Yes, and still people can’t even grasp my simple explanations.

Thanks for posting so many rock pictures, but there’s one difference. That difference is that the Sun on most shots is behind the cameraman and actually lighting up the rock facing the camera. In the LM shots the Sun is behind the LM.

Take this example:


Even though the camera is placed very close to this rock (as is the case in the pictures JayUtah posted, you cannot make out any detail in the dark shadow. Also consider that this rock is just a foot or so high and so therefore, taking in your magnificent reflective capabilities from the lunar surface, be completely lit up, or at least, the dark areas should be visible.

Here’s a picture from Apollo 16. Can you see detail in the rock where the astronauts shadow falls? Because I certainly can’t, and lets remember that this camera is situated a lot closer than the one taking Aldrins picture.



and again



Oh look, funny shadows again. The rock in the foreground has its front completely lit up, and yet the small rock in the middle of the shot which is not far away has shadow on its front left panel?



At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter who’s name I put forward as being qualified and who think that the Apollo program was a hoax because you will disagree or say that you do not think that the person is qualified to have an opinion. So I’ll save my time.

OK, you may be more qualified than me at photography, but any other photographer who I have mentioned (Marcus Allen) who is also a photographer is simply said to be unqualified and not as informed in photography as any of you. How do you know?

JRKeller, why carry out an experiment using electric light? Surely were talking about natural light here?

Finally, perhaps JayUtah et all can answer why the movie footage of Armstrong coming down the LM ladder is in complete shadow until ‘miraculously’ he gets ‘lit up’ when he’s almost at the bottom of the ladder? Why would he appear to be in shadow from the minute he steps from the top of the ladder until he nearly reaches the bottom rung on the movie camera and yet when Armstrong sets up the stills camera outside, he can capture Aldrin in beautiful bright light from the minute Aldrin steps out of the LM? Again, Aldrin is surrounded by the door frame of the hatch, and is several feet above the surface. The LM is in shadow as is the ground beneath it and the Sun is shielded by the LM. As you have all said here, Armstrong was far from a professional photographer, so was it just luck that he had his camera set to the proper exposure to capture Aldrin in the dark shadows of the LM?

I'm coming in a bit late here and I'll probably regret it but Santa, in all of the pics you posted there are very brightly lit objects in the frame as well. The exposure would have been set to capture the detail from those object so the shadowed areas would not show up as well. Also every one of those pictures appears to be only a small portion of the original picture. You can't get good detail in the same picture from a lot of brightly lit area and a small shadowed area. If the exposure would have been set to show more detail in the shadow then the birhgt areas would have been overexposed.

__________________
"Eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy"
------------Mark Twain

"Women are like Voltron. The more you can hook up, the better it gets."

Dedicated to all my 'friends' at BA

Dedicated to those who at one time or another successfully debunked just about everything we take for granted in today's world, and also to Nicolo Machiavelli, without whose inspiration this presentation might have been unnecessary.

Contents
1. Debunkery: General Principles
2. Science According to the Debunker
3. The Debunker's Rules of Evidence
4. Debunking Just About Everything
5. Debunking the UFO
6. Debunking the Great Conspiracies
7. Optional and Extracurricular Debunkery
8. The Debunker's Last Resort

1. Debunkery: General Principles:

- Portray science not as a universally beneficial process of discovery but as a holy war against the infidels of pseudoscience. Since in war the ends justify the means, you may fudge, stretch or violate scientific method, or even omit it entirely, in the name of defending scientific method.

- Choose the turf. Remember that all else being equal, whoever gets to choose the battleground usually wins the battle. For the defender of the status quo the most sympathetic arena in which to debunk just about anything is the popular media, since they tend to offer little or no opportunity for intelligent analysis or reasoned debate. As an added bonus, TV studio audiences may generally be counted on to support the conventional view of things, or to be easily swayed in that direction. As presently constituted, the media assume that the public has a short attention span, faulty memory, little patience for details and blind faith in authority, and that it can not be trusted with the truth. This is ideal soil for the seeds of debunkery.

- Put on the right face. Cultivate a patronizing, Wm. F. Buckley-ish air that suggests that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God.

- Worm your way into the hearts and minds of the people. Take emotional control of your audience by cracking a few jokes about Elvis, little men from Mars and so forth. Once you have accomplished this they will predictably respond with snickers, giggles and knowing glances if you do no more than report the facts straight.

- Avoid the evidence. The more abstract and theoretical you keep your arguments, the less easily people will notice that you haven't examined the actual evidence. Not examining the evidence allows you to say with impunity, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such a claim." If examining the evidence becomes unavoidable, report back that "there is nothing new here." If confronted by a watertight body of evidence that has survived the most rigorous tests' simply dismiss it as being "too pat!"

- Call the kettle black. While maintaining absolute faith in the ability of the current scientific paradigm to explain everything, accuse your opponents of being "true believers." State categorically that the unconventional arises exclusively from the "will to believe" and may be dismissed as, at best, an honest misinterpretation of the conventional. In this way you can camouflage your evangelical hellfire and brimstone under a facade of cool impartiality.

- Convince your audience of your sincerity by reassuring them that you yourself would "love to believe" in these fantastic phenomena. Carefully sidestep the fact that science is not about believing, but about finding out.

- Imply that your opponents are zealots. Suggest that in order to investigate the existence of something one must first believe in it absolutely.

- Similarly, always act as if your opponents have intended the extreme of any position they've taken. Repeated often enough, this procedure may literally drive them bananas.

- Practice debunkery-by-association. Lump together all phenomena popularly deemed paranormal and suggest that their proponents and researchers speak with a single voice. In this way you can indiscriminately drag material across disciplinary lines or from one case to another to support your views as needed.

- Deliberately confuse the process of science with the content of science. Do this by implying that a scientist's procedural integrity somehow hinges on his or her choice of subject matter. In other words, reinforce the popular notion that certain subjects are inherently unscientific or pseudoscientific. If someone points out that only the investigative process can be scientific or unscientific and that science is properly blind to subject matter, dismiss such objections using a method employed successfully by generations of politicians: simply reassure your audience that ('there is no contradiction here.)'

- Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they have the full force of scientific authority.

- Ridicule, ridicule, ridicule. It is far and away the single most effective weapon in the war against discovery and innovation. Ridicule has the unique ability to make people of virtually any persuasion go completely unconscious in a twinkling. It fails to sway only those who are of sufficiently independent mind not to need the kind of emotional consensus that ridicule provides. Fortunately there are few enough such people in this world that they may be safely disregarded.

- Do your best to convince your audience (although not in as many words) that ridicule constitutes an essential feature of scientific method and can raise the level of objectivity, integrity and dispassionateness with which any investigation is pursued.

- Charm your audience and disarm your opponents with pithy aphorisms and clever remarks. For example, "I've always been strongly in favor of open-mindedness -- as long as your mind isn't so open that your brains fall out!" But take care never to specify just how much openmindedness is too much; this keeps your views outside the realm of rational debate. As long as you keep things vague nobody will notice the absurdity of your gems of wit and wisdom.

- Use "smoke and mirrors." Never forget that a slippery mixture of fact, opinion, innuendo and out-of-context information will fool most of the people most of the time. As little as one part fact to ten parts B.S. will usually do the trick. (Some veteran debunkers use homeopathic dilutions of fact with remarkable success!) Cultivate the art of slipping back and forth between fact and fiction so undetectably that the grain of truth appears to underlie and support the entire edifice of opinion.

- Keep a repertory of avoidance techniques at hand in case you get cornered. Examples include changing the subject, attacking your opponent's personal habits, distraction with humorous irrelevancies, lengthy storytelling and so forth. Remember that the main point of such diversionary tactics is to consume precious air time.

- Arrange to have your message delivered or echoed by persons of authority. The degree to which you can stretch the truth is directly proportional to the perceived level of authority of your messenger.

