423 replies to this topic

[Abramelin]

TheMacGuffin, on 11 October 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:

I think we both know what the game is.  I'm just very skeptical of all our resident "skeptics", and with good reason.

You have been moaning about skeptics for pages on end now, but did you ever try to figure out what the object could be?

No.

[TheMacGuffin]

Abramelin, on 12 October 2012 - 03:20 AM, said:

You have been moaning about skeptics for pages on end now, but did you ever try to figure out what the object could be?

No.

I sure know what it isn't because the only real analysis ever done on the picture concluded that it wasn't a bird, plane or frog.  No one has done any better--not as far as I can see.

[ufoscan]

I haven't read all the arguments back and forth but did examine the picture and read the "analysis" on ATS.

It's past four am at the moment so I will contend with posting this pertinent clip...

[Abramelin]

It has indeed been suggested it may have been a bag.

However, I have some problems with that because the center of the object seems to be a perfect round sphere, and inside a ring-like structure. A few blobs attached in front of the ring, and something going from the backside of the sphere at the left down to the ring.

.

Edited by Abramelin, 12 October 2012 - 12:31 PM.

[synchronomy]

ufoscan, on 12 October 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

I haven't read all the arguments back and forth but did examine the picture and read the "analysis" on ATS.

It's past four am at the moment so I will contend with posting this pertinent clip...

*kill hoax video*

What did this guy do?  Did he take a trip to Crete and search for plastic bags to photograph?
Although it can't be proven what the object in the original photo is, I don't think it's a plastic bag.  I agree it could be same trash blown in the wind, but I just don't think it's a bag.
...and I'm not saying it's an ET craft, I'm just saying I don't believe it's a bag.

[ufoscan]

Abramelin, on 12 October 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

It has indeed been suggested it may have been a bag.

However, I have some problems with that because the center of the object seems to be a perfect round sphere, and inside a ring-like structure. A few blobs attached in front of the ring, and something going from the backside of the sphere at the left down to the ring.

I read the description of a round sphere with something attached to it on ATS and I agree it can look very much like that.  But that would still leave it open to be a silver foil helium-filled stray mylar balloon.  All the clip shows is that there are indeed plastic bags and other garbage on the ground where the picture was taken.

Here is my position on some of the comments I have read here and on ATS:

What we know: The photographer claims she did not see the object and that said object only appeared in one of the several pictures she took of goats on the road.  The photographer is said to be a well-known and successful professional photographer but she remains anonymous.

The picture:  We are told that the picture published on ATS is the "original", but it is not.  The picture we are shown is a highly compressed version since it is only 433Kb in size while the original would be several Mb large.

Nonetheless, the compressed version was not stripped of its EXIF data and this data tells us much about the settings on the camera when the picture was taken.

f-stop was: f3.2
shutter speed was: 1/1250
focus distance was: 0.58 meters (1 foot, 11 inches)
ISO was: 80

One argument that was repeated several times was: If she is a pro photographer, How come is she using some puny little compact camera ?

The camera she is in fact using is a Canon S100.  In spite of its small size, it is actually a very sophisticated camera with full manual controls including manual focus.  It also has a RAW setting.  The G and S series Canon compacts (G7, G9, G10, G11, G12, G15... S90, S95, S100, S110) are often chosen by pros as "carry everywhere" cameras because they feature many of the advanced settings found on DSLRs yet are extremely pocketable. So I don't find it surprising that she would be carrying one while on vacation instead of some bulky DSLR equipment.

http://www.dpreview....views/canons100

The "problem" I have here is not that she is using a compact camera but that - for a pro - she has not bothered at all with adjusting the settings that are available to her on this camera for an optimal shot - other than using the lowest ISO of 80.

Many people have argued in regards the "likely" focusing distance, yet the exact focus distance was recorded by the camera and appears on the EXIF data.  The focus distance is 0.58m or one foot eleven inches !

This means that the camera was left to focus on a very near subject and therefore keeps most of the scene out of focus.  Let me demonstrate this by referring you to the online depth of field calculator:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

input the camera model as Powershot S110 (has the same specs as S100)
input focal lenght of 5.2mm
input f-stop of f3.2
input subject distance of 0.58m (or 1.9 feet)

Now check the values at the right and you will find that the area of sharp focus in the scene is  only from 0.43 meters to 0.88 meters !!!!

This essentially means that anything beyond one meter (roughly 3 feet) will be out of sharp focus !  In other words, with this setting, an object only a few feet away would lack sharpness.

This leaves fully open the possibility that in spite of being somewhat blurry, the object in the picture could very well be only a few feet away from the camera.

