Silver pill-shaped UFO filmed near Greensboro

[spacebret]

1 minute ago, ChrLzs said:

OK, I'll come back in a day or three - I just don't have time to be teaching people what can and can't be done right now.  I will go back and address all the stuff you said in post 119, but that's about it.  In the meantime, have a think about what you have claimed - namely to be able to work out distances (although I see you are now backpedaling on that..) from a very blurred frame - and then give us an example of how you have done this successfully and verifiably before.  Eg, using a commercial passenger jet?  No?  I thought not.

Yes, there are ways to work out a RANGE of distances that might apply, but they require a number of assumptions (and one piece of information I'm pretty sure you don't have) and it will be a RANGE, not a single distance like your 5950 feet above - stating it with such accuracy is a good indication that you have not done this sort of thing before.

 

I never claimed to know an exact distance. I am not back peddling at all about the distance of the object. In fact if you watched my follow up video it discusses why I cannot know the distance of the object. I claim that it appears to be at least a mile away based on certain factors, and I make multiple assumptions to show different distances and scales to provide healthy information as to the size of the object at a certain distance. If you think me pointing out that the hyperfocal distance can also have some sharpness on something half the distance of the hyperfocal distance is an important fact to state or add to an already lengthy video, then that is fine, and honestly I thought about it, but it is way too confusing for most to think about all of that. I wanted to simplify it as much as possible, and yes it is a mute point because that makes the object smaller and I already said I cannot rule out small object. Also I cannot at this point know where exactly the focus is in the range of focus, I just know that it must be near the hyperfocal distance. 

[spacebret]

Most aircraft I see are beyond that hyperfocal distance and it becomes impossible to judge the distance with my setup. 

Edit: In fact it becomes impossible to judge the distance of objects past about 100 meters with my set up because the metadata becomes completely unreliable past that distance. 

Edit2: Just to clarify, hyperfocal distance with the same set up as the video with the object means anywhere from 5950 feet to infinity feet. If I say the object is near that distance it means it could be anywhere in that range. Also it can have some sharpness at 2975 feet. Hyperfocal just means the light from the subject has gone parallel for that specific lens setup.

Edited February 12, 2019 by spacebret

[onlookerofmayhem]

@spacebret

Not sure if it's your auto correct or what, but just to let you know :

This is just a PSA. Take no offense.

[spacebret]

Thank you! Grammar is not my strong suit.

[the13bats]

Aw man, we have beaten the p*** outta this poor soul over his lack of photography skills and the blurry crappy image and hes been for the most part enduring and talk about low blow now we slam his spelling but perhaps in this case "mute" point does fit

[ChrLzs]

I still don't have time for all this just now, but I have to ask...

On 12/02/2019 at 5:26 PM, spacebret said:

Most aircraft I see are beyond that hyperfocal distance and it becomes impossible to judge the distance with my setup.

Yes.  But it's more complicated than that...  Like I said, I'll be back, but regarding one issue...

On 12/02/2019 at 5:26 PM, spacebret said:

Edit: In fact it becomes impossible to judge the distance of objects past about 100 meters with my set up because the metadata becomes completely unreliable past that distance.

Can you explain exactly what you mean by metadata, in this comment?  Are you getting metadata off each individual video frame (if so, please show us the data for the frame in question).  If not, can you list off the actual metadata you used, and also show us the equation (or the address of the website calculator) and thus the full calculation you made..?

In particular:

On 12/02/2019 at 5:26 PM, spacebret said:

Edit2: Just to clarify, hyperfocal distance with the same set up as the video with the object means anywhere from 5950 feet to infinity feet

?  You said autofocus was on....?  So what focal distance was set for that frame? - where did you get that number from, and what accuracy applies..?

[spacebret]

@ChrLzs Since filming the object I discovered raw files have metadata that can show distance of the focal plane.  I figured I could do a series of test shots and then attempt to recreate the shot using the same settings, and approximate the bokeh in manual focus as close as I could to tell the distance. I discovered two things while doing this.

