April 28, 2013 — Gene and Chris Talk Shop with Goggs Mackay

[Goggs Mackay]

https://soundcloud.com/snd.sc%2F10hIic3

Can I take it that you too fell under the spell of 'The Unexplained'? at a young(er) age? It was undoubtedly the first real reading of anything paranormal I had done. I must have been younger than 10 at the time - I was born in '73.

I really appreciate you posting the photo of the record and taking the time to put the mp3 up too - dunno if you'd already converted it yourself or you did it so it could be posted here, but either way, big up yourself from me man.

 

[red_pill_junkie]

Can I take it that you too fell under the spell of 'The Unexplained'? at a young(er) age? It was undoubtedly the first real reading of anything paranormal I had done. I must have been younger than 10 at the time - I was born in '73.

I really appreciate you posting the photo of the record and taking the time to put the mp3 up too - dunno if you'd already converted it yourself or you did it so it could be posted here, but either way, big up yourself from me man.

I also was born in 73! And I take great pride in it, knowing that year saw one of the biggest UFO flaps of all time.

Been waiting for the mothership to return ever since

 

[nameless]

Can I take it that you too fell under the spell of 'The Unexplained'? at a young(er) age? It was undoubtedly the first real reading of anything paranormal I had done. I must have been younger than 10 at the time - I was born in '73.

I really appreciate you posting the photo of the record and taking the time to put the mp3 up too - dunno if you'd already converted it yourself or you did it so it could be posted here, but either way, big up yourself from me man.

yeah i converted it, but when i posted the file on the forum it kept saying error and so i posted it like 5 times thinking it hadnt gone through, Dont know if it was a bug or my blind idiocy. Anyhoo , nae bother, its a bit poppy/scratchy there maybe clearer copies out there but i thought i'd do it anyways. Check out the clutching at straws kooky weirdness all you EVP fans. As a side note, this record was sampled by The Smiths.

 

[nameless]

I used to have quite alot of the Unxeplained mags and also Man Myth and Magic too which was like another epic precursor to that mag, well worth checking out. The unexplained mag definitely fuelled my passion further.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I used to have quite alot of the Unxeplained mags and also Man Myth and Magic too which was like another epic precursor to that mag, well worth checking out. The unexplained mag definitely fuelled my passion further.

I haven't heard of the other two. I still remember how much the photo of the woman who apparently spontaneously combusted, leaving an intact chair and one leg. Really creeped me out that one.

 

[mike]

Sure don't look like a Tardis to me.

A type 40 tardis looks like this........
That is to say its smaller on the outside than it is the inside

Type 40 TARDIS: A Brief Overview | Matt's Notepad

TARDIS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Goggs Mackay]

@Nameless -forgot to say also that the scratchy sounds from the EVP record is actually great - takes me back to vinyl days. A welcome bit of audio nostalgia in my book!

 

[rekkaa]

Good show. I personally disagreed on one point.

Film. It's gone. Let it rest (unless you have tons of money/time/film skill/film stock).

Yes, it would be nice to have something as nice as original exposed negative in the digital world. There is not. Even Canon's image data verification system, that was supposedly designed for crime forensics image verification, has been hacked.

There is no way to easily, fast and without expertise to authenticate original digital camera file authenticity - whether you leave it in the digicam or not.

Still, shooting film gives you less dynamic range, less resolution, more noise, less sensitivity (in low light), more issues in development/printing, limited blowing up, more costs, more exposure problems, slower shooting speed, no photo/video combination combo possibility, etc. Yes, there are benefits like original negative is harder to fake, no need to do (as much) colour correction, etc.

However, all in all, it's such a limitation that I'd only use film on a totally manually metered camera that requires no batteries at all, in an instance where all electronics (are likely to) fail.

Other than that, even with the more likely/easier faking, digital in photo still and video, give so much advantages that for new shooters it makes very little sense to use it.

And yes, I have several film cameras have loved them and shot a lot on them, but they can't hold a candle to any of my digicams not to mention videocams.

What everyday citizen ufology really needs is near-IR capable relatively long optical zoom, large sensor, non-miniscule sensor equipped camera that is cheap, shoots 60p minimum in hd @ high bitrate and is easily availble. However, that is unlikely to happen and even the best of smart phone cameras (Nokia 808) can't hold a candle to a good pocket digicam. At least, not yet.

