't always possible.

"That's where the consultancy element to what we do is important," the AFP's head of crime scene investigation, Andrew Parkinson, said.

"We look to wrap a forensic solution around a problem. We will sit down with the investigating officers and look for the highest value items in a case and prioritise those items.

"Some results, such as a fingerprint that is already sitting on a database, we can get back almost in minutes. Other items, such as DNA, can take one or two days depending on the lab's workload.

"Together, we make a risk-based informed decision on the next steps."