BigTreeWalker Posted March 1, 2016 Author Posted March 1, 2016 All trail cams are basically a tradeoff. If you have a larger light gathering lens, the camera isn't going to be as effective for bright daytime photos. If you use a slow shutter speed, longer exposures, then the subject has to be motionless or you end up with a blur. If you noticed with my pictures of my camera setup above they are not as crystal clear as they could be. It's handheld photos and a slow shutter speed. I should have used a tripod but really didn't think of it. As you can see the setup is in second growth fir trees. It's dim in there even in the middle of the day. So I am pushing my Plotwatcher's abilities even on a sunny day.
SWWASAS Posted March 1, 2016 BFF Patron Posted March 1, 2016 I just thought of something you might be looking for based on a experience I had. Like you I have spent a lot of time looking at bones and deer carcuses. Then one day I got presented with one. It was placed right by the drivers door of my truck. You might expect that at some point. Not sure what you can do with it but I would not be at all surprised if they did that. Even more devious of them would be to present one killed by other predators that do not have BF teeth marks. I can well imagine you examining elk bones has to be interesting to them. As far as the interval cameras I did have one thought where they might be of some use a night. If deployed and active at night, they might settle the question of self illuminated eyes. I think self illuminated eyes are unlikely but if they are, it should be testable. I try to put myself in the head of BF. Let's say we hang a Plotwatcher and a BF notices it. You the BF sneak around and peek at it from the side. Nothing happens. You throw a rock in front of it to see if it triggers like other ones you have encountered. Nothing happens. You try a branch. Nothing again. Umm that is different than before. You sneak around behind and put your hand in front. Nothing happens again. That is different. Finally you get close in front and examine the thing. Nothing seems to happen or at least it does not emit any light. All of these have been observed on game camera pictures. However, if we know a camera like a Plotwatcher produces no light, and we see eyes in an otherwise dark image, we can conclude that the eyes had some type of self illumination or the back ground would show some level of illumination. Just a thought. 1
BigTreeWalker Posted March 1, 2016 Author Posted March 1, 2016 The practical joke aspect is an interesting thought. The self illuminating eye experiment would be an interesting one. However, that would use up half of the SD card storage space and batteries. You could service the camera at shorter intervals. But I like the idea that I can put my cam out for four months now without approaching it again during that period.
ShadowBorn Posted March 1, 2016 Moderator Posted March 1, 2016 The problem I see with this is the moon light, their eyes are huge and collect the light around them. If I can ever figure a way to get this footage that I have from another researcher you will see what I am talking about. I do have a photo of some thing odd , but the video is way better and shows blinking and movement. Open_eyes.bmp
BigTreeWalker Posted March 1, 2016 Author Posted March 1, 2016 ShadowBorn, is that a still from a video or just a single photo? I can tell it was a white flash from the colors in the picture. Which would put a lot of reflectable light out there. You are right. Any experiment like that would have to take into consideration the available ambient light in the area at that particular time.
SWWASAS Posted March 2, 2016 BFF Patron Posted March 2, 2016 The self illuminated eyes thing does not seem probable. At the bottom of the ocean maybe, but not for a surface animal. So I think most eye shine images, even though people swear there was no light present, the people were not aware of some light source behind them. Most cameras when they take a picture produce some light. An led blinks someplace on the camera and with a digital camera the image shows up on the back of the camera. Is reflection of that light off the face of the human taking the picture, the source of light for eyeshine? Total lack of artificial light is unlikely if they take pictures. I did see the other day on the national news, a satellite picture, taken from orbit, of the self generated light of vegetation in the US. I spent a half day researching the satellite and tried to find a link to that and the satellite. So far I have not found anything that explains the mechanism. But apparently the process of photosynthesis, plants produce some light in some wavelength. It has to be something out of our visual range. The satellite image reminded me of the night scenes in Avatar. The news satellite photo showed that the brightest spot in the US was the corn fields in the mid west. Dense vegetation covering thousands of acres really put out the light. With that the light went on in my head. If a forest puts out that light from photosynthesis, in whatever form it is, can BF see into that wave length? Does that explain why they can see so well at night? Anyone familiar with light production related to photosynthesis?
