V. Records To Keep

PAGE TWO

Another aspect of equipment that we feel is not touched on enough is “learning about your equipment.” It’s great to know that you have a Kodak, Sony or Nikon camera, but what does that camera do under varied conditions?

For instance, we know that our digital camera, when used at night on the night setting, causes distant lights to lengthen and to appear oddly shaped. Bugs appear fluorescent white. Moisture droplets in the air are a light pink when the photos are lightened in Photoshop, and pictures taken on night mode before dark will be blurred or have double images giving the appearance of a mist or ectoplasm.

Our Sony video camera, when on Super Night Shot, tends to go out of focus momentarily if a bug flies in front of the lens. Bugs appear fluorescent white and moths actually elongate in one frame – almost spine like – due to the change in pixels from normal setting to the super night shot.

Our mini disc recorder picks up sounds from quite a distance such as a barking dog, the whistle of a train, or a loud car muffler. Walking on snow sounds like we are eating a bag of potato chips.

So, in essence, even more important than knowing what “type” of equipment you have, learn what your equipment is capable of and what its limits are and record THAT. Knowing this can allow you to be much more objective when viewing your photos, videos, and listening to sound and help you quickly eliminate something that seems unusual but really isn’t that you might otherwise spend hours trying to figure out.

Weather. Knowing the temperature and humidity before an investigation, we feel, is quite important – mostly for taking photos – and there’s nothing complicated about it.

If it’s 95 degrees and the humidity is low, your photos will most likely be quite clear. If it’s 95 degrees and the humidity is 80%, chances are you’ll see many water droplets that can be mistaken for Orbs in your photos. Moisture in the air at night can be easily seen within the flash of your camera and shows up clearly as hundreds of bright sparkles. The more sparkles you see in your flash,, the more moisture there is in the air and the more careful you must be when viewing your photos.

During the day, when you don’t necessarily use the flash, you can use your body stickiness as a gauge for humidity or find out the humidity and temperature through a weather report in the newspaper or online. We use Weather Bug which can be downloaded to your computer for free.

Remember, colder weather is no different. Even though it’s cold, there is still humidity in the air, so if you want to be as certain as possible that any Orbs in your photos are not water droplets – pay attention to the temperature and humidity.

Wind really doesn’t have much effect on photos, but it can be a real pain if you plan to record sound. Oftentimes, if it is extremely windy, we won’t use the video camera or our recorder. The video camera, though on a solid tripod, can still go out of focus with strong gusts of wind and it really picks up the sound of wind strongly.

However, it is possible to place your recorder at ground level with the wind blocked and still possibly get a decent recording.

Solar and Lunar. If we plan to go out at night, we often write down the time the sun will set. This allows us to plan our investigation so that we have time to explore the location a bit and set up our equipment while it’s still light enough to see. Though we carry flashlights, we very rarely use them, so it is a good idea for us to be familiar with our investigation site.

The phase of the moon is used often by investigators. There have been stories about the powers of the moon since time began and many of the beliefs concerning the moon still hold today. A full moon and a new moon are both said to carry special significance when it comes to spirit activity.

If you want your own proof of this, keep a record of the moon phase to see when you get the most activity.

Again, this will surely vary from location to location, so depending on how serious and thorough you choose to be, you could go to the same location each night to test the moon theory or choose the first night of the new moon, quarter moon, half moon, three quarter moon and full moon in one location and see what results you come up with.