Analog vs. Digital

The most common battleground in this debate between media formats is photography. Why? Because everyone owns a camera. They are cheap, they are able to give investigators a physical format to show other people, and a picture can be worth a thousand words.

And that's just the problem.

The only real verification that you can have when a photograph is taken is your own word. No matter what is used, analog or digital, the only real back up you have to a photo is the word of the people who were present during the photograph.

This is why most ghost hunting groups have listed a regulation in their code of conduct that no one goes anywhere alone. You are always with a buddy for both safety reasons and also for security reasons.

However, let's just toy with the facts of digital cameras and analog cameras.

An analog camera, one that uses film, is a good starter for some groups who cannot afford a high end digital model. Although you will be using your local Walgreen's, Wal-mart, or other photography developing studio for image processing, a camera can start at $7 and processing can be done for any where from $7 to $10.

It is highly recommended that you use a 35mm camera with at least 400 speed film. This film speed is used to capture fast moving subjects such as athletic events or just your hyper active 4 year old cousin at his birthday party. Since you will be dealing with something that lasts for a matter of seconds, the higher the speed film, the better off you are.

There is a downside to high speed film because it causes a grainy look to it the higher speed you use. Obviously the more grainy the film, the less detail you have so it becomes a trade off in the end.

If you go with a digital camera, you are looking at spending around $175 for a decent model camera. This does not include a memory stick which you will need to save your photographs to. Depending on the format and capacity, these sticks can cost anywhere from $20 to $200. However, each time you use the camera, you save on film processing and time. You will also need a cable to import your photos to your computer or you can order prints via your memory stick. You may also be able to purchase and use a digital card reader to import your photos to your computer.

Digital has one major advantage over analog cameras and that is in it's flash feature. Most digital cameras has a much stronger flash than analog cameras. In some cases, these flashes from digital cameras can produce light around 25 feet further than analog cameras. If you use a digital camera in a place with reflective surfaces, please note this flash advantage or you will have light orbs and streaks everywhere from natural causes!

Digital cameras go through batteries quite quickly and you will need a higher capacity battery which can run around $5 to $15 for a pack of 4 AA batteries or $100 to $150 for a professional grade camera battery.

Despite your format, we recommend getting Duracell's rechargable batteries pack that come with a wall charger for around $20.

FALSE POSITIVES

False positives happen when you get paranormal results by normal effects. Such effects can be time lapsed photos with light streaks, orbs from dirt, bugs, pollen, or dust, and matrixing which gives the appearances of faces from random patterns of light effects.

Both digital and analog cameras can provide false positives. Here are some tips to avoid false positives in your work.

First of all, every paranormal investigator should be aware of dirt, pollen, or dust in the environment. If you are not, you will get what appears to be a TON of orbs in your photos. While orbs are not considered to be much in the paranormal field, some investigators still get excited at them because they might be the only thing that you capture on an investigation.

Analog orbs tend to be milky white without much texture, but digital orbs tend to have all sorts of cool texture within them.

Dust in the environment and it's orb effect from an MNPSG investigation from a digital camera.

A bug in the photo appears as an orb by an analog camera.

If you have a higher end camera, you do want to set it's shutter speed at the fastest possible setting for the same reason that you want higher speed film. The less time your shutter is open, the less interference you will have from movement. Most paranormal photos that have streaks of light are caused to a slow shutter. The same "open shutter" process is done by time-lapse photographers.

Alleged Ghost Vortex

Time Lapse Photography

As you can see in the photos above, there are some definite similiar traits between the two photos. The time lapse photograph is done by moving a light source with the shutter open. The ghost photo shows what appears to be a light trail from a moving object.

The differences in the photos are apparent though as you can see the time lapse has a dark mist around the word from the arm of the person moving the light object. The vortex photo does not have this "mist" from the movement of whatever caused the streak.

Just be aware that when you have a slower shutter, you will get these streaks from movement of light sources.