- If you can't attack the case, attack the people. Ad- hominem arguments, or personality attacks, are one of the most powerful ways of swaying thoughtless people and avoiding the issue. Insist that if a witness has ever been accused of stretching the truth in any way, to any degree, for any reason, his or her testimony about anything is, always was, and always will be, worthless. Employ similar tactics if the claimant is known ever to have had a brush with the law (whatever its outcome), has ever entered into any kind of psychological counseling or can be shown to have unusual personal habits or predilections. If you can determine that your opponents have profited financially from activities connected with their research, accuse them of "profiting financially from activities connected with their research!" If their research, publishing, speaking tours and so forth, constitute their normal line of work or sole means of support, hold that fact as "conclusive proof that income is being realized from such activities"' If your opponents have labored to achieve public recognition for their work, you may safely characterize them as "publicity seekers."

- Employ "TCP": Technically Correct Pseudo-rebuttal. For example, if your opponent remarks that all great truths began as blasphemies, respond immediately that not all blasphemies have become great truths. Because your response was technically correct, no one will notice that it did not really refute or even contradict the original remark.

- Trivialize the case by trivializing the entire field in question. Characterize the study of orthodox phenomena as deep and time-consuming, while deeming that of unorthodox phenomena so insubstantial as to demand nothing more than a scan of the tabloids. If pressed, simply say "but there's nothing there to study!" Characterize any investigator of the unorthodox as "self-styled" -- the media's favorite code-word for "bogus."

- Deny any subject by denying that rational discourse about it is possible.

- Condemn the entire field by generalizing from carefully selected data. For example, declare that all of ufology must be nothing more than an evolving system of paranoia because some of its founders and practitioners suffered from childhood trauma. (If this seems at all far-fetched, please refer to the piece by Martin Kottmeyer in UFO Magazine, Vol.7, No.3, May, 1992.)

- Confine the game to your preferred end of the playing field. One way to do this is to limit the permissible rules of discovery to those of certain physical sciences. Deny that court procedures, which admit human testimony in matters of life and death, are objective enough to have any value whatsoever in determining the truth of anything at all.

- Employ time reversal. Demand that your opponents know all the answers to their most puzzling questions in full, certain detail ahead of time. A variation on this approach is to deny the existence of something on grounds that we cannot yet explain how it might work.

- Accuse your opponents of believing in "invisible forces and extrasensory realities." If they should point out that the physical sciences have always dealt primarily with invisible forces and extrasensory realities, respond with a patronizing chuckle that is "a naive interpretation."



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posted for educational purposes only

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How To Debunk Just About Anything
1. Debunkery: General Principles:

by
Daniel Drasin
Independent writer and media producer, Oakland, CA.

Selected section from pages 101-117 in
The Proceedings of the

UFO RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 1992
Denver Colorado, USA
May 22-25, 1992

Sponsored by:

International Association for New Science
1304 S. College Ave.,
Fort Collins, Colorado 80524.
---------
Last but not least-A UFO debunkers "Scientific Research Methods"

1) Start with a preconceived conclusion.

2) Develop experimental procedures and analysis to prove stated conclusion.

3) Control experimental conditions to arrive at pre-stated conclusion.

4) Prejudiced analysis of results.

5) Consultation with Corporations that will profit from the process.

6) Publication in accepted corporate journals that will profit from findings.

7) Ridicule ALL independent UFO researchers doing ANY research, especially those dealing with removal of alien implants, analysis of animal mutilations and crop formations.

8) Never, I mean NEVER address UFO research, do not get within 30 feet of any UFO witnesses or researchers and pretend you've never heard of the NRO, NSA, CIA or NASA.

9) Attack the person-never address the evidence. Get into flame wars.

10) Come up with any kind of ridiculous excuses to explain it all away. The latest: time-compressed crash-test dummies; meteors from Venus and Mars, super-secret-ingredient swamp-gas (please debunkers, only where there are swamps!)

It's not a case of not being able to grasp them, it's a case of your explanations being erroneous.

We have tried extremely hard to explain the concept of exposure. You appear to refuse to acknowledge the relevance of exposure.

I can make out a little bit of detail, or at least as much as I would expect in a lo-res JPEG. Using this photo as a comparison is not entirely relevant because it was taken with black and white negative rather than colour transparency as the others and hence has different properties.

I can.

I can.

The two rocks are different shapes. The left panel is oriented away from the sunlight.

Perhaps, but on the other hand, we may dismiss him on the grounds that his credentials have been inflated to make him appear more qualified than he is. All too often, Ralph Rene is quoted as the world's leading engineer.

Marcus Allen may very well be able to take aesthetic pictures, and even win awards for the aesthetics of them, but we will judge his expertise in the technical aspects of photography and the field of photographic analysis based on what he says. From what he has said, we have observed that he demonstrates either a severe lack of proper knowledge of these fields, or he is simply hiding vital information for commercial purposes.

My sister is doing Art GCSE and she uses a lot of photography in it and is predicted a B or an A. Yet, when I mentioned f-stop, she draws a blank. The technical aspects of photography are not required for taking good photos but are for photographic analysis.

The age old cry of the conspiracist beaten up by emperical evidence. They grasp at straws as much as they can by pointing out any difference they can thing of in hopes of waving off the argument. Whether a G2 type star or a filament lamp, they still generate light.

Oh please.

Different cameras, different settings. A photo is not a photo is not a photo. You don't seem to want to acknowledge that concept of exposure, one that is critical to understanding photography.

Because he was high off the ground, the bright Lunar surface subtends a large angle from his perspective and therefore provides a lot of fill light. The hatch obstruction does not block the significant sources of fill light that come from zero phase and heiligenschein effects at the end of the shadow.

No it wasn't luck. It was the professional photographers on the ground who worked out the exposures ahead of time and wrote them into the checklists.

So this is your last resort is it, Santa? You've failed to make a convincing case and so now you decide it's time for defamation of character, the same kind of defamation of character you accused us of doing earlier? Grow up!

Pot, meet Kettle.
Kettle, meet Santa.

Glom,

Here's one of the people that helped train the astronauts in photography.

http://www.me.uvic.ca/~open95/Dick_Underwood/

Santa, as you see, Mr. Underwood has given over 2100 speaches and would guess that that translates into about million people or more. I don't see anyone going out and saying that its all wrong.



You might want to read his words in the JSC oral history project as well.

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral...W_10-17-00.pdf

Wow. You've described yourself perfectly.

We have not avoided the evidence. You have avoided the facts. If an argument is abstract and theorectical, but still correct, then it holds. But what we're telling you is simple stuff that anyone who has gone outside can tell you.

Not examining the evidence allows people like NASAscam to have websites and people like you to post things like this. There is a difference between not examining the evidence, which you do, and not seeing evidence to support a claim, as we do. If no evidence exists, how are we to examine it?

Exactly. Which is why we defend it and why your arguments are fundamentally flawed.

The classic conspiractist tactic.


So you admit to doing it, then.

No, it's because you don't know of any genuinely qualified people who actually believe Apollo was a hoax. There is not one person I have seen so far who believes Apollo was a hoax and does not fail to grasp some of teh fundamentals of photography, orbital dynamics, astronomy, engineering, and so forth. Ralph Rene, a "self-taught engineer" (a euphemism for "phony") decided the LM door was too small for the astronauts to get through by crawling under his kitchen table. NASAscam is the worst. He misunderstands practically every fundamental principle of science and then attacks us for it. If the person is qualified, we will listen to the argument. Every scientist, engineer, or ordinary person who has some basic understanding of science knows that the hoaxists' arguments are flawed and ridiculous. So most hoaxists eventually resort to insults and name-calling, as you see here.

The classic hoaxist lifetime here starts with asking a few questions, which we debunk. The questions eventually get more bizarre with the person ignoring the same fundamental point over and over and over. Eventually they lose their cool and post an extremely inflammatory personal attack on the posters here, as you see here. A textbook case. Also a tactic of anti-nukyularists.

__________________
"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars". - Edward Young, 1745

Doesn't explain why he is still brightly lit at the bottom of the ladder when he is in dark shade from the LM though does it!

I have posted a picture of an astronaut in the same position at the bottom of the ladder of the LM and then you move the goalposts. It seems like you ask for an example to prove my point and when I post one, you change your theory why he isnt lit up. This is a no win situation.

He is not as brightly lit as he would be if he were at the top, but that doesn't mean he is not illuminated.

Let's get straight to the point.

