Methods of Photographing Rainbow Rods/ Insects
Rainbow Rods are a little known and even less well-understood anomaly,
which appear to behave as organic life forms, for the most part, it
also appears as if most of them are in fact insects. You may tire of
hearing me say this but some of the images captured on film cannot be
explained as Rainbow rods, if calling anomaly rods is an explanation.
Some of the images caught on film are genuine UFO’s; indeed they are
objects, stranger still then Rods.
During a solar eclipse of the Sun in Mexico city dozens of people were
astonished to see saucer shape objects, flying saucers if you will roaming
about the countryside over their heads. A number of these sightings
were confirmed and documented on film. A number of these video clips
were later shown on national television and the local news. It has come
to light, if you will pardon the pun that filming into the sun
can reward the operator with spectacular results.
So just as sending a submersible deep in the depths of the ocean can
bring unexpected if not wondrous results so too can chasing rods reward
you with other phenomenon, other then just rods.
To my knowledge there are only four main ways to capture Rainbow rods
on film, listed in order of success with the solar obliteration technique
first, made famous by John Bro, filming against a dark back ground a
close second (as is the case in the Cave of swallows in Mexico) and
third filming in the infrared spectrum pioneered by Trevor James Constable
in the 50’s. The final and forth way is Jose Escamilla’s skyfish protocol which basically is filming on a stationary
platform such as a tripod in conjunction with a high shutter speed.
Lets look at each one of these methods and
examine the success, the pitfalls of each one.
Perhaps the best and easiest way to see them is to use a video recorder
aimed towards the edge of the sun. This is best done on a clear, cloudless
day and even better if you live in northern latitudes. Then if done
in the wintertime the chance of insects being the culprit is removed
from the equation.
Position the recorder on a tripod or other device which allows you to
anchor it in one spot, then using some sort of overhang or blocking
shield arrange the view finder so that you are not looking directly
at the sun but are focused on the edge where the brightness of the sun
begins to level off into the blueness of the sky.
Be very careful while doing this as looking directly towards
the sun with the naked eye can result in blindness and may even damage
the components within the camera if the video recorder is pointed directly
at the sun without any shield or filter. Just imagine when you direct
the suns rays onto a piece of paper with a magnifying glass and you
will get the idea, you do not want to burn a hole though your camcorder.
You will also not want to leave your camera unattended using this method.
The earth rotates at quite a speed and where you might have had your
camera safely pointed at the sun a few minutes ago, may 5 minutes later
be in direct sunlight happily roasting the internal parts of your camera.
I cannot stress this enough, be EXTREMLY careful using this method.
Wear good UV sunglasses, think about where you are placing your camera,
and protect your eyes. If you melt your camera down or go blind don’t
come back and tell me I didn’t warn you first.
When you have this set up correctly you will easily be able to view
the edge or corona of the sun without being able to see the sun’s orb
directly.
When everything seems to be in position, start filming and if you are
looking in the view finder you may notice what appears to be “bugs”
zipping about the screen, they will come into view only for brief moments
as they are highlighted by the glare of the sun and as they fly out
of range and will disappear. This effect is very similar to viewing
moths flying about a street light at night, you can view the moths while
they are illuminated by the street light but once they leave the illuminated
area they disappear into the darkness of the night.
You may not see these “rods” right off and it may take several tries
to record anything extraordinary but with persistence you will finally
capture them on film. Once you have done that the best way to examine
then is to freeze-frame them either on a VCR or with some of today’s
sophisticated soft ware programs available for your computer. Take a
segment of film which has a rod on it and freeze that frame then you
will be able to enlarge it and examine them more closely.
It is extremely difficult to determine the distance from the camera
that these objects are, but one gets the feeling that some of them are
quite high up in the atmosphere due to the fact that some photos show
these objects as quite dim, indicating they are quite high up. I have
also filmed some of these objects that traveled behind clouds (cumulus
nimbus) indicating they are at least 5000-10,000 feet from the camera,
however I am still not convinced these objects are rods.
I feel I must included this little idiosyncrasy
in the sake of science but as yet I cannot explain these images that
appear to pass behind clouds. I have stated in the past that I do not
believe rods reach the gigantic proportions some claim they do. Further
study may prove me wrong but for now I think any photo showing a hundred
foot long rod has been misinterpreted and needs to be readdressed.
I say it is difficult to determine the distance some of these objects
are from the camera, however I have developed
several protocols of my own that will enable you to analyze objects
that pass within several hundred feet from the camera. This can be used
with all four methods if you are creative in its execution.
If you are filming using the most common method, the solar obliteration
technique positioned beneath a convenient roof overhang, just make sure
you have some objects in the background and foreground. Take the time
to measure the distance these objects are from the camera, document
the FOV at different distances from the camera, keep track of what magnification
you are using. If you do these small steps later on when you are analyzing
your footage this will enable you with some accuracy to estimate both
the size of the Rods as well as their speed. If a rod passes behind
an object a known distance from the camera you have a valuable piece
of data. Like wise if one passes in front of an object a measured distance
away once again you have worthy data.
