wow i didn't know that

I like to prepare by eating a little KFC first and them wiping off my lens with my finger. I also try to pound a lot of caffeine so my hands are all shaky. I definitely check to make sure that my battery is real low and that my memory card is full. Works every time and I've got the pictures to prove it..uh..maybe....well..



[edit on 7-10-2008 by zlots331]

i have never even seen a ufo before.
i really hope i do.

What would be a good digital camera for filming at night? Not just photos, but night shots with range, good zome and IR/Nightvision attachments available.

I was looking at an exterior mounted Nightvision cam which hooks up to the computer indoors, was kind of cool. I have a flat roof on the house. In january we will be converting one of the patios to a study and from that roof I will have stairs to the main roof where we are going to have a roof patio, so that would give me a great place to do some night filiming from.

What would be some decent but not super expensive tech I could use?

The way I see it I can either buy a handheld or tripod mounted cam, or go for a fixed exterior cam which I can hook to a server in the house and have filiming from there with nightvision, which has limitations in zoom and manouverability id guess.

Any suggestions. I dont know much about cameras so ive no idea and google hasnt helped much!!

I know I need something with good range and that will take an IR or nightvision. (i dream of thermal imaging but the cost is kind of amusing)

All of the ins and outs of cameras aside, I have to say I've seen good solid UFOs that hold up to the name only three times. Once it was right above me and I had nothing with me at the time. Even if I had, I'm not sure I would have had time to snap more than a few imagines before it was completely gone. The other two I witnessed were from an extreme distance and even when we got very close to the object it was a royal pain to get an angle on it so that we felt we could justify pointing it out as anything but a plane.
I swear that the things have either got the greatest luck in the entire universe for appearing in places way off or hard to reach. That or they intentionally set themselves up that way.
Ever notice that the majority of UFO photos and videos seem to be low to the ground? Maybe it's because people don't spend alot of time looking up at the sky anymore or maybe its something else.
Alot of things with UFO photos don't make sense. The videos were for a little while more convincing. Then public technology got to the point where it became fairly easy to fake something and once again it was back to having to trust search.
I'm fairly convinced from the things I have seen that some, though not the majority, of UFOs are real. Now, what exactly that means? Well, I'd make a fair bet that a few of them are sprites, elfs, or the like... speaking of the atmospheric phenomenon. I don't really buy into crop circles being anything but an intelligent design because of how some of them come with identifiable pictures and that those pictures have messages. People are getting dumber and making something like that all in one night without messing up the crops with some entry path really makes it hard to say how a person could fake something like that. And there is alot of very involving geometry.
So, not to get too far off topic, how to video tap a UFO or photograph one is I think something that most people honestly don't take time to consider. I deeply commend you for posting this.
I think honestly people need to start really marking out hotspots in a little more serious way. Like, get a few astrologers from the Order of the Golden Dawn, as they seem to have a good ability with the things. Apply astrology to historical sitings and make a chart of times that the things appear, by second, hour, day, month, and season, and then compare that with the stars. That should cover most of the bases. Then go back and figure out if they are attracted to water, avoid water, or whatever else might attract them to the spot. Relate when they come around to seasonal events like the equinox and so forth and relate that to other sitings and whatever other unrelated materials or only vaguely related till you come up with a commonality. THEN do try to figure out where they typically are sited most in the sky and compare that with ALL of your previous data with new time devoted to looking for new relationships within the previous data also. Then maybe something will make sense in exactly how to understand when, where, how, and why these things are showing up and also where they might next time.

There is no certain way to find ufos, or take pictures of them. More than not, people capture them on camera when they didnt even realize anything was there. Like my dad for example. He was taking a picture of a cathedral in new mexico and clear as day in the sky was a ufo. But he didnt see it when he took the picture.

Happens to many people. Even if you saw one in the sky, that wouldnt mean youd be able to capture it on camera. They move very quickly and can suddnely dissapear

Try Infa-red. . . They are everywhere. . .

Most UFOs appear randomly, without warning and people grab whatever kind of camera they can find. I guess there are hotspots you could go to, but it's a very random thing.

Burst mode.

I'd seriously recommend anyone practices by shooting planes in poor light conditions regardless of the camera they use, and experiments with burst mode. So if you're reading this and own a camera try it . If you can take pictures of identified flying objects in poor light, you'll have no problem with unidentified flying objects. Know thy camera!

This applies to compact digital cameras too. Ignore the bits that don't apply to you.

I'd like to add that camera burst mode is useful as a quick fix in the absence of a flash of a flash or tripod (travelling very light). I can often get one in four sharp shots in low light by raising a DSLR's ISO and taking bursts of shots while holding the camera still. One or two shots in a burst maybe sharp and it's free cause it's digital. With the current batch of DSLRs (30D onward/D90/D3*/D300) they're pretty good up to ISO 3200 (although I suspect there is some in camera processing of raw files) at quite low shutter speeds.

With VR (Nikon) and IS (Canon) lenses using burst mode as a quick fix works, as you'd expect, even better.

I have tried similar things with the burst mode of compact digital cameras, my current main compact is a Canon A590IS (1.4 per second), and although the results aren't as good as DSLR results, it's better than taking single shots. One or two may be sharp.

You can't beat a tripod though. Even for compacts digital cameras like the A590IS. I have Manfrotto tripods for my DSLRs and a cheap generic Chinese tripod for my A590IS. The nice thing about the cheap tripod is that it is extremely light. The bad thing is that if there's a wind it's not so good . But for less than £10 I'm not that bothered.

But great thread! Canon biased, but then I've owned both Nikon and Canon DSLRs (and SLRs), so I think they're both great. The camera isn't as important as the photographer in most circumstances. Like OP I tend to use 'prime' (fixed focus) lenses when quality matters (or I need low-light performance on walkabout with something like a 50mm f1.4 or f1.8 - with the focal multiplier it's also a reasonable portrait lens). Zoom lenses tend to be compromises.

* The D3 has a full-frame sensor (like the 1Ds mk X)and thus better low light performance. I'm told the D3x is even better.

[edit on 3-2-2009 by jackphotohobby]

This is my first post ever about this subject and this thread is excellent for the purpose of my visit to this forum. I had a recent UFO event that involves pictures taken by a professional photographer. Thanks!