Do you dispute that reflection off the surface can provide fill illumination to even the smallest degree? I'm asking qualitatively, not quantitatively. I'm not asking about your opinions as to whether reflected light is enough. We will come to that. For now, I'm asking you if you recognise the existance of reflected fill light at all.

It's a hybrid of Cosmic Dave and Cable, when back when he was an HBer.

E-X-P-O-S-U-R-E.
Illuminate sunlit surface correctly => underexpose shadow
Overexposure sunlit surface => illuminate shadow correctly

We have repeatedly try to explain why apparent illumination is different in the two photos. We explained it was due to different exposure settings on the camera. You have not addressed our argument of exposure settings, you have simply restated your original argument while giving no recognition to our arguments about exposure settings.

Isn't it time to ban this troll yet?

Now, now, let's keep our cool. I think there is still opportunity for useful debate with Santa.

Hey! I am a constrution worker and I am one of the "fooled." I demand you retract your statement and apologize!! :wink:

LOL, no offense intended. I was speaking particularly of Ralph Rene who was a construction worker and now he's going around calling himself an engineer and a physicist. As an engineer my career depends on the skills of construction workers.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I thought the garage pictures were a perfect example of reflected light illuminating objects in a shadow.

They are. Most conspiracists don't seem to understand how and why the atmosphere "softens" (i.e., makes less stark) shadows in earth environments. They're so used to saying "There's no air on the moon, therefore shadows are perfectly black," that they don't really think about it.

I wracked my brains for months trying to figure out a way to show the effects of diffuse reflection from the sun without the interference of atmospheric scatter. Ironically I was working on putting lights in my garage when I suddenly came to the realization that I could see what I was doing. From my vantage point all I could see that was lit was my asphalt driveway. So I ran for the camera.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of different parts of the inside of the garage at different exposure settings -- i.e., a metered exposure to correctly capture the images, and the same exposures that Armstrong used. With the Armstrong exposure I found I was able to photograph a newspaper legibly. My lab was able to make it into a usable print with no sign of exposure difficulties. (This has to do with the way film retains latent images; underexposures can frequently be salvaged while overexposures can't.)

Ironically the photo looking into the garage was actually a gnomon shot. The gnomon (to establish the sun angle) is cropped out in the picture I posted. It's out of frame to the left. I took two gnomon shots at 90 degree azimuths to each other, but when I took them I forgot to change the camera exposure back to daylight. So the asphalt saturated to nearly white (even though it's essentially the same color as the lunar surface) and you can see objects in the garage. A happy accident.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I absolutely understand that 'some' light would reflect from the ground, but not to the extent that lights Aldrin so clearly. Can you provide evidence of Armstrong changing exposure settings between the time he shot Aldrin coming down the ladder and the picture I posted of Aldrin by the flag? Are you just guessing or saying that he did to substantiate your point or is it written down in the Apollo 11 journal that he changed the exposure setting? You will have to provide evidence that he did for me to believe you. Do you always ask for the admin to ban people who has a difference of opinion to yourself?

Wow Santa! I hope you got that out of your system!

I'll give you this one:


Continental Drift is a good example of this. The evidence was there a long time before it was accepted because they couldn't explain how.

As to the rest of the rant - I fail to see how most of it applies to what is happening here.

Yes, and still people can’t even grasp my simple explanations.

The point is that your explanations are too simple. They don't account for all the physical phenomena known to occur in the scenes, and so you chalk up the resulting discrepancies to some unsubstantiated conspiracy theory rather than to the flaws in your explanations. When we present explanations that more fully account for all the factors that affect what you see, you scoff at them and accuse us of being dense.

I don't know how to say it any more plainly: ignore pertinent facts at your own peril.

That difference is that the Sun on most shots is behind the cameraman and actually lighting up the rock facing the camera. In the LM shots the Sun is behind the LM.

Irrelevant. The shaded portions of the rocks are shaded because no direct sunlight strikes them. The angle formed by the sun and the cameraman is largely irrelevant for purposes of diffuse reflection. It is the angle between the sun and the rock that matters.

Now you say that since the shaded portions of objects on the moon -- be they rocks or lunar modules -- receive no direct sunlight, they should not be lit at all since the only source of light (you claim) is direct sunlight. Where is the light coming from that's illuminating those shaded portions of the rocks which are not in direct sunlight?

Take this example: Even though the camera is placed very close to this rock (as is the case in the pictures JayUtah posted, you cannot make out any detail in the dark shadow.

Irrelevant. I can post just as many pictures that show perfectly black shade on the down-sun sides of rocks and perfectly black shadow on the lunar surface next to them. The point is not that it must be one way or another. The point is that it can appear differently depending on the precise illumination arrangements in each shot and the exposure settings to which the camera was set.

You have argued that shade and shadow on the moon must be universally black. I have not argued that they must be universally lit or filled. In fact, my argument is that the photographs should differ depending on the characteristics stated above. I've explained exhaustively why this is so, and have provided both Apollo and non-Apollo examples of it in photography.

Your claim that the Aldrin egress photos were lit artificially and therefore shot in a studio rests on the premise that it is the only way to explain the fill lighting. I have shown that it is not the only way to explain it. Simply posting pictures where the shade and/or shadow is dark doesn't prove your point. In order to prove your point you have to explain the photos where the shade and shadow are not perfectly black.

Here’s a picture from Apollo 16. Can you see detail in the rock where the astronauts shadow falls? Because I certainly can’t, and lets remember that this camera is situated a lot closer than the one taking Aldrins picture.

Again, exposure. I can't state this any more simply. You seem to have utterly no knowledge of what I mean by photographic exposure, how to adjust it, and how it affects the final photograph. Now if I were mean-spirited and trying to assassinate your character as you claim I am, I would just simply call you ignorant and have done with it. But instead I and my colleagues are trying valiantly to educate you.

Film is cumulative, unlike the eye. If I keep my eyes open for several minutes looking at a scene, I see the scene and all its details at each point in time. Not so for a camera. If I leave the shutter open for several minutes in a daylit scene, I'll end up with a completely white frame with likely no picture on it whatsoever. That's because the film "accumulates" an image over time. Your eyes, on the other hand, "reset" themselves several times a second.

There are three ways to control exposure. First, the sensitivity of the film. Apollo film was characterized as "high-speed", but that's high speed for the 1960s. It's rating was ISO 160, which is fairly slow by today's standards. Nevertheless ISO 160 is perfectly suitable for daylight. My garage pictures were shot on ISO 200 color negative film, only slightly more sensitive than Apollo film (and with somewhat different exposure "latitude" -- a term describing how sloppy you can be and still get good quality pictures).

Second, the f-stop or aperture. This is simply a "valve" on the camera lens that controls how much light per second comes through it. You "stop down" the lens to restrict light and "open it up" to admit more light.

Third, the shutter speed. The shutter is open for a fraction of a second in most cases. The longer it's open, the more light falls on the film and the "lighter" the picture is.

It doesn't take much training or skill to be able to use these controls to take pictures that are different than what the eye sees. The classic case, precisely, is "opening up shadows". When I was paid to take pictures, I was paid to take wedding pictures. While my employer used the medium- and large-format cameras to take the posed pictures, I would use the 35mm (manual exposure) camera to take "candid" photos. I would have to keep in mind that people standing under trees for shade in summer weddings couldn't be photographed with "sunny 16" daylight settings. You have to overexpose those shots by one or two f-stops (i.e., instruct the lens to admit more light per unit time) or else I'd get a bunch of silhouettes against the sunlit grass and/or sky.

Now I actually posted two versions of Aldrin standing in the footpad, one fairly dark from a scanned transparency, and the other fairly light from a scanned print. I was hoping you'd ask me to explain why they're so different, but you haven't. I'll tell you why they're different.

The transparencies were scanned by the Lunar and Planetary Institute as a sort of thumbnail set. They didn't care too much about picture quality. They just loaded the long roll (80 feet) of dupe master film into the scanner and whipped through each frame as fast as possible. Accounting for the sensitivity of the scanner, it would be safe to say that the dark photo more closely represents what was on the transparency.