Had she instead focused on a subject a few feet farther away, the entire scene would have looked sharp.  Therefore I am puzzled as to why she would choose to focus on a very near subject when her intention was to record the scene of the goats on the road.  It looks more like she was more concerned with having the picture of herself in the door mirror in focus....

The next question to address is of course the fact that the photographer claims she did not notice anything in the sky when she took the pictures and that the "object" only registered on a single picture.

Of course it's very tempting to suggest an extraordinary explanation for this:  An invisible alien ship became visible for an instant just so as to be recorded by the camera and then disappeared...

But what is the likelihood of this when compared to the more simple explanations ?  Not very.  The fact that the object was not seen or "noticed" by the photographer simply suggests that what was airborne at the time of the picture was of an ordinary nature and did not attract the attention of the photographer.  It was not taken into account when the picture was taken, since all her attention was focused on the goat.  So yes, something ordinary, airborne and blowing in the wind would not have registered in memory, no more than garbage littering the streets is remembered by most people.

But in the end, what we have is a photographer that chose to focus the camera on a very near subject instead of on the scene (focusing at 2 meters would have made everything in the scene from 1 meter to infinity sharp)  and a picture showing a blurry undefined object that is airbrone and could be anywhere from a few meters away to several meters away.  Hardly the ideal UFO picture !

[badeskov]

Hi ufoscan,

You raise some very valid points and kudos for your analysis. However, there was just one little, tiny point I'd like to add to:

ufoscan, on 12 October 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

<snip>

One argument that was repeated several times was: If she is a pro photographer, How come is she using some puny little compact camera ?

The camera she is in fact using is a Canon S100.  In spite of its small size, it is actually a very sophisticated camera with full manual controls including manual focus.  It also has a RAW setting.  The G and S series Canon compacts (G7, G9, G10, G11, G12, G15... S90, S95, S100, S110) are often chosen by pros as "carry everywhere" cameras because they feature many of the advanced settings found on DSLRs yet are extremely pocketable. So I don't find it surprising that she would be carrying one while on vacation instead of some bulky DSLR equipment.

http://www.dpreview....views/canons100

The "problem" I have here is not that she is using a compact camera but that - for a pro - she has not bothered at all with adjusting the settings that are available to her on this camera for an optimal shot - other than using the lowest ISO of 80.
<snip>

My wife and I are by no means professional photographers, but we dabble a bit in photography and have some pretty decent cameras. However, my wife always carries her small, compact camera in her pocket for those spur-of-the-moment pictures where we either don't have our big cameras with us or it is tucked away in the camera bag on the back seat. We don't expect the professional grade images with the composition being all perfect and everything, but just those funny pictures you take that you are not going to have hanging on your wall or the like.

Otherwise, I agree with all your points raised.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Edited by badeskov, 13 October 2012 - 01:18 AM.

[Chrlzs]

Sorry about the long post.. (and Badeskov beat me to it, much more concisely!).. but, hey, I've included some pretty (if irrelevant) pictures for some light relief..

ufoscan, on 12 October 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

I read the description of a round sphere with something attached to it on ATS and I agree it can look very much like that.

I'd suggest that the 'roundness' is pretty rough, and it is very difficult to determine its true shape given that the colours are similar to the background sky, it is out-of-focus and possibly motion blurred.  I disagree with a certain analyst's use of the term 'domed'.  This is after all a 2d image - and there is nowhere near enough resolution to be making guesses about any 3D aspect.

Quote

What we know: The photographer claims she did not see the object and that said object only appeared in one of the several pictures she took of goats on the road.

This might suggest:
- she may have been concentrating on the image on the camera's screen - if so, given the closeness of the colours to the sky, the object may not have been easily visible - anyone who uses such a small screen camera will know that the screens are not very good in bright daylight (and who knows how clean/unscratched her sunglasses were.. ).
- the object may have been very close, and again if she was focusing on the screen or on the distant scene, a passing bug might not have registered, or if it did, her brain would have discarded that memory by the time she was reviewing the images..

Quote

The photographer is said to be a well-known and successful professional photographer but she remains anonymous.

She may well be, but in my humble experience the louder one tells you they are a professional...

Quote

We are told that the picture published on ATS is the "original", but it is not.  The picture we are shown is a highly compressed version since it is only 433Kb in size while the original would be several Mb large.

True, but segments of the image in an uncompressed form were posted, and ATS staff claimed to be offering it the original files to those who they recognised (hmm..) as credible researchers.  I didn't ask, as I doubt whether there is much more info to be gleaned, frankly.

Quote

The camera she is in fact using is a Canon S100.  In spite of its small size, it is actually a very sophisticated camera...

Agreed.  While the S100 wouldn't be my first choice, I also have a choice of several cameras inc a DSLR, an EVIL (grin), even a medium format.. but my carry-everywhere camera is a simple Canon S130IS - it's a little more capable than the S100, but same sort of thing..