One major mistake that many investigators make with digital cameras is the use of the night shot feature. Many get this confused with "night vision" used in videography and think that if Ghost Hunters use night vision cameras, this feature will work great to catch ghosts on photos too! Wrong. What this feature does is allows the shutter to be open for a longer period of time allowing the flash to react off as much as it can before the shutter closes. This could lead to semi-time lapsed photos and if a bug happens to move in front of your camera, you may think you caught a vapor or streak.

With analog cameras, film can be a problem as you can shoot a whole roll of film, only to hear it being eaten by the gears of your camera. This can be frustrating and you lose a lot of potential evidence. With digital cameras, you can corrupt a memory stick and lose all your data.

An interesting debate point for analog cameras that was made was that digital photographs do not hold up in court case situations. The reason for this is that with the popular program from Adobe called Photoshop, anyone can add effects, clean up, or manipulate a digital photograph.

While there is some truth to this argument, it is obviously skewed by the analog favored side of the debate. This particular website talks about the validity of digital photographs in court.

Such manufacturers as Canon are including a forensics feature in their digital cameras that digitally signs the file with a time, date, and manipulation tag. In other words, if the photo is uploaded and edited, it breaks this digital seal. An interesting aspect for some legal departments is that while police departments have been noted not to use digital cameras in crime scenes, forensics teams actually do.

In other words, if your ex-wife keys your car, a negative print is processed but if you were to stagger across a bloody crime scene, the scene gets digital. The only reason for this that I can think of is based on the integrity of the photographer and team behind the photograph.

Here is another interesting article on the topic of digital photographs in court room sessions.

TAPS Family Co-Manager and Ghost Vigil lead analyst, Mark Stinson, reports for this article that "Kansas City Missouri Police use digital cameras for everything at this point. Officers use fairly inexpensive ones (probably $100) in the field to capture evidence for domestic violence cases, and our CSI's use very high-dollar cameras for crime scenes. These photos are all admissible in court."

Many argue that it is the integrity behind the forensic investigators and officiers that make these photos valid in court but in all honesty, shouldn't your number one priority be to have integrity behind your own paranormal group?

A common problem with digital cameras is a process called "pixel dropping." What exactly is a pixel? Pixel stands for PICTURE ELEMENT and these are the small squares used in digital media that make up an image. It basically maps out the given area and gives it a value of color.

Pixel dropping is when the camera maps out the area and instead of just using these "mosiac squares" to the truest extent, it blends the pixels to give a smooth image. If this was not done, you would get a jagged image rather than what was really in front of the camera.

Analog operates in this same way but instead of using pixels (squares), analog uses circles.

How can you combat pixel dropping if you choose to use digital?

The first step is to use a larger format when it comes to saving your images. The larger the file, the more pixel and the more detail you get in your photograph. While some say that this does not fix the problem in the paranormal field, it logically does. The more area you give a photograph to map out, the less problems you have with space, and thus, the less "pixel bleeding" you get. Each square is mapped out to it's truest value.

Understand your camera's ratio! The reason why a camera has an aspect ratio is because this how your photos will be mapped out in terms of dimension. Also be aware of what sensor size your camera is using during the time you are taking photographs. For more on sensors and aspect ratios, see this well done article.

If your camera is able to, use optical zoom over digital zoom. As the photo below shows, digital zoom pixelates your photo more so than optical zoom, which operates like the lens of a camera.

When importing your photos, do not choose a compressible format for the first import. A recommended file format is a JPEG (Joint Photo Experts Group), TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), or a "RAW" format which is the actual data info from the camera. Different models use different "RAW" formats such as Nikon's "NEF" file format. Check your manual to see what format your model uses.

The JPEG will offer you some compression while staying true to format while the TIFF and "RAW" formats offer lossless importing. This means that you will be able to know your image is EXACTLY the same from the camera to your import method in the latter two formats. The TIFF format and "RAW" format are bigger files than the JPEG so be aware of that.