But what about the print? How did it get to be so light? When you make a print from a negative or a transparency, you get that whole set of exposure controls again because what you're really doing is taking a picture of a picture. You load the negative or transparency into a projector called an "enlarger" and you project it onto a piece of photosensitive paper. If the picture is dark on the negative, you can "overexpose" the print and save it. This is what the lab did to my newspaper picture. But when you do that, you lose contrast. The "darks" become lighter. There are chemical tricks you play to negate this. There are also physical tricks too. Exposing a print usually takes several seconds as opposed to a fraction of a second for the camera shot. And this lets you "dodge" and "burn" the print, or selectively expose just parts of it for longer.

The Apollo program chose reversal film precisely because it provides the most opportunity for manipulation in the darkroom to bring out detail and color and other things. The program planners knew the astronauts wouldn't be as good as professional photographers and they knew that they'd be busy and forget to adjust the exposure settings (Roll 116 or my garage shot). And so they provided the solution that allowed them to be sloppy and shifted the burden of expertise to the experts on the ground who would have plenty of time, equipment, and techniques to use.

So when you look at some of these Aldrin egress photos -- specifically the ones scanned from prints -- you're looking at a photo which has undergone some help to bring out those details.

Oh look, funny shadows again. The rock in the foreground has its front completely lit up, and yet the small rock in the middle of the shot which is not far away has shadow on its front left panel?

The light is coming from behind and to the right. The distant rock has a face which is mostly down-sun from that direction. The shaded panel does not directly face the photographer.

See http://www.clavius.org/shad45.html for an example I photographed under controlled circumstances.

At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter who’s name I put forward as being qualified and who think that the Apollo program was a hoax because you will disagree or say that you do not think that the person is qualified to have an opinion. So I’ll save my time.

Refusal to provide requested evidence duly noted.

OK, you may be more qualified than me at photography, but any other photographer who I have mentioned (Marcus Allen) who is also a photographer is simply said to be unqualified and not as informed in photography as any of you. How do you know?

Consulting several books on logic, I am told that evaluating an expert witness is a matter of confirming:

1. that the individual really is an expert,
2. that he is speaking in the capacity of an expert, and
3. that other experts materially agree.

Percy, for example, lists membership in the Royal Photographic Society as a credential, and so it is. What are Allen's credentials? How may we know that he is an expert? I have no credentials as a photographer, but upon request I can provide privately a portfolio and the names of people who have paid me to take photographs for them.

Allen is speaking in the capacity of an expert. (This provision is there to prevent off-the-cuff or irrelevant remarks made by experts from being co-opted as an argument. The classical example is Ronald Reagan's comment about outlawing the Soviet Union and commencing bombing: he did not know the microphone was on and it was intended as a joke.)

Unfortunately almost all other experts materially disagree with Allen, and this is the major point that fails his argument. Many people have expertise in photography (as opposed to, say, flying jet fighters) and so it's not hard to develop a consensus. Whether Allen is an expert is not quite so important as whether he conveys correct information. This provision intends to raise the question of bias or of conflict of interest. Doctors working for tobacco companies may not necessarily agree with other doctors on the hazards of smoking tobacco. In that case the disagreement might stem from who pays the paycheck. But we need not discover any such bias in order to invoke this test. It is sufficient to note that it's the "expert" Allen on one side and the concerted opinions of all the other experts on the other side.

JRKeller, why carry out an experiment using electric light? Surely were talking about natural light here?

Photons are photons whether they come from the sun or from a light bulb.

Finally, perhaps JayUtah et all can answer why the movie footage of Armstrong coming down the LM ladder is in complete shadow until ‘miraculously’ he gets ‘lit up’ when he’s almost at the bottom of the ladder?

Again (sigh) exposure. If you read the transcripts and listen to the soundtrack, Aldrin is confirming with Houston the proper settings for the motion picture camera. He "miraculously" gets lit up because Aldrin opened the f-stop wide on the 16mm film camera. That's how photographic exposure affects the final outcome.

Anybody who knows anything about photography (aside from "point lens away from you for best results") immediately recognizes this as a specification of an exposure setting.

As you have all said here, Armstrong was far from a professional photographer, so was it just luck that he had his camera set to the proper exposure to capture Aldrin in the dark shadows of the LM?

No, we don't claim that Armstrong was "far from a professional photographer." In fact I've claimed several times that Armstrong was in fact a skilled photographer. But in any case, all the astronauts were given photography training. It is David Percy's contention that they were irrevocable amateurs, and he lobs many cheap shots onto that argument. (I'm thinking precisely of a sidebar in Dark Moon where he nitpicks through a few astronaut statements regarding photography terms.) Ironically, in speaking both with Percy and with the astronauts, I find they have a better grasp of photography than Percy does.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Good, so we are agreed that reflected light can provide fill illumination.

The question is now a quantitative one. Is the reflected light sufficient for the observed illumination? You are the one making the assertion that it isn't so you have Burden of Proof. You must quantitatively demonstrate that the reflected light was insufficient to provide the observed brightness with the given camera settings. We don't accept handwaving on these matters. You can't just declare that it wouldn't, you must show why in order for us to accept it.

The second thing we don't accept is shifts of Burden of Proof. You are the one making the assertion, you are the one therefore held responsible for ensuring that the assertion takes into account the possibility of changing exposure settings. Your argument works like this,

"These two photos shows different levels of illumination. I'm asserting that this is wrong. Of course, the exposure settings could have been changed, which would completely nullify my argument, but I'll just assume that they haven't. Therefore, I have a point."

No you don't. Armstrong was a practised amateur photographer and he had trained at length for this type of thing. It would be taken as given that he should have changed the exposure settings from those suitable for shadow photography to those suitable for sunlit photography. Since it is observed that the exposure was lowered for sunlit photography, everything seems consistant with what should be expected, therefore no anomaly is inferred.

Also consider this. The most effective way to conduct any forgery would be to simulate this 2½ hour LEVA as one. That eliminates any possible continuity errors. Therefore the lighting conditions should not have changed anyway. Therefore the best conspiracy model also fails to explain why the two illuminations should be different unless the exposure was changed. The reasoning is ad hoc. See something you believe to be an anomaly and contemplate in reverse, a situation that would cause that. The problem is that when observed forwards, it fails to make sense.

It's not about people who disagree, it's about people who post unnecessary provocative messages like this one. Bait posts are evidence of trolling.

I absolutely understand that 'some' light would reflect from the ground, but not to the extent that lights Aldrin so clearly.

So then this is a matter of quantity. Very well, there are techniques that allow one to compute the intensity of reflected light. Employ them and stop waving your hands.

Further, this question is only partially one of illumination. Knowing where the light comes from is part of it. Knowing how the film reacts under exposure settings is another part of it. Knowing how the technicians in the darkroom can manipulate light levels while making prints is another part of it. As I said, there is no one simple explanation that covers everything, so stop looking for one.

Can you provide evidence of Armstrong changing exposure settings between the time he shot Aldrin coming down the ladder and the picture I posted of Aldrin by the flag?

Well, if you knew anything about photography you'd realize how stupid this request is. Photographers are constantly changing exposure setings if they have a manual camera. To imply that he kept the settings the same is ludicrous. It's like asking someone with a manual transmission to prove he changed gears while driving to the grocery store. You can't operate a manual camera effectively without constantly paying attention to those settings.

Are you just guessing or saying that he did to substantiate your point or is it written down in the Apollo 11 journal that he changed the exposure setting?

It is written in the mission scientific report (perhaps not online, but available in libraries and from NASA) that he used f/5.6 and 1/60 for the Aldrin egress photos. The exposure settings for each photograph are not recorded since they would have changed so frequently. Mission photo planners attached a basic exposure guide to the film magazine so that the astronauts could refer to it. They generally specified f-stops of 8 to 16 and shutter speeds from 1/125 to 1/250 second.

You will have to provide evidence that he did for me to believe you.

I think we'll do our best to help you understand what's going on, but making demands such as this from a point of view of almost total ignorance of photographic exposure doesn't engender much more than bluster. People who know about exposure and how to set it manually just take it as read that the exposures would have been changed many times during each roll of film. They don't require it to be proven.

Do you always ask for the admin to ban people who has a difference of opinion to yourself?

No, just those who stubbornly talk and refuse to listen.