Quote

The "problem" I have here is not that she is using a compact camera but that - for a pro - she has not bothered at all with adjusting the settings that are available to her on this camera for an optimal shot - other than using the lowest ISO of 80.

I'm not sure I agree - I go into 'lazy' mode when on holidays, and unless I'm shooting something that *deserves* special care - eg a nice landscape or sunset  shot like..

or

...then I might take special care, but otherwise I mostly leave the camera in 'program' (semi auto) mode and do NOT manual focus.  Its choices are mostly correct and its focus is usually reliable.  In a case like this, knowing that the car doorsill and mirror would have been autofocused by the camera, I *might* simply have pointed the camera to something I wanted it to focus on, half-pressed the shutter button to lock focus and then recomposed to take the shot..

Importantly, manual focus on these cameras is slow awkward, fiddly and quite difficult in daylight due to the small screen.  The large amount of depth of field in these small sensored cameras also means that manual focus is difficult to judge and isn't all that important in *most* daylight shots - this one only went wrong because of the foreground clutter, which the camera decided was the subject.  So even if she is a professional, this is a mistake that many photographers (myself included, at times) would make, especially on a non-critical snap like this.

Quote

This means that the camera was left to focus on a very near subject and therefore keeps most of the scene out of focus...

The important thing to note here is that the level of blurring of the object is very difficult to accurately measure, and could also be affected by motion blurring.  Further, the blurring could indicate that the object was either closer or *farther* than the focal plane chosen by the camera.

So it just doesn't help all that much..  And contrary to the ATS analysis, the light-bluish colour tells us *nothing * about the object's distance. Yes, it *could* be affected by haze, but it could equally simply BE that colour!

Quote

But what is the likelihood of this when compared to the more simple explanations ?  Not very.  The fact that the object was not seen or "noticed" by the photographer simply suggests that what was airborne at the time of the picture was of an ordinary nature and did not attract the attention of the photographer.  It was not taken into account when the picture was taken, since all her attention was focused on the goat.  So yes, something ordinary, airborne and blowing in the wind would not have registered in memory, no more than garbage littering the streets is remembered by most people.

Absolutely agreed.

Quote

Hardly the ideal UFO picture !

Indeed not.

[ufoscan]

badeskov, on 13 October 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

Hi ufoscan,

You raise some very valid points and kudos for your analysis. However, there was just one little, tiny point I'd like to add to:

My wife and I are by no means professional photographers, but we dabble a bit in photography and have some pretty decent cameras. However, my wife always carries her small, compact camera in her pocket for those spur-of-the-moment pictures where we either don't have our big cameras with us or it is tucked away in the camera bag on the back seat. We don't expect the professional grade images with the composition being all perfect and everything, but just those funny pictures you take that you are not going to have hanging on your wall or the like.

Otherwise, I agree with all your points raised.

Cheers,
Badeskov

I don't see where we disagree.  That's exactly what I said !  And again, let's be clear about one thing:  The S100 is a very sophisticated compact with RAW mode, fast lens and a larger than average sensor (for a compact).  It definitely is a good choice for a pro that wants to travel light although recently, the Sony XR-100 has taken its place as king of the advanced compacts - but at a cost ...

[ufoscan]

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

I'd suggest that the 'roundness' is pretty rough, and it is very difficult to determine its true shape given that the colours are similar to the background sky, it is out-of-focus and possibly motion blurred.  I disagree with a certain analyst's use of the term 'domed'.  This is after all a 2d image - and there is nowhere near enough resolution to be making guesses about any 3D aspect.

I agree with most of what you say here except that motion blur is less likely with a shutter speed of 1/1250

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

This might suggest:
- she may have been concentrating on the image on the camera's screen - if so, given the closeness of the colours to the sky, the object may not have been easily visible - anyone who uses such a small screen camera will know that the screens are not very good in bright daylight (and who knows how clean/unscratched her sunglasses were.. ).
- the object may have been very close, and again if she was focusing on the screen or on the distant scene, a passing bug might not have registered, or if it did, her brain would have discarded that memory by the time she was reviewing the images..

Yes of course.  But I also think that something ordinary such as a bag or balloon drifting in the wind would simply not register even if it were in plain sight - given that her attention was completely focused on the unexpected situation of goats on the road...

Just imagine yourself in the same situation.  You're driving down a road and suddenly there are a dozen cows blocking it.  Would you at that point notice and remember a plastic bag drifting in the wind ?

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

She may well be (a well-known and successful professional photographer), but in my humble experience the louder one tells you they are a professional...

I don't think this is the case here.  They did check her background and mentioned she has a facebook page outlining her credentials and exhibitions as well as webpages dedicated to her work...