Also be aware that once you resize an image for sharing such as a website or disc, do not "upscale" it to a larger resolution. A general tip in digital photography is that you can only go down, you cannot go up.

Anyone looking to buy a digital camera should go with one that is capable of 5 megapixels or higher.

For more on the general basics of digital photography, please read this article as it was the basis for my statistical information.

The biggest problem with digital cameras is that anyone can pick up a digital camera and take a quality photograph.

In years passed, a photographer knew his equipment. They knew how light reacted with it's lens, the differences between shutter speeds, and what angles did not produce shadows. If you go to your local Sears Photo Studio, talk to the photographers, they LOVE to talk about their cameras and many do out of studio work as freelance photographers.

Now ask your mother who owns a digital camera what mega pixel capacity her camera is without looking at it. I bet she answers wrong.

With that being said, a lot of digital photographs are being produced as false positives. Personally, the team here at MinnesotaGhosts.com has seen a lot of websites with "false positives." Even as we learn more about our own equipment, the more "false positives" we run into personally and even on our own website. After all, we are human as well!

On an investigation in Eagle Lake, MN on August 18, 2005, we had some odd occurrences in this same location such as audio and personal experiences, but we took a photo that was a false positive. We hate orbs as much as the next paranormal investigator however we feel it necessary to post all the data for the public on our website that we can. We want to showcase that we do make mistakes and do gather natural stuff. We show that we "actually" do investigations.

We made a mistake and admit to it. We do not have an explanation for the dowsing rods spinning at that time, but we do have an explanation for the two light balls. They are just a flash reflection off a bronze lamp.

This clearly goes to show that with experience comes better evidence.

With MinnesotaGhosts.com being a TAPS Family Member, we are lucky enough to have some of the best paranormal investigators within ear shot. This allows us to work together and produce better results in the field as well as provide help to those who need it the most. Another member of the TAPS Family, Russ of the Ghost Hunters of the South, wrote a wonderful article about how digital photography is horrible and why cameras should not even be used in an investigation.

One key component of all digital cameras is the EXIF feature. This writes a "log" onto the JPEG format file and allows to show that this photo has not been imported into a program for editing like Photoshop. Once this has been imported to a program, the EXIF information shows either a path way code or is simply broken and disappears.

Simply put for any person looking at evidence, if the EXIF information is broken, it's no good. This is why all investigators should upload and save the original files no matter how large they are. These EXIF formatted files will act as your negatives. You simply archive these files just as you would your negatives

First and foremost, photos are a horrible way to present "paranormal evidence." However, they are the most common.

With that being said, if you are new to investigating ghosts, we recommend that you use analog equipment when it comes to photography. While this maybe a bit more expensive, learn the ropes first before you move into digital photography.

If you are familiar with your camera and have mega pixels dancing in your head on a nightly basis, attempt to use digital photography.

When it comes to ghost groups on investigations, we recommend that you use both digital and analog. The MNPSG does not conclude that any photograph is a source of proof for paranormal activity simply because you do not know the factors behind the photograph, but they do lend open peeks into possibilities.

Without other supporting evidence, we believe no photograph should be considered proof for paranormal activity, the existence of ghosts, or a haunting. They simply are only a possible piece of a much larger puzzle.

Audio is not as widely contested when it comes to format as it is with photographs. Why? Photographs are more used and debated than audio.

Analog referring to the tape loading recorders and digital being obvious non-tape loading recorders.

With EVPs, there is a certain "let's keep it real" situation that anyone can test. While someone can move a light source in a photograph to create a ghostly mist, it is a little bit harder to make a voice appear below the human audio levels.

The useful human hearing range is from 300Hertz to 3,500Hertz. This is what you can hear which is audible. Anything below or above this is an inaudible sound or noise. Too loud or too quiet.

