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RETURN TO STRAWBERRY HILL - OUR EQUIPMENT |
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| An investigator's observation skills, common sense, and research abilities are at the heart of any investigation. But its the evidence gathered using equipment that makes up much of the final product of an investigation. Witness statements, investigator experiences, and the background of a potentially haunted site are extremely important...but people want to see or hear evidence. The equipment we used on this investigation is shown and described below. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| DVR STATIONARY CAMERA SYSTEM -
Everything begins with 4 color CCTV day/night vision IR cameras. Two of them are Sony cameras with 20 LED's and
two of them have 30 LED's. The LED's illuminate the IR spectrum, allowing for crystal clear video images in complete
darkness. The camera's signal is carried back to the DVR and monitor by cables for recording and real-time remote
observation. All four of our stationary cameras feed back to a Samsung 120 gig 4-channel stand alone DVR to be digitally recorded. This is the heart & soul of the stationary camera system that Stew has assembled. Meanwhile, we use a GE TV/VCR combo as a monitoring station on investigations. The images from the stationary cameras are all displayed on this screen. The VCR recorder also serves as a backup for the DVR digital recording device. |
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| TIF 7000 DIGITAL THERMOMETER/PYROMETER
- This is a unique temperature measuring device called a "digital thermometer/pyrometer" (DTP). It is
a a thermo-coupler thermometer that is more advanced and specialized then a standard digital . No paranormal investigation
group should be without this device. The DTP manufactured by TIF Instruments (www.tif.com) scans the temperature of the air 3 times per second. Unlike point-and-shoot IR themometers, this measures actual air temperature...not the temperature of surfaces (though it can do that with one of its attachments). This allows you to locate and track cold spots in the air... |
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ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD METERS/DETECTORS - These hand-held sensors vary in sensitivity and how they are operated, but all of the them measure levels of electromagnetic energy. The strength of electromagnetic fields is measured in milligauss. This unit of measurement is named after Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855). He was a German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, and is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. In his later life he did important work on electricity and magnetism.
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| SONY HI-8 VIDEO CAMERAS, WITH NIGHTSHOT TECHNOLOGY
- Sony camcorders are extremely useful due to their ability to record video in complete darkness. When in Nightshot
mode, they emit light in the IR spectrum...and then record images of whatever is illuminated using a CCD sensor
within the camera. They record these images on analog tape. We use both a CCD-TRV66 and a CCD-TRV318 Sony camera. We use a Dazzle USB analog-to-digital converter to import these analog images into a laptop. This allows us to image-capture from the video for our Investigation Albums and to select video-clips to include in our investigation reports. |
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| PERSONAL CAMERAS - Digital photography
is cheap and easy, and most of the personal cameras brought on our investigations are digital. There is virtually
no limit on the number of digital images you can capture...as there is no development or printing costs when you
are publishing to a website. Investigators are encouraged to take digital photographs for the purposes of documenting the location of the investigation and at any time there are indications that they may be in the presence of paranormal activity. At the end of our investigations, all of the digital images are collected onto one laptop by use of a 12-in-1 digital card reader. |
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| COLOR AND B&W DISPOSABLE CAMERAS - Cheap, easy-to-use, and disposable...these cameras are easy to stick in your pocket and use at a moment's notice. We use 400 speed color film because of its effectiveness in low light, without being as "grainy" as 800 speed color film. We frequently use B&W film on investigations because it has a completely different quality than color film. We have all of our camera film developed directly onto a CD-R computer disk and then tuck away the negatives in case we needed to review them later. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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If you're curious about what sort of camera was used to capture any of our photos in this investigation report, just look at the name of the photo in its properties window...and use the table provided below.
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| DIGITAL VOICE RECORDERS - These small devices are capable of recording hours and hours of high-quality audio in their flash memory. Some models can move audio files directly to your computer...while others must be played and recorded into software on your computer. These devices do not have the noisy internal moving parts that analog cassette and mini-cassette tape recorders have. While Olympus is not the only brand available, it has proved itself to be both affordable and reliable. We use Audacity and Clear Voice Denoiser software to closely examine and analyze our audio files. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| -Mark Stinson | ||||||||||||||||||||
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