I'm not trying to call you stupid or uneducated. I'm simply trying to say that your confusion derives from your lack of understanding of some key principles. You can't make it our responsibility to alleviate that confusion unless you're willing to admit that you don't understand and express some interest in being taught. Frankly, it's not my fault that you don't understand lighting and exposure, and our willingness to help you understand it has limits.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

It's not about people who disagree, it's about people who post unnecessary provocative messages like this one. Bait posts are evidence of trolling.

Agreed. It's quite strong evidence that Santa is here just to argue and not to come to any greater understanding of Apollo photography. Santa expects his questions to do damage, not to elicit discussion or expand knowledge. Reminds me a lot of "Cosmic" Dave.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Yeah I’m still waiting for somebody to post the evidence that Armstrong changed the settings on his camera between Aldrin coming down the ladder and where he stood by the flag. Annoying isn’t it!

Not in this forum apparently

So if you have no credentials as a photographer what gives you the right to tell Allen and Percy who ARE professional photographers, what they can and cannot say?

Almost is not all. You cannot 100% condemn somebody’s findings if a portion of scientists agree with his findings – no matter how small that group may be.


Of course, but not to the extent where an astronaut is completely lit up in dark shadow.

Of course I will, if you can point me in the direction to where I would find where NASA say Armstrong changed the aperture of his lens. How details do you want to get? Your asking this question because you know that such information is not available. No handwaving, just lack of records from NASA. ;o)

Take out the viewfinder and how do you suppose Armstrong knew where and when to make that change? And another point is that exposure on Earth is usually changed due to changing effects within the environment such as cloud cover, etc. There’s no clouds on the Moon so why do you think Armstrong felt the need to change the lens settings when he was moving say – 20 feet to the right of the LM for the Aldrin ladder shot and then change it again for the shot by the flag 20 feet to the left of the LM. Nothing was obscuring direct Sunlight reaching the camera from either angle, so why would he need to change the exposure?

My posts are here to ask questions that I find interesting. I look at things logically, even if you think otherwise. Your asking me to produce evidence of why one picture shows Aldrin in complete bright light in the shadow of the LM and why this isn’t the case in another Apollo picture of an astronaut in nearly the same position. That’s a question you should be asking yourselves. And as regards to the cans in your garage JayUtah, they’re nowhere as near as bright as Aldrin is lit up, they are in shadow.

Jay has described the different exposure settings taught to the astronauts to photography in different conditions. The different apparent illumination levels are consistant with the astronauts following what they were trained to follow.

The issue is no what they can and cannot say, but the truthfulness of what they say. The evidence is emperical. Jay has provided the emperical evidence and it is in disagreement with what Percy and Allen say.

For the most part, it is generally appropriate to defer to the majority consensus, which isn't Allen's.

Handwaving.

Jay has already provided the exposure settings used for the shadow photography. Call up Kodak and ask them about their Ektachrome Transparency. We're asking you to quantitatively backup your assertion about inadequate fill lighting in AS11-40-5869. The change of exposure in between that and 5874 is irrelevant. Focus on 5869. You have the f-stop and time. You know the type of film. Now get calculatin'.

What does a viewfinder have to do with exposure?

Denial of the antecedant in its most obvious form. Changes in cloud cover do require review of exposure settings, but the lack of cloud cover does not mean a lack of change in exposure. Changing from shadow to sunlit photography is a good reason to stop down.

You've been saying that direct sunlight was not incident on the subject of 5869. Aldrin was in shadow. Hence, there was a change between 5869 and 5874. That's how Armstrong knew he needed to change exposure. Shadow photogaphy versus sunlit photography.

If that were genuinly the case, then you'd be paying closer attention to what we say.

You just employed denial of the antecedant. That's hardly logical.

One was taken at one exposure settings, the other at another. That's why the apparent illumination is different. If you comment on nothing else in your next post, comment of this.

The sun angles don't produce the same zero phase effects. The garage walls block out a lot of the light. Those photos weren't pushed during development.

Santa, the other day I was trying to take a photo of a pupil in my classroom. He was sat on the floor and above him sunlight was streaming in through the window. I was using a digital camera with an LCD screen, so I could 'preview' the photo before actually taking it. Because the sunlight was coming in through the window, the automatic exposure on the camera darkened the image so much that I couldn't see the pupil's face. It was too dark. My solution? I shut the blinds on the windows, making the whole room darker. The camera then automatically brightened up the image and I was able to take a good digital photo of the pupil.

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Admin of the new and very much improved Apollohoax forum

Santa, are you Cosmic Dave?

It's okay to admit it, since (as far as I know) CD was never banned here, he just went away. There are so many similarities in your interests (Apollo and UFOs), style of writing, way of thinking, and attitude that I find it almost overwhelmingly likely that you are CD. If you are, why change nicknames?

Yeah I’m still waiting for somebody to post the evidence that Armstrong changed the settings on his camera between Aldrin coming down the ladder and where he stood by the flag. Annoying isn’t it!

The evidence you request doesn't exist. Nor is it suspicious that it doesn't exist. As I said, those familiar with manually operated cameras understand that exposure settings are constantly manipulated as one moves from photo to photo. It would be more suspicious for Armstrong to have kept the camera settings constant than to have adjusted them. Hence, in the absence of evidence either way, we presume that Armstrong altered the exposure as necessary.

So if you have no credentials as a photographer what gives you the right to tell Allen and Percy who ARE professional photographers, what they can and cannot say?

Saying I have no credentials is not the same as saying I have no expertise. I simply have no way of easily proving that in this venue whereas others do. I have seen no evidence that Allen is a professional photographer; he may be, I just don't know yet. I have seen evidence that Percy is a professional photographer.

An expert witness must satisfy all three criteria. Percy satisfies two of the three. Allen satisfies perhaps one of the three. Neither of them satisfies the third criterion, which is coherence with other known experts. I have seen perhaps three dozen evaluations of his claims by proven, expert photographers which strongly disagree with their findings and can provide detailed explanations about why the arguments are wrong. Those explanations are fully in harmony with my various books and notes on photography from my own training, while Percy's and Allen's do not.

Opening the aperture in order to "open" shadows is a very simple technique which is learned by every photographer. It is even in the brief instruction manual which accompanied my manual-exposure Pentax K-1000. On this point the conspiracy theory truly is an attempt to contradict a well known fact.

Further, on the subject of illumination I have received specific training which Percy has not, namely a physically-based approach in two different scientific contexts. The tracking of energy from source through various reflections to destination, in quantitative terms, is something that applies to my profession. I apply that understanding not only in engineering but also in lighting stage productions. I have attempted to discuss these principles with David Percy, but he evades and tries to shift the burden of proof. He cannot prove his point, and he all but admits it in private. He apparently has no idea that illumination levels can be quantitatively determined by means other than guesswork.

Almost is not all. You cannot 100% condemn somebody’s findings if a portion of scientists agree with his findings – no matter how small that group may be.

Yes I can. Especially if that "expert" is caught handwaving. We're literally talking about one or two people against thousands. This isn't a case of a valid dissenting opinion. Percy and Allen are clearly wrong.

Of course, but not to the extent where an astronaut is completely lit up in dark shadow.

David Percy says this, but can't prove it. You say it. Can you prove it?

Of course I will, if you can point me in the direction to where I would find where NASA say Armstrong changed the aperture of his lens.

It would have been very strange of him not to, just as it would be very strange of you to drive from your house to your work entirely in first gear. If someone asked you to prove you had changed gears, you would properly consider that a strange request. There is nothing suspicious about the inability to give exposure settings for each Apollo photograph.

Armstrong found it important to recall and mention the settings for the egress photos because that indeed was a problematic lighting situation. The mission planners had the photos in hand and knowing what settings Armstrong used for those particular photos would help them give better instructions to future astronauts. The other photographs were fairly unremarkable in terms of exposure. The preplanned exposure settings were expected to work well.

No handwaving, just lack of records from NASA. ;o)

LOL! No photographer keeps track of his exposure settings on every photograph, even if he's concentrating entirely on the photography! Especially if you're an astronaut standing on the surface of an alien world with a whole checklist of things to accomplish besides taking photographs.