Are there fake EVPs out there? Yes. Are there as many as fake photos? No.

The most common problem with EVPs comes from using an analog recorder. Most people use them as is and if you do this, you run the risk of having the mechanical gears that wind the tape or the tape itself squeaking. This will ruin your session and help mask whatever you may be trying to catch. The best way to combat this is to use an external microphone.

Analog tapes also need to have a new tape EVERY time they are used. Do not reuse tapes as the magnetic data can show up long after you record over them and can corrupt your data.

Analog will loss quality when you upload it from analog to digital. Regardless of your stance on the media war, once you import it to a computer despite its format origin, it is now digital. There are very few analog computers around now unless you are using a paper punch to view this website. Digital will not loss quality when you upload it because it is already digital! Imagine that! However, this is only true if you are using the HIGHEST quality setting on your digital recorder! You should always use the highest quality setting when it comes to any type of investigating and should be common sense for any investigator.

Be aware also that some digital recorders will amplify sounds that are recorder. This was originally designed for college discussions where it didn't matter if the professor was 20 feet away or 200 feet away, it would pick up and amplify the sound to a human audible level so you didn't lose your audio notes.

To help validate your own EVP files, you should ALWAYS keep the entire conversation of your session to give reference to the disembodied voice. If this means you have to sit at your computer and watch your import program for an hour and a half, then so be it. (Importing sound files is in real time which means if you spent an hour recording, you spend an hour importing in most digital and all analog recorders.)

If you can amplify and clean up the voice and have reference to your own voice in the file, you are better off than just a clip of the disembodied voice.

When it comes to audio media such as EVPs, we recommend that you use digital format as it helps in analysis and in results because it can amplify smaller sounds.

Analog has too many problems when it comes to natural mechanical sounds from the recorder itself, losing quality in analysis, and it can be expensive!

While analog gives the user a hard copy back up of a tape, it shouldn't be confused with a negative like a photograph simply since audio can be easily transfered from a digital format to an analog format without any existence trace of whether or not it was manipulated!

If you wish to try this out for yourself, buy both formats and record audio on a digital recorder, swipe it through a program such as Adobe Audition, and rerecord it onto the analog format.

Any and all analog evidence should be considered a tool in an investigation rather than "hard core" proof based on format. I think it is more important to realize that if you ask a question and receive a clear answer to what was asked as definitive proof of "unidentifiable sounds/voices on audio" rather than what format works best for collecting data.

There is not a lot said about digital versus analog video in this debate. I am not sure why but maybe it's because out of all the evidence gathered, video is on the other end of the spectrum from photos. Cost and knowledge are major players in why videos are rarely taken but photos are everywhere. Once a video is taken, it must be uploaded and done in a right manner whereas anyone can upload and post a photograph.

Analog once again applies to anything that is tape loaded and digital being anything that writes to a disk, card, or hard drive.

The only real debate when it comes to paranormal videography is with wired against wireless. The stance here at MinnesotaGhosts.com is that if you use a DVR system with multiple cameras, you should hard wire everything as this cuts down on interference from outside sources and possible entities. Now this doesn't apply to the average Joe Schmo with a Sony Handycam, but the DVR system is find a popular home in the paranormal field.

If you use analog as a video source, you do run into the same upload problem as analog audio tape. When you import it for review into a computer, you lose quality. The only advantage that analog video has over analog audio is that you can review it on a standard TV, the first time through. However, once you find something, you have to dig deeper and analysize it. You have to figure out what caused it rather than just saying that it is paranormal via your television set and in order to dig deeper, you have to run it through an editing program on a computer, which would make it digital.

The high end paranormal groups like to show off their DVR (digital video recorder) systems that use multiple cameras for recording. These units are the new age VCRs which instead of writing to a cassette tape, will write directly to a hard drive, or in some cases, a DVD. These are expensive units but are worth every penny because they allow you to write a DVD for a client without importing or complex editing. They allow you to recorder multiple locations at once and save on money because you aren't buying tapes if you use the hard drive unit. An example of a DVR unit would be the ever popular, Tivo.