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

Agreed.  While the S100 wouldn't be my first choice, I also have a choice of several cameras inc a DSLR, an EVIL (grin), even a medium format.. but my carry-everywhere camera is a simple Canon S130IS - it's a little more capable than the S100, but same sort of thing..

I'd have to disagree on the SX130IS vs the S100 !  The S100 has a larger sensor, Digic V, faster lens, RAW mode, in-camera HDR, better low-light performance as well as several other features not found on the SX130IS.  Of course, the zoom on the SX130IS has a much greater range.  But the point of the S100 is extreme pocketability.  All this of course is quite beside the point...  The "shooter" did choose the S100 to take with her !  

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

I'm not sure I agree - I go into 'lazy' mode when on holidays, (...) but otherwise I mostly leave the camera in 'program' (semi auto) mode and do NOT manual focus.

I am not suggesting that she should have focused manually, just that she should have directed the camera at a point a bit further away so that the autofocus would have chosen a focus distance that would have increased the depth of field substantially.  All I am saying is that it looks like it was important to her that her image appear clearly in the picture of the goats and in so choosing a close focus point, it made most of the picture loose the sharpness it would have otherwise had.  In other words I am saying that...
1) it's a missed opportunity (the UFO might have registered far sharper than it did) and
2) the near focus point makes it clear that the object did not need to be very far away to lack sharpness.

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

In a case like this, knowing that the car doorsill and mirror would have been autofocused by the camera, I *might* simply have pointed the camera to something I wanted it to focus on, half-pressed the shutter button to lock focus and then recomposed to take the shot..

Yes.  Exactly that.  That's why I think she may have intentionally tried to make sure that her image would appear clearly on the picture.

Chrlzs, on 13 October 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

Importantly, manual focus on these cameras is slow awkward, fiddly and quite difficult in daylight due to the small screen

The trick here is to use the scale instead of attempting to focus visually on the display.  One sets the camera focus manually to a hyperfocal distance (based on the aperture setting and focal length) and leave it there.  Not fumble with trying to focus visually.  In the end though, it's likely that the close focus was intentional and for sure it is the cause of most of the image lacking sharpness.

Bottom line is that the camera did focus on a very near subject (This is not a theory or a guess since the focus distance, focal lenght and aperture are all recorded in the EXIF data and can be double-checked by anyone.) and consequently, most of the picture (beyond three feet...) is out of sharp focus.

Ironically (as I pointed out in my original post), had she focused at two meters instead of roughly half a meter, everything in the picture from 1 meter to infinity would have been in focus...

Moral of the story:  Next time you see a herd of goats, don't aim the camera at something half a meter away !

Edited by ufoscan, 13 October 2012 - 05:37 AM.

[Chrlzs]

ufoscan, on 13 October 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

I agree with most of what you say here except that motion blur is less likely with a shutter speed of 1/1250

Yes, but... a close range bug will traverse quite rapidly - and of course it's angular velocity that will cause the blur.  Also, if we were serious about working it out, we'd need to know exactly how that camera/sensor combination implements its shutter speeds - there are issues like the 'rolling shutter' effect that can muddy the waters.  I doubt if that would be an issue with this camera, but it's one of the many things that needs to be considered for a genuine analysis.  Personally, I just don't think this blob warrants the attention it has already got, let alone more..

Otherwise I agree entirely, and I'll also admit that my knowledge of the S100 was not complete - you're right, it is a bit better then my 130 (even if this image doesn't really show it... ).  Still, I prefer the 130's lens range tho'!

Quote

Moral of the story:  Next time you see a herd of goats, don't aim the camera at something half a meter away !

At last - sensible recommendations for all ufo-imaging wannabee's!!    (that's only half tongue in cheek..)


BTW, I just took another look at the ATS thread - some of the later posts are quite hilarious, either by demonstrating how people haven't bothered reading anything except the first post, or by showing how, armed with a copy of any image editor and the ability to adjust sliders and magnify images, anyone can become an eggspert..!

[mcrom901]

[synchronomy]

mcrom901, on 13 October 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

That's the famous "monkey from mars" http://www.msnbc.msn...me-lab-display/

...but it's not a UFO and it's not from a picture in Crete.

[TheMacGuffin]

synchronomy, on 13 October 2012 - 05:45 PM, said:

That's the famous "monkey from mars" http://www.msnbc.msn...me-lab-display/

...but it's not a UFO and it's not from a picture in Crete.

It's just McRom, and he took too much LDS in the Sixties.

[booNyzarC]

TheMacGuffin, on 13 October 2012 - 06:03 PM, said:

It's just McRom, and he took too much LDS in the Sixties.

He did what to the Mormons in the Sixties?



Yes, I realize you intended to say LSD...