It's fairly clear what you're trying to do, and this convinces me even more that you're either "Cosmic" Dave himself or his clone. When unable to substantiate his own arguments, "Cosmic" Dave tries to manufacture a dilemma or contradiction or shortcoming which he can use to make his opponents appear divisive or incompetent. You're taking a page from his playbook. By pointing to this non-existent evidence you think you've played a trump card and you can now accuse us of not making a substantiated argument, or NASA of covering up or destroying evidence. You've asked a question you know we can't answer. But you fail to consider whether it's a reasonable question. Those of us who have taken photographs for years with manual exposure cameras know just how silly your question is.

Thus we're back to that same point: your questions are designed to do damage, not expand knowledge. This is not the sort of approach that leads to you staying here.

Take out the viewfinder and how do you suppose Armstrong knew where and when to make that change?

Training and experience. Viewfinders do not tell you anything about exposure, although many cameras today have light meters whose readouts display in the viewfinder.

The basis for outdoor photography is the "sunny 16" rule. If you set your f-stop at f/16 you use the reciprocal of your ISO film rating as your shutter speed: 1/160 for 160-speed film. Film manufacturers publish tables for various lighting situations. That table was abstracted for the placard on the film magazines.

Now on the cuff checklists for other missions, there were exposure settings for various situations. (I haven't seen the cuff checklists for Apollo 11.) For example, after setting up the ALSEP experiment they were supposed to photograph it from various angles to document their work. The cuff checklist shows a diagram of the typical ALSEP layout and shows where the astronaut was supposed to stand and how he was supposed to set the camera exposure. These were worked out by the photography instructors -- expert photographers working for NASA. This wasn't because the astronauts were dunces. It just saved them some time and effort.

These guides were just guides. The astronauts were supposed to rely on their training, and in many cases their experience, to adjust the settings from the recommendations. It's really not rocket science. A professional photographer using reversal film will carefully meter the shot and then "bracket" it by shooting a range of settings on either side of the ones he has computed or metered. One of my cameras even has an automatic bracketing function where it will take three pictures: one that I set, and one on either side of the selected f-stop.

Keep in mind that the astronauts, contrary to Percy's assertions, were not expected to take National Geographic photographs. They were expected to document their work and their mission. Percy says the "haphazard" approach to exposure was unacceptable for a photographer taking "important" photographs, but I spoke with the astronauts and they say they weren't under pressure to get perfect photographs. Percy is simply trying to paste his expectations on the astronauts, and then manufacturing a dilemma when they fail to live up to them.

So to sum up, here's the answer to your question:

1. The astronauts were trained in the principles of photography.
2. They were provided with general exposure guides for up-sun, down-sun, and cross-sun.
3. They were provided with specific exposure guides for certain situations.
4. In a few cases they asked each other or Houston what was important.
5. In the end, it didn't matter that much.

And another point is that exposure on Earth is usually changed due to changing effects within the environment such as cloud cover, etc.

No, that's not true. Exposure on earth is altered as the lighting conditions change. Environmental conditions such as clouds will alter the lighting conditions, but lighting conditions that require exposure adjustment are more often as simple as whether you're shooting into the sun or away from the sun. If the sun is behind you and in your subject's face, underexpose. If the sun is behind your subject, shade your lens and overexpose. It even extends to whether the subject is wearing light or dark clothing.

My posts are here to ask questions that I find interesting. I look at things logically, even if you think otherwise.

I can demonstrate otherwise. Your questions are obviously intended to attempt to demonstrate shortcomings or contradictions which you perceive in the arguments, hence your "Here, explain that!" tone and your "Cosmic" obsession with finding contradiction.

You may think you're looking at things logically, but in reality you're operating in a sort of vacuum of fact and understanding. Your conclusions may seem rational in terms of the evidence you already understand, or are willing to consider. The problem is that there is more you need to understand before you can be drawing reliable conclusions on this matter.

Your asking me to produce evidence of why one picture shows Aldrin in complete bright light in the shadow of the LM and why this isn’t the case in another Apollo picture of an astronaut in nearly the same position. That’s a question you should be asking yourselves.

We do ask ourselves, only we know the answer. You seem to think it's some great mystery, but those of us who understand illumination and exposure don't find it mysterious at all. Please don't assume that everyone else shares your confusion, or that it's some sort of inherently confusing situation. It's somewhat complicated, but it's not beyond what a layman can understand.

And as regards to the cans in your garage JayUtah, they’re nowhere as near as bright as Aldrin is lit up, they are in shadow.

Of course not, for many reasons.

1. I didn't "push" those photos in the developing. Look at the transparency scan of the footpad photo: Much of the scene is largely invisible. What you see in the print scan is partly darkroom magic.

2. My garage is made mostly of old wood which is very dark. Nothing in my garage is nearly as bright as a space suit or a polished aluminum spacecarft.

3. My garage was lit by only a few square meters of visible sunlit asphalt, not an entire surface minus a spacecraft shadow.

I'm not trying to duplicate the results exactly, merely demonstrate a qualitative principle. You've conceded the qualitative failure of your argument, so now you must provide the quantitative support for it. You say there isn't enough light to light up the egress photos. On what basis? Your comparison to other photographs suffers from your unwillingness to consider exposure issues, and doesn't convince.

__________________
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Clavius Moon Base

Jay has described the different exposure settings taught to the astronauts to photography in different conditions.

My very first serious photography experience was as a teenager with reversal film and a manual exposure camera. I learned the basics of exposure from a book. Nobody told me that reversal film had undesirable exposure latitude problems. I just followed the principles in the book and learned from experience. I'm going to dig out a few of those old transparencies and see if I can get them professionally scanned. The moral is that it wasn't hard to learn.

Nowadays every camera comes with an exposure computer. You have to specifically look for cameras that even allow manual exposure control. These computers are often very good, but as John pointed out they don't always get the correct results. If I were asked to photograph his student as he tried to, I would have simply opened the camera lens and left the lighting alone.

The different apparent illumination levels are consistant with the astronauts following what they were trained to follow.

Of course. Santa wants evidence that the exposure settings were changed. The best evidence is the difference in appearance of the photos. The notion that the difference in apparent brightness "must" be due to artificial light is strictly unparsimonious.

Strictly logically speaking, it is not even necessary to prove that the exposure settings were changed. Because Santa follows the Aulis procedure of proof by indirection, it is sufficient only to show that another means was available. "It must have been artificial light because there's no other possibility," is seriously undermined by the availability of exposure controls. Logically, Santa would have to prove that the exposure settings weren't touched.

Of course this doesn't prove that Armstrong specifically changed exposures between the egress photos and the flag photos. But his commentary on the transcript makes it clear that he took an intelligent approach to the photography. Keep in mind that the plaque was on the down-sun leg with the ladder, so he had similar exposure misgivings here as with the egress shots. That's why he specifically reported those exposure settings in his formal report to NASA.

Jay has provided the emperical evidence and it is in disagreement with what Percy and Allen say.

Well, I also understand it from a theoretical standpoint. Many engineer types find that seemingly unrelated hobby efforts have a synergetic effect on their work. One of the mechanical engineers where I work also works at the same theater I do, occasionally, helping with difficult set designs. For example, we recently built a huge water tank on the stage for a production of Big River. This was 11,000 gallons of water sitting on a hydraulic lift. In order to do that with actors and audience there, we needed to be very sure of our designs. This same engineer designs the mechanical enclosures for our large computer systems which have similar static load characteristics.

But I digress. Paying attention to how light behaves -- which you have to do if you're lighting a scene -- gives you a sort of sixth sense for radiant heat transfer. And because studying radiant heat transfer is required for engineers, I can make the direct connection between what I see on paper or on computer screens in thermal designs, and what I see on stages as I'm aiming lights.

Am I a professional lighting designer? No. I don't get paid to do it. And if I'm not there to do it, which is frequently the case, someone else does it. Am I a professional photographer? Depends on your definition. At one time it was my full-time occupation, but not for very long. I still get paid to take photos, but it's not a significant part of of my income. I'm sure there are many photographers who understand much more than I do about it, and who take much better photographs than I do.