Personally I'd recommend people buy a camera that is low noise under low light (read dpreview/dxomark reviews), has roughly APS-C sensor size (larger gives you huge lenses), shoots at least 60frames in progressive in video mode and is less than 20Mpix in resolution (more will just give you more noise). My personal take is Sony Nex-series, but Fuji has nice cameras as well. As an inferior alternative there are bridge cameras from Canon, Sony and Fuji that have c. 50x optical zoom that one can buy for less than $500, but they have much smaller sensors and worse image quality (i.e. you think you get more resolution from pixels, but you just get more noise).

 

[Goggs Mackay]

And for those of us not fluent in Tech? Sounds like you really know what you are talking about. So large sensor, large optical zoom and don't worry about huge amount of pixels, compared to sensor size, is that it?

Thanks for posting - it's great that we always seem to have members who know their stuff.

 

[rekkaa]

Sorry, I wrote a bit in haste and perhaps my recommendations weren't so clear.

Sensor size almost directly dictates the physical size of the camera and the size of the lens (for particular focal length). That's why a bridge camera like Sony HX300 with a tiny 1/2.3" sensor can have a fairly manageable size 50x zoom on it. On a much larger size 35mm full frame camera (say Nikon D800) the same zoom would be a meter in length and weight c. 15kg or so. Not very pocketable.

The downside with small sensor is that they work with less light, produce more noise and give out less working details once the image is blown up to 1:1 size. But having an image to work with, because you had a camera you could carry, is better than having a perfect image from the huge full frame sensor, that you could never have taken, because you couldn't haul the gear.

My compromise falls between these two sizes: 1/2.4" sensor and full frame 35mm sensor. The size is called APS-C. There are many DSLR cameras in this range. The smallest come from Sony (Nex series) and they still have decent image quality up to ISO 3200 sensitivity. Of course, you won't get the super-long zooms that are available on the aforementioned 50x zoom bridge cameras, but the image quality is better.

So, if I were to buy now, I'd buy a camera that I can carry as often as possible (i.e. you determine the size, based on your needs/limitations) and within the budget that is available.

Then I'd go to dxomark.com sensor database:

DxOMark - Camera Sensor Database

And look for a recent camera in my price/size range that has as high "Sports (Low-Light ISO)" score as possible, unless you are thinking of only shooting in bright daylight, in which case this hardly matters. This determines the amount of noise (or lack of) that you'll get when shooting in less than ideal lighting conditions (say 90% of UFO photos/videos?).

A decent camera to start with in this regard would be Sony NEX-3N.

Then it's finding a maximum zoom lens for that so that you can get the objects closer. Unfortunately, the larger the sensor, the bigger the lenses are. In case of NEX, a 18-200M would give you a decent range (11x zoom factor), but not get objects that are very far.

To shoot objects that are very far away, one needs to go to the 50x zoom range cameras. Out of the current generation (5/2013) the choice are pretty much:

Sony DSX-HX300, 24mm-1200 (50x)
Fujifilm SL1000, 24mm-1200mm (50x)
Canon Powershot SX50 HS, 24mm-1200mm (50x)

They all shoot video too and have optical stabilization (which is a must when shooting at the far end of the zoom range). However, they all have a dinky 1/2.3" sensor, which gives a lot of smudge in detail and plenty of noise. But you can get one for $400-$500, whereas going the dslr body+lens route, one usually has to pay the same for the body alone and another for a decent lens.

So it's all a compromise.

One additional thing I'm experimenting with also myself is removing the infrared frequency filtering piece of glass from the front of the sensor inside the camera. This will totally muck up the colours in any subsequent videos/photos and may even mess a bit with the autofocussing, but it will extend the ability of the camera to shoot into the near-infrared frequencies (say up to 1000 nm or so). If one wants to go further, one can buy a visible light frequency cut-off filter that then lets only near-IR to the camera sensor.

This way it is possible to "see" through the camera things that the normal naked eye cannot see or sees very faintly (in clouds/smog/sky). I've done this modification for one of my videocameras and while all of the ghost hunters also seem to do the same, it hasn't magically transformed me into a super UFO hunter, but it's fun to learn with. However, the downside is that this camcorder is now pretty much a UFO-videocam/art projects type faux colours camera only. Not usable for everyday family stuff anymore, unless your family likes to take a lot of acid...

That's pretty much all I know on this. Not much, but passing it along.

I think the field of ufology would benefit a lot if there were are bit more decent cameras out there in capable hands, although I think that in the end the whole issue will be solved by huge/cheap camera/sensor arrays shooting nightskies 24/7 and then computer analyzing them for changes/movement. I think there's plenty of movement/stuff in the sky, it's just that nobody has time to keep looking at the whole coverage of the sky 24/7. That's why we miss a lot of stuff.