Most DVR units will allow for a cable to be connected from the DVR to a computer video card for easy importing. While this may be an easy way to import your results, video editing is not as easy as photo manipulation and the "easy import" stigma does not effect video as much as it does photography.

However, if you cannot afford the DVR system, most people think that a VCR set up that resembles a DVR system is a good alternative. We do not recommend it and for a few reasons.

While a security system at a store would be fine using a VCR/VHS tape set up, a paranormal team would not be okay to use this type of method because of a few problems. The primary reason why a store uses a VHS system is to record a loss prevention situation. They need to only identify the suspect or incident rather than analysize what caused it or if it's an effect caused by the environment.

Another reason why VHS does not work well in in the paranormal field is that tapes are set to the wrong record mode. If you use a SLP (Super Long Play) which allows the quality of video to go to the lowest possible quality setting so you can record up to 6 to 8 hours, you run into the VERY same problem that digital cameras have with "pixel dropping." The only mode that should be used is the HIGHEST possible setting which would only give about 2 hours of recording.

The final reason why analog VHS tapes do not work out is that you can only use the tapes once. If you record over an old tape, you have left over magnetic information on the tape that may cause interference with your results which is what most "analog only" teams cite as a problem with digital methods.

A good alternative to VHS is a Hi-8 camera. These are the small tapes that are used with a handheld camcorder. The Hi-8 allows a resolution of 400 lines, a quality that is just below a Mini-DV. The setbacks however to Hi-8 include low recording times because the formats are only in 60, 90, and 120 minutes. Hi-8 also has to be played back from the camera to a monitor using cables and does lose quality when transfering or editing.

In recent years, Sony has introduced the next generation of tape playback in Digital8. Digital8 is superior to 8mm and Hi-8 in quality and also is backwards compatible which means that VHS and Hi-8 recorders will play the setting. This format will record to a Hi-8 or 8mm physical tape as it is only a format setting in some cameras. This allows for 500 lines of resolution but will cut your recording time in half since a 2 hour tape will only record for an hour. Even though it is called "digital," this is the highest setting for an analog tape to be recorded.

The highest video setting possible at the time of this writing is a Mini-DV. While this is digital, it allows for 500 lines of resolution and does not lose quality when transferring or editing. They also produce crystal quality images while recording. Mini-DV do however have the lowest possible recording times as they come in 60, 63, and 80 minute formats. They can be transferred to VHS format.

Another format that comes into play is Mini-DVD. This format should never be used in paranormal investigations for the simple fact that you can do non-sequential video recording. What does this mean? You can record a chapter at a time and skip around in your recording in real time. In other words, it allows the user to edit as they record. There are no real advantages to this other than recording onto a mini-DVD format as opposed to a cassette tape.

When it comes to video, this is a catch 22 for most investigators. No matter which way you decide to go, you will be using a mix of both analog and digital in your investigations.

If you use a Hi-8, 8mm, or VHS to record, the format is naturally analog. However, your recorder (unless using a VCR) is going to digitally record to your analog media. If you use a VCR, you risk the "pixel dropping" effect in your final results unless you use the highest possible setting.

No matter what way you chose to record, when analysizing the end results, you will have to convert to a digital format to import into a program.

We recommend that you use a handheld camera that has a digital8 setting with a tripod. This allows you to skip a VCR, get quality results, and be stable. The camera also has the ability to move around with investigators from room to room.

A DVR system is a great way to do video during an investigaton, provided that you have the money for initial setup.

While the VCR is a good alternative logically for a DVR set-up, we would recommend this only if you already have a handheld in use. If you can afford a DVR set-up, we recommend that over a VCR as you will not lose quality and it allows things to be easily transferred for review due to the hard drive of the equipment.