Monday, June 26, 2017

Filters and Holders

I still get asked many questions about infrared filters so I am going to cover a few points here.  The Canon camera is a Single Lens Reflex, which means you view directly through the lens, not a viewfinder, so when you put a nearly black infrared filter in front of the lens, with the best will in the world, you cannot see a thing through it. You can use screw on filters but I don’t recommend it. You will need to have the camera mounted on a stand and if you keep taking the filter off to view the target, then screwing it back on again to take the shot, not only is it a real pain but sooner or later you are likely to cross-thread the coupling and have to replace the lens and the filter. 

I do recommend the Cokin type square filter holder (above), you only have to screw it on once and you can slide the filter in and out at will. Simples! It is not necessary to buy a Cokin brand holder, there are plenty of low-priced copies available, that are perfectly adequate for our purposes, such as the Polaroid one above, which you can buy on Amazon.co.uk for £3.99 http://amzn.to/2r6M79y  You will also need an adapter ring to fit the holder securely to the camera lens. The Canon kit lens is 58mm diameter.

The holder has four slots. The slot against the lens is designed to take the round filter and this position will probably only work with a very large target, if at all, as we need a light and air gap between the lens and IR filter.

The remaining three slots are designed for square filters. P size IR square filters are no longer manufactured by Cokin because, they say, unwanted reflections occur if the filter is not against the lens. Suitable square filters may be available from other manufacturers or available in sheet form that can be cut up into squares..

If you have a round filter then it is desirable to trim two flats opposite each other so the filter will slide comfortably into the ‘square’ slots. I advise putting the filter in the centre ‘square’ slot.
You can buy this Cokin filter at amazon

You can increase sensitivity to capturing auras by moving the filter forwards away from the lens but this may cause unwanted reflections. Conversely you can reduce sensitivity and unwanted reflections by moving the filter backwards, towards the lens.

The round filter has a ‘squashed top-hat’ profile so you have a couple of extra options for changing sensitivity as it can be fitted two ways into the slots furthest from the lens.

For compact cameras, Cokin make a filter holder that screw fits onto the camera’s tripod mounting. The holder takes an A size (67mm) square filter. Cokin still manufacture an A007 square infrared filter but compact cameras like the Olympus tend to need a higher rating than Cokin’s 720nm. The solution is to buy 800nm – 950nm sheet and cut it to fit.
You can get the compact camera filter holder from Amazon Here

Monday, June 19, 2017

The Yellow Peril

A while ago a guy in the Middle East kept sending me infrared photos, taken with a Canon camera during the day, like the one above top. I had not come across this before and it did not seem to matter what we tried, the photos always came out yellow and with no sign of an aura even when using a suitable test target. The new contact who took this picture also sent a photo of the same area, taken at sunset, which produced a more usual and interesting aura image, above bottom. Now I enhanced the images, myself from straight-off-the-camera images my contact supplied me, so there is no ‘photoshopping’ or fancy editing going on here. The temperature was 23 degrees centigrade in both cases, so the yellow caste does not seem to be temperature related. At the moment, I can only put it down to an anomaly with the particular camera perhaps letting more light than normal reach the sensor but if anyone has any other ideas, I would be pleased to hear them. Nevertheless if anyone else comes across the ‘yellow peril’ you now have a solution – take the photos at sunset as we had to do with the old Polaroid camera.

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

DOWSING for TREASURE: THE NEW SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL



DOWSING for TREASURE: THE NEW SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL reveals secrets known only to a few amazingly successful treasure hunters.

If you want to find all the treasure you can handle — gold, silver, coins, jewels or anything else you call treasure — real fast. And if you want to find all this treasure without spending a fortune on expensive equipment or books and courses, using up all your free time studying and trying to put complicated rituals into practice in the field, then this essential manual was written for you! Expert metal detectorist, treasure hunter and internationally acclaimed author, David Villanueva, draws on his many years of experience at successfully dowsing for treasure to reveal ALL in this fact-packed manual. This completely revised and updated edition of the original SUCCESSFUL TREASURE HUNTER'S ESSENTIAL DOWSING MANUAL incorporating FAITHFUL ATTRACTION, is a revolutionary new guide to finding treasure, which shows how anyone — beginner or seasoned professional — can easily use the skills they probably never realized they had, to locate treasure — wherever it lies hidden. And, just as importantly, how to pinpoint and recover that treasure fast. Please note: This book is based on the two previous E-books mentioned above, which have been combined, revised and updated with some material subtracted and some new material added. If you have either of the previous E-books then this book will be an excellent companion volume; if you have both previous E-books, then you have the main issues covered.

Contents include:

1 Introduction 2 A Brief History Of Dowsing 3 How Does Dowsing Work? 4 Why Not Just Use A Metal Detector? 5 Finding And Using A Dowser 6 The Pendulum 7 Map Dowsing 8 The L-Rod 9 To Bait Or Not To Bait 10 Building A Better Gold Trap 11 To Look For Or To Unlook For 12 Buying A Better Gold Trap 13 All That Glitters 14 Metal Detectors And Search Heads 15 Photographing Treasure Auras 16 Research 17 Putting It All Together 18 Treasure Hunting Basics 19 Search Agreements 20 Bibliography