Once you know the size of the object, the distance from the camera and
the field of view of the camera at that distance you can judge the speed
and size of the object with close tolerances.
Before you begin filming you need to take a tape measure, set the camera
up on the tripod and lay out the tape measure down your lawn or drive
way. At this point you are going to determine the field of view (FOV)
of your camera at given distances from the lens of the camera at a given
magnification. For example, if you wish to film at the maximum magnification
of your camera and lets say that for the sake of this exercise your camera can
zoom to 20X on full zoom. Setting up your camera, set the zoom to maximum
and then begin filming, starting with the approximant distance your
roof over hang will be.
The reason for this is it is unlikely you will film a rod between you
and the roof, but if for some reason you do you can always go back and
redo this exercise to determine the field of view at that distance.
Lets say you began at the 20-foot mark, take a yardstick or
carpenter rule and having someone else view inside the viewfinder. Stick
the measuring tape so that one end is just visible to your viewer on
the left hand side then running your hand along the measure have the
viewer tell you when he or she can see your hand began to disappear
off of the cameras view on the right hand side.
Write down this distance, do this again at 25 feet, then 30 and so on.
Keep track of the distance from the camera, the field of view at that
distance and the magnification you had the camera on. In this manner
you will be able to know when something crosses the field of view at
25 feet, what that FOV was, when you run that footage into a software
program on your computer, you then only need to record the length of
time it takes for that object to cross the given distance, multiply
that distance in feet by the time in seconds then you will have the
feet per second (fps) the object was traveling.
If for some reason you wish to film at a different magnification you
will need to redo the entire exercise documenting the distance from
camera, FOV and magnification. This may seem like a lot of time spent,
you may be bored to tears, after all you really only wanted to film
a few rods, but trust me you will glad you did. You might also wish
to override the auto focus on your camera and manually focus to the
depth of field you plan on filming at. The reason for this is you will
not have to worry about the camera constantly adjusting the focus because
of branches, pollen, or changes in light intensity. This will eliminate
one more thing moving around inside your camera that might cause an
anomaly to appear on the film.
With this information in hand you can with confidence determine the
speed and size of the object in question
Now that you have an idea and the tools to estimate the speed and size
of these objects lets look at the other three methods of filming this
phenomenon.
The second method is to frame the rods with a background that is dark,
one of the first recorded instances of these creatures being filmed
that drew media attention was the rods filmed in the cave of swallows
in 1994, filmed against a black background, it appears now due to our
most recent research that these images do in fact show insects that
have become blurred due to the internal actions of the video cameras.
For further insight into this area check out Roger “Sol” Harris’s site
http://www.opendb.com/sol/bugs.htm.
This was not the first time rods had been discovered, that tribute
should be given to Trevor James Constable as he was chasing rods back
in the 50’s but I have seen in print were he gives credit to his colleagues.
Jose Escamilla showcased examples of these rods caught on film March
19th, 1994 by cameraman Mark Lichtle while
filming base jumpers jumping into the “Basement of the Swallows” in
Mexico. The cameraman was set
up in such a manner that he could see into the abyss and was filming
the BASE jumpers leaping into the darkness of that void, this just happened
to be the perfect set up to film rods. If you know of a similar area,
or if you have access to a mountaintop where you can film in the early
morning hours with the sun at your back and a dark foreground to film
against you may be lucky enough to capture rods in this manner.
I have had some luck filming in this manner but you still need a strong
light source (the sun) to cast enough infrared rays onto your subject
so it can be recorded.
The next method of filming is one that Mr. Constable used most effectively
in the 50’s, recording rods and other strange phoemenon
by shooting infrared film in both 35 mm cameras and movie cameras. He
shot infrared film with very thick filters to block out most visible
light and he details his methods in several of his excellent books.
I personally have not managed to film using this method yet but have
communicated with people who have so I know it is a valid method to
try.
The last method, Jose Escamilla’s skyfish protocol is effective in that you can record rods
but it is not my favorite because the photos you get tend to resemble
blurred bugs, long black streaks with little in the way of detail. Try
using all the methods at least once is my recommendation and find out
which one you are more comfortable with.
Do not get discouraged if at first you don’t record anything, filming
rods is part science, part art form but anyone that takes their time
and follows these direction will sooner or later find rods on their
film. Further work needs to be done in this field but for now this information
is provided so people can experiment for themselves. If rods exist they
are extremely rare and anyone using these methods must first visit Roger
Harris’s site to get an understanding of camera mechanics
Michael Merchant
Rainbowrods@sightingcentral.com