But that's not really the point. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Allen and Percy can demonstrate much more training and qualification than I can. I'm certainly no member of the Royal Photographic Society. But you can't simply say that these gentlemen are necessarily right because they have greater qualifications. When their arguments ignore or contradict the basics -- which are emphasized even by professional photographers -- you know that the vindication of their argument will not lie in the gulf between basic and advanced knowledge.

For the most part, it is generally appropriate to defer to the majority consensus, which isn't Allen's.

It's worse than this. It's not a matter of the (vast) majority simply saying, "I disagree." In all the cases I've heard or read, the experts vehemently object, sometimes with great amusement, and question the conspiracists' claims to expertise.

The change of exposure in between that and 5874 is irrelevant.

Well, not necessarily. It is important to know that the difference between these two photographs is explicable via exposure. Whether it can be proven that exposure was actually changed between them is largely a red herring. It's irrational to propose that Armstrong wouldn't have changed the settings.

It is, of course, improper to claim that 5874 is the "natural" or "inherent" lighting conditions. It may, in fact, better approximate what the eye would have seen. But it certainly does not make 5869 impossible.

You have the f-stop and time. You know the type of film. Now get calculatin'.

I should probably mention that Craig Lamson, one of our resident expert photographers, has already done this. That's where the four-stop overexposure comes from. But I'm interested in seeing whether Santa can provide better computations. To provide none is unacceptable.

Changing from shadow to sunlit photography is a good reason to stop down.

It's the primary reason. But simply turning 90 or 180 degrees to shoot from a different angle requires exposure changes for optimal results.

That's how Armstrong knew he needed to change exposure. Shadow photogaphy versus sunlit photography.

That's obvious to you and me. We understand exposure and how and when it's altered. But keep in mind that this will appear circular to Santa. He still has to be convinced that changing exposure settings is something Armstrong would have done often and with some degree of skill. But that's really his problem. It's his personal deficiency of knowledge, not something that's a mystery to people who understand photography.

One was taken at one exposure settings, the other at another. That's why the apparent illumination is different.

But this destroys his argument, so he's not going to concede it without a fight. And he believes he's trumped the ace by asking for documentation of the exposure change. He doesn't realize that the question itself implies that Armstrong wouldn't have changed exposure -- that in the absence of evidence of a change, we should presume it was left the same. As often as exposure is changed, it's much more reasonable to presume it was changed.

Look at http://www.clavius.org/glowflag.html . Those photos were taken literally seconds appart without moving and without a material change in lighting. The one on the right is lighter (look at the sky and the white soffits) because the exposure computer increased its exposure by one stop. I told it to properly expose the flag and it responded by slightly altering the exposure between frames.

The sun angles don't produce the same zero phase effects.

None at all. I designed this specifically. With asphalt you get a lot of specular reflection, especially if it's rather aged. (That asphalt is 28 years old.) Asphalt is just gravel held together with bitumen. When it's new, the gravel has a thin film of bitumen on it. After a while the bitumen wears off the upper surface of the gravel and the gravel is itself worn smooth by many car tires -- polished, if you will. So aged asphalt behaves a little like a mirror.

Any textured surface will exhibit backscatter or heiligenschein or zero-phase lighting angle or whatever you want to call it. Thus if you take the surface normal vector and the incident light vector and make a plane out of that, you want to stay out of that plane to ensure that you have only diffuse reflection. I did that. The garage door opens at right angles to that plane.

The garage walls block out a lot of the light.

That's the important difference. The garage door, in addition to blocking the light from the sky that would have interfered with the results, also blocks out a lot of the surface light that would have more accurately reproduced the Apollo photos.

But again, I'm really not aiming for quantitative reproduction. I really can't do that on earth -- at least not every easily. I have sun, I have 12% albedo, and I have a reasonable approximation of Apollo exposure. I can't reproduce it in precise detail.

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Clavius Moon Base

And here it is: Look at the lunar surface in both photos. See how bright and washed out the background in 5869 is...



...compared to how dark the surface in 5874 is:



The first photo was highly overexposed to bring out the details of the shaded area, whereas the second wasn't.

On a related note, this page has slightly differing scans (or scans from slightly differing prints) of 5874 with somewhat less contrast, in both high and low resolution versions, showing that Aldrin's back and PLSS (backpack) are not in as "deep shadow" as it appears in the one above.

In regard to 5942, cited earlier in the thread because it supposedly depicts the right side of the astronaut and equipment in his right hand in "full shadow":



This page contains a similarly lower-contrast version which shows that both the side of the astronaut as well as the equipment were indeed illuminated by light reflected from the surrounding surface.

In fact, if you increase the gamma value (the digital cousin to over-exposing or "pushing") or even boost the brightness of any of the images cited as depicting "complete shadow," some degree of detail will emerge, depending on how your monitor is calibrated.

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Bearer of the highly coveted "I found Venus in nine Apollo photos" sweatsocks.

DataCable^2008 A+

It is difficult to tell whether you are being deliberately obtuse, or you are just seeking to stir up a hornets nest for a bit of fun. Your ludicrous "Debunking manual" earlier suggests the latter.

However, once again, the photo that you provided as evidence with the astronaut in the darkness of the LM, has been correctly (if inadvertently) exposed for the lunar surface in the background. To capture detail of the astronaut, the exposure would be such that the background lunar surface would be markedly overexposed. We have not moved the goalposts, or changed our 'theory'. We have asserted that it is a matter of exposure from the outset. You are unable or unwilling to provide evidence that discounts simple exposure (a property familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of photography) as being the explanation for the differences in the photos.

So, let me ask you. You claim that the Apollo 11 egress photograph has been faked, because the subject is too well illuminated. To demonstrate this, you provide a copy of an Apollo 16 photograph where an astronaut in the shadow of the LM is encased in darkness. So, is it your contention that the Apollo 16 photograph is real and truly demonstrates what the scene "should have looked like" (in which case, A16 managed to get to the moon)? Or is the Apollo 16 photograph also a fake (in which case it's evidentiary value for your case is nil)? Or could it possibly be that 2 photographs, taken in different circumstances, have different exposures and hence display different levels of detail within the shadow? :-?

__________________
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"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

Not unless I go to the Moon I guess
Then you cannot accurately claim that he did change the exposure between shots and that is why he has dark shadow in one shot and not in the other. Stop the guesswork if you haven't got the answer. I haven't asked a question that I know you cannot answer, I am merely turning the tables on the people here who ask me to prove that he used a different exposure on the two shots in question. I cannot accurately answer that question because it is not recorded, as you have mentioned, so how do you suggest that I can find out the data to such a question if you cannot?
Doesn't cloud cover alter lighting conditions then? If there were no cloud then the conditions during the day would be continually the same wouldn't they?
How can JayUtah produce emperical evidence if he isn't even a qualified photographer? Do you take somebodies advice who comes into your work place who knows nothing about the job, telling you how to do it?
Jay have you ever used the Hasselblad camera similar to the ones used on the Moon? Be honest.
But in both photo's which I point out, the cameraman is in direct sunlight.
Pure conjecture, you don't know this as fact.

Oh, before I forget, thanks for reposting the two shots because I noticed on the one with the flag that it lacks fudicles? Where did they go?

If you ask me, the reason why so much controversy arises from the Apollo pictures is because they have been tampered with so much. For almost every example I have posted here, somebody else has pointed to another version of that picture. Why the need to 'doctor' the photos so many times?

We cannot accurately claim that, no. However, however, however.

1. Changing the exposure is what we'd expect him to do given he is photographing different lighting conditions.
2. The observed photographs are consistant with that, therefore, there is no evidence of deception.

If the difference in apparent illumination is explained by a simple change of exposure, as would be expected anyway, that is far better than explaining it with the complex conjecture about sound stages and artificial fill lights.

We could say the same to you. Your entire argument rests on the assumption that Armstrong, despite what a person trained to do this kind of photography should do, did not change the exposure settings. That is an assumption as well. The difference is that your assumption involves incorporating unsubstantiated conjecture about studios and fill lights, whereas our assumption requires none of that.

Let's try to look at this forward. We have two photos which display different apparent illumination. What is the simplest explanation for this? That a vast conspiracy is occuring, or that the photographer simply changed the exposure settings for different situations? You say you think logically. One of the fundamental prinicples of logic is Occam's Razor.