MIB Posted March 2, 2016 Moderator Posted March 2, 2016 I've experienced the "crazy" night vision but I think the answer lies in geometry, not woo. Their skulls are bigger, the eye sockets bigger, so the eyes must be bigger. Remember, area, not diameter, so the area available increases with the square of the increase in diameter. I suspect the increase in area provides them with at least 2-3 times the number of rods we have, maybe closer to 5-6 if their eyes are organized even slightly differently, which should give them a lot better night vision. I'm open (ish) to woo if that's where the answers truly lie but it shouldn't be our first assumption. MIB
Guest Cryptic Megafauna Posted March 2, 2016 Posted March 2, 2016 (edited) Also google "ice age columbus", our history books are wrong. This is interesting. I found Ice Age Columbus: Who were the First Americans? Is this a real documentary or "mock-umentary"? If accurate, it seemingly supports some of Melba Ketchum's claims which I'd written off. You recall she said bigfoot was a hybrid between modern human and something else. She cited, perhaps without actually naming it, the Solutrean Hypothesis as explanation for apparent European haplogroups in the "bigfoot" mito DNA which, if Native American of Asian ancestry, shouldn't have been there. MIB DNA & YouTube, what could go wrong? Modern Europeans did not exist at that date. The difference between Eurasian Steppe people (which is what they would be talking about) are more similar to modern Tibetans than other groups such as Europeans (which is not so much a group as a region). There is vastly more similarity between modern Native groups and Europeans than between either group and say Kenniwick man. The fact that they feel they need to mention a racial hypothesis already illuminates the deviation from scientific thought you are about to experience. You do not need to put in the context of modern groups (Europeans discovered America first) to discuss these types of findings. It is an argument frequently advanced by proponents of racism, however there are no demonstrable races. Linnaeus was racist and theorized a missing link to more "primitive" people and so came up with the idea of race. Of course Europeans where the standard he set his classification system by as the standard, other races were considered inferior. The Linnaean taxonomy system was used to justify the genocide of the Americas and the enslavement of Africa and these types of arguments are still being used today. The problem is that Homo Sapiens are all the same species and there are no sub classifications supported by pure genetics. If you are not careful and science based in your thinking the whole Bigfoot thing is rife with potential racial and missing link rabbit holes. All I can say is there is no reason to go there. Ethnicity and culture are demonstrable, race based genetics ideas are not. The explanation of the poster is clearly racist, now that I bothered to read it, though memes like this are popular on YouTube and uncritically accepted. If Europeans discovered America then it wasn't genocide it was fratricide. Of course Jesus said all men are brothers... In reality Africans discovered the Americas first although it is very possible that Bigfoot beat them to it. Edited March 2, 2016 by Cryptic Megafauna
BigTreeWalker Posted March 2, 2016 Author Posted March 2, 2016 I've experienced the "crazy" night vision but I think the answer lies in geometry, not woo. Their skulls are bigger, the eye sockets bigger, so the eyes must be bigger. Remember, area, not diameter, so the area available increases with the square of the increase in diameter. I suspect the increase in area provides them with at least 2-3 times the number of rods we have, maybe closer to 5-6 if their eyes are organized even slightly differently, which should give them a lot better night vision. I'm open (ish) to woo if that's where the answers truly lie but it shouldn't be our first assumption. MIB It's the same principle they use in large objective rifle scopes which have improved low light capabilities. Of course one problem there, is that our eyes can utilize only so much of that increase. After a certain point it does no good to increase the objective lens any larger.
Guest Cryptic Megafauna Posted March 2, 2016 Posted March 2, 2016 I've experienced the "crazy" night vision but I think the answer lies in geometry, not woo. Their skulls are bigger, the eye sockets bigger, so the eyes must be bigger. Remember, area, not diameter, so the area available increases with the square of the increase in diameter. I suspect the increase in area provides them with at least 2-3 times the number of rods we have, maybe closer to 5-6 if their eyes are organized even slightly differently, which should give them a lot better night vision. I'm open (ish) to woo if that's where the answers truly lie but it shouldn't be our first assumption. MIB It's the same principle they use in large objective rifle scopes which have improved low light capabilities. Of course one problem there, is that our eyes can utilize only so much of that increase. After a certain point it does no good to increase the objective lens any larger. The relevant issue is a larger visual cortex can process a lot more information from the bigger eyes. Human eyes can see 3 photons at the distance of the moon in complete black conditions.
SWWASAS Posted March 2, 2016 BFF Patron Posted March 2, 2016 Perhaps another difference in eyes is that humans have been fabricating clothing, tools, reading, etc for thousands of years now. Doing things that require light and fine vision at the detriment of our night vision which is now relegated to our peripheral vision which is well out towards the edges of our retina. BF is not known to need that sort of fine vision but night vision is very important to it.
ShadowBorn Posted March 2, 2016 Moderator Posted March 2, 2016 ShadowBorn, is that a still from a video or just a single photo? I can tell it was a white flash from the colors in the picture. Which would put a lot of reflectable light out there. You are right. Any experiment like that would have to take into consideration the available ambient light in the area at that particular time. This is a still photo, that was taken at my bait pile right before bow season in Michigan. What ever this was did not look like a deer and is more like a predator since it's eyes are forward and are large. My wife says that it looks like a dragon or a lizard of some sort. But if I can ever get the video of this researcher film of what he caught and their eyes you will see how these two look the same. Except one was captured in 1992 and this photo was captured in 2007. Where this photo was captured in 2007 is where I have had my encounters including my mind stuff that I cannot explain to this day. But once I can load this video onto my computer you will see the intensity of their eyes and how big their eyes really are at night and how much light their eyes collect. It is almost to a point that there could be an inner source of light with in their eyes making their eyes glow with intensity. But in my opinion I think it is due to their eye being so open that what so ever little light that is in the sky is being collected with in there eyes. There eyes are like cats but much bigger and more capable of seeing with minimal light at night. I just know by looking at this video that they look almost alien in the way that they are glowing and it is almost scary but at the same time amazing to look at.
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