1. The distance shown in the metadata for these raw image tests, focusing on planes, stars or the moon far away, gave me very strange numbers. It could say a little over a hundred meters away or infinity distance away. I took this to mean it was completely unreliable. 

2. It does not matter if I recreate the shot because the hyperfocal distance will come into play. If the object is far away, the bokeh will not matter, and calculating distance will become impossible. The hyperfocal distance is short enough to where it seems likely the object is already at least that distance.

I did not do a bokeh test beyond seeing if I could recreate the shot. I can create roughly the same bokeh, but I suspect even if the metadata was accurate, this would have been a shot in the dark at best for discovering the distance.

I used Picture Information Extractor PIE 7.00.10.80 from picmeta to show the focus distance of raw photos. I got onto that software by searching if there is distance metadata in GH5 movie files, and there is not. 

The hyperfocal number is based on the physics of light hitting the sensor at a fixed aperature and focal length. It has nothing to do with the object, just the distance at which the light will go parallel and things beyond that distance will be in focus. I do not know all the science behind this, but I do know that some lenses, zooms in particular, will allow you to go past infinity to account for temperature and pressure changes in the mechanism of the lens. The lens used does focus past infinity or the hyperfocal distance.

The hyperfocal number can be calculated by sensor size, aperture and focal length. I used the calculator at pointsinfocus.com to input that information and get the hyperfocal length as well as relevant frame size. Have to account for the 1.4 in camera teleconverter crop to make the width match up. Sensor is GH5 micro four thirds or 2.0x on the calculator. Focal length is 400mm. Aperture is 6.3. The distance does not matter for calculating hyperfocal distance.

Edited February 14, 2019 by spacebret
Grammar

[ChrLzs]

4 hours ago, spacebret said:

The distance does not matter for calculating hyperfocal distance.

????  Quote of the week....

Please read the following and try to understand it - hyperfocal distance is "the distance between a camera lens and the closest sharply focused object with the lens focused at infinity".

It is simply used as a guide to the depth of field in which objects are in focus, given a focal length (ie zoom setting) and an aperture setting and the lens set at infinity.  It can be used at other distances, but you must know what distance the lens is focused at, and you must have a sensible way of determining what is 'sharp'..  It is NOT generally used as a way to determine distance, and if it is, you would at best just get a range, AND you need to know the distance the lens is focused at. 

I repeat that hyperfocal distance does NOT tell you an object's distance from the camera, other than that it will be between infinity and the hyperfocal distance IF IT WAS SHARP - your frames are NOT even close to sharp, anyway!  And your camera was autofocusing - it was almost certainly NOT set at infinity.  Hyperfocal information is simply not useful for what you are trying to do.

 

This time I really am giving up.  If you are going to continue contradicting yourself and also not even beginning to understand what hyperfocal calc's are for, then going through this in its entirety will be a waste of your time and mine.

 

I'm out.  Really.

[spacebret]

I think you are completely misunderstanding what hyperfocal distance means and why it is relevant. The hyperfocal distance will not change if you decide to focus at a different distance. That is why it does not matter what distance the lens focuses at. If I am wrong please correct me, but what you have said in no way negates any of my points.

Edit: Also, to claim my camera is certainly not focused at infinity when it is focused on the object is making a big assumption. There is no way to know if it is or not. It can only be assumed, and assuming it definitely is not is a bigger assumption than saying it likely is. You are welcome to claim the object is never in focus and infer from there but it is a weak arguement because the focus does hit the object, go past and return.

Seriously though, you claim I am horrendously wrong and so far I have not understood why you said that. You provide zero evidence for why. You only say that I am wrong with no evidence as to why and you completely misunderstand why hyperfocal distance does matter.

Edited February 14, 2019 by spacebret

[the13bats]

Not trying to stir the ant hill but besides learning a little photography tech this doesnt really matter in this case,

Doesnt matter to me if it's 2ft 10ft or 20ft its not evidence