The exposure settings used for shadow photography have been provided to you. Given that these were some of the first photographs taken on the LEVA by Armstrong, it is highly likely that he did indeed follow procedure. Use those values and produce the calculations to show that the apparent illumination is too great. Or at the very least, give a full explanation of how you would do that.

As I've pointed out to you, this is Denial of the Antecedant. Variable cloud cover is not the only thing that could affect overall illumination. In a shadow, the primary light source is blocked, as you are so fond of saying. Therefore, there is less light and so a higher exposure must be used. Again you are guilty of simplification. You are trying to make out that a scene would only require one exposure setting. Wrong, there are different exposure settings for different parts of the scene and even for different angles of viewing.

He has shown us photographs of scenes lit by reflected light off the ground. Hence, the emperical evidence.

Have you been reading what Jay has said? His field of work at the moment is supercomputers designed to calculate stuff related to radiant heat transfer, or something like that. He is highly knowledgeable about the issues of radiance and stuff and has had experience in the field of photography. He may not have official qualifications, but you are constructing a straw man by saying he knows nothing about these things.

Irrelevant. It is the illumination of the subject that dictates the exposure.

No, not pure conjecture. Your statements about artificial fill lights are pure conjecture. Two photographs show different levels of apparent illumination. It is entirely consistant with different exposure settings. Simple and straightforward. You are refusing to accept the simple explanation so that you might be able to cling to your complex, unsubstantiated, speculatory conspiracy theory.

We addressed this point ages ago. It is common for PR people are others to artificially remove the reseau grid because they judge it to be unaesthetic.

Why do directors shoot a scene so many times? Why was it that my cousin, who is a professional photographer, took so many repetitive photos of another cousin and his bride at his wedding last week? Because, they all want to have multiple tries at getting the most aesthetic version. When it comes to the Apollo archive, they don't have that opportunity. The PR people only have what the astronauts took. So they push them, pull them, crop them, paint them, wine and dine them, to get the most aesthetic shot.

Indeed it is the case that many conspiracist argument surround the modified photos that are generally reproduced in books and magazines. There is nothing fishy about this. It is public relations. The problem with conspiracists is that rather than do proper research and look at the most authentic versions they can, they just look for the nearest publicity shots and nitpick this heavily altered versions. If conspiracists knew about proper research, this controversy wouldn't exist.

Then you cannot accurately claim that he did change the exposure between shots and that is why he has dark shadow in one shot and not in the other.

Of course I can. I posted commentary by Armstrong which proves he took an intelligent approach to exposure and altered it as necessary. Absent any specific information about the second of two pictures you use, exposure adjustment is the obvious explanation.

Stop the guesswork if you haven't got the answer.

I'm not guessing. I'm applying my knowledge and experience of photography in evaluating Neil Armstrong's statements and the photographs themselves. Since you don't know much about exposure in photography, I'd say you're the one who's guessing.

I haven't asked a question that I know you cannot answer, I am merely turning the tables on the people here who ask me to prove that he used a different exposure on the two shots in question.

We're not asking you to prove he used a different exposure. Your theory relies on the premise that Armstrong used the same exposure on those two photos. It's the only way you can argue it has to be the lighting itself, since both lighting and exposure can affect the apparent brightness of a photo. If you can't prove that Armstrong didn't change exposure, then you have no basis for claiming the egress photos must have used artificial light. You have no direct evidence, only an indirect argument.

I cannot accurately answer that question because it is not recorded, as you have mentioned, so how do you suggest that I can find out the data to such a question if you cannot?

No. You said you would not believe that Armstrong changed the exposure setting unless it was conclusively proved to you via documentation. Now you're trying to backpedal out of the embarrassment of having asked for documentation that would have been nearly impossible, and at best silly, to keep. You won't get any rhetorical mileage out of the lack of documented exposure settings for each of the thousands upon thousands of Apollo photographs.

Further, you have to backpedal away from the naive unstated assumption that a photographer would not frequently change exposure settings, especially while shooting film that is notoriously sensitive to those settings. You're trying to make it sound like it's prudent to believe the exposure wouldn't have been changed unless there's proof to the contrary. But in fact it's much more prudent to believe that Armstrong changed the exposure frequently because that's what photographers habitually do.

Doesn't cloud cover alter lighting conditions then? If there were no cloud then the conditions during the day would be continually the same wouldn't they?

"Lighting conditions" in terms of photographic exposure does not mean simply the amount of available light, and thus whether there is sunlight or not. It's more specific to the individual photograph. As I said, while taking photographs at weddings I have to pay attention to whether my subjects are standing in sunlight or in shade. I have to open up the lens if they're in shadow, regardless of what the clouds are doing. In morning or evening I have to pay attention to whether my subjects are facing up-sun or down-sun.

The classic case in all the photography textbooks to describe when to adjust exposure is a subject standing in the shade versus in the sun. I seriously suggest you go to the library and check out a book on photography. Adjustments for the indirection of light is the most elementary case of exposure adjustment.

How can JayUtah produce emperical evidence if he isn't even a qualified photographer?

Ahem. I said I had no credentials. I never said I wasn't qualified. I pointed out that I can provide a portfolio and references, which is usually sufficient to get me my next job. A credential, for example, would be a membership in a professional organization. My employer was a member of Wedding Photographers of America, which has fairly stiff entry requirements. Diplomas and certifications are credentials. They can establish qualification, but they are not the only way to establish qualification. Demonstrated competence is also a way of establishing qualification.

Jay have you ever used the Hasselblad camera similar to the ones used on the Moon? Be honest.

I have used a Hasselblad medium-format camera, but only under the direction and supervision of its owner who gave me instructions. I've never used one on my own. I have, however, verified my assertions regarding the lunar Hasselblad cameras with two professional photographers who use the 700/EL, and with Markus Mehring, who is a specialist on the 500/EL and the modifications of the Apollo version.

Craig Lamson, a professional photographer very familiar with the camera and film in question, has confirmed here the idiocy of Percy's assertions based on his own experience and computations.

I have shot perhaps two hundred rolls of Ektachrome 200, nearly identical to the emulsion used for Apollo, with a manual-exposure camera. I am fairly experienced in how to expose it.

Now you be honest. Have you ever used a manual-exposure camera of any kind? Have you ever used a Hasselblad medium format camera?

But in both photo's which I point out, the cameraman is in direct sunlight.

Where the photographer stands is irrelevant. The exposure setting is based on the light striking the subject. Do you really know so little about exposure as to suggest that the exposure setting should have been the same in both cases because the photographer was in the same light?

LOL! I'm sorry to say it in so blunt terms, but that's the depth of ignorance.

Pure conjecture, you don't know this as fact.

It's not possible to establish it as fact, but it is very far from "pure conjecture". The notion that the difference in appearance "must" be due to artificial light is pure conjecture. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any artificial light contributed to the egress photo. That is merely put forth as the "only possible" explanation for the appearance of the photo.

We know Armstrong knew how to adjust exposure. We know he did so while taking pictures of the plaque, also on the shaded side of the LM. We know the astronauts were provided with guidelines for setting exposure and expected to make use of them. Under these circumstances it is far more likely that the difference in photographs is explained by exposure adjustment than by artificial light in a studio.

Oh, before I forget, thanks for reposting the two shots because I noticed on the one with the flag that it lacks fudicles? Where did they go?

Why does it matter?

If you ask me, the reason why so much controversy arises from the Apollo pictures is because they have been tampered with so much.

No. "Tampering" is simply what happens when there is a lot of demand for these photographs. Unscrupulous people simply use the "tampering" accusation to stir up controversy where there shouldn't necessarily be any.

Why the need to 'doctor' the photos so many times?

Depends on what the photos are going to be used for. Graphic designers generally don't want the fiducials so they airbrush them out. Some people use the photos for art and so "push" or "pull" the exposure to make it look good. Some people use them for scientific documentation. Versions of the photographs exist to serve all those needs -- with and without alteration. A bona fide historian has no problem navigating through various versions of historical documents prepared for different purposes. It seems that it's only those desperate to find controversy see a problem.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base