Greetings my great Legion,
At the moment, my Kickstarter prep is coming to a close. It’s lies in wait as the launch is approaching. So this frees up some time to discuss something that I may have mentioned in passing before, but it weighs on me greatly.
Paranormal Photos
People assume in the modern era of technology that things in the photographic world continue to grow and exponentially expand technologically. However, the basics remain, and have somewhat plateaued, similar to vehicles.
Cars have been the same since their inception, engine, 4 wheels, and oil. However, they have come a long ways in iteration. To me, though, it seems that they have pretty much stayed the same, stripping away screens and electronics. The transmission was a big step, I suppose, but so was film to digital.
Much the same can be said about the camera. Bare with me now and my one semester in photography, but you have the aperture, focus, and shutter. These components are in your phone all the way to a professional camera and work similarly. A real camera has a lot more range, but it is still subject to many many variables.
So, when taking a picture, the photograph’s greatest ally is bright light that feeds into the aperture. If you lack light, even in soft shadows of tree canopies, it can change the outcome of what a photo captures tremendously. So a camera has a nice little tool it utilizes, for quick pictures, inside it called ISO. What this tool does, is it takes what pixels of light the camera can read and expands them. However, this obscures the overall picture because all these light pixels are distorted as they expand. This exposes itself the most in automatic camera shots, which is what is default on phones, and not the best way to take pictures for a professional grade camera.
How does one defeat this problem with light? Well, you can have a flash, which does nothing in dim or dark woods because the light of a flash just spreads through the great openness before you, OR you can get a tripod and a tether button. The shutter of a camera can be slowed down so that all the light in the area has time to be observed by the camera’s mechanisms. However, a slow shutter speed requires absolute, rigid steadiness of the camera and the subject. Even pressing the button on the camera with a finger will still cause a blur; So enters the tethered button and tripod. This opens another can of worms in the photo taking process of a fleeting moment that can happen as fast as 3 or 4 seconds. So not only do you have to EXPECT to see something significant in a SPECIFIC spot, but it has to be ABSOLUTELY still to not turn out blurry.
Zooming in also calls for similar steadiness. The further a zoom goes out, the shakier it gets because the area being observed is getting smaller and smaller. Have you ever tried to take a picture of a brilliant, vibrant, beautiful moon on your camera? Yeah, always turns out awful. Videoing something is subject to many of the exact same variables.
I do recall that phones are taking better pictures now with AI as far back as 2023. But that still just calls into question what the camera sees, not what is actually in front of you. The AI is just filling in the gaps of what the photo is “supposed” to be.
I really recommend checking out this video as YouTube’s Bob Gymlan demonstrates all these conundrums at the very beginning. Just without the knowledge of a cameras I have.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s just not that simple to capture a convincing photo. Even if a crystal clear photo was taken, it’s going to be denied as concrete proof. I think anyone in the paranormal field discussion should have come to this conclusion by now. But those of you outside of it should be a little more thoughtful when one is brought before you.
Thank you all so much for your reading.
