equipment
This page contains brief information on the equipment that we use during a paranormal investigations. Each piece of equipment that we use will show a picture, a description of the equipment and information on why it is used.
At the bottom of the page is a section called "Wish List" this is equipment that we would like to have. Again we will show what it is and why we want to use it.
Digital Cameras
A digital camera is one of the many pieces of equipement needed on a paranormal investigation. Most of the time you are going to be investigating in the dark so you need a decent digital camera with a decent flash.
We have various digital cameras within the group ranging from the Sony T30 (picture to the left) through to digital SLR cameras. Each bring different qualities to an investigation from ease of use and portability through to high quality image reproduction. The important thing to note is that we do not edit our pictures in any way. The only thing we may do is to lighten a picture in order to make any shadow images stand out more.
In some respects the fact that the images are stored digitally and are easier to edit means that it is harder to convince people of a piece of evidence due to these issues. We would love to be able to use film based cameras but due to the number of pictures we take during a normal investigations we would end up having to spend around £50 or more just getting photos developed.
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Video Cameras
We have a couple of video cameras that we use on investigations. These are a Sony Hi-8 Digital camera that uses Hi-8 tapes and a Sony HDD handycam which stores footage to a hard drive.
Both cameras have on-board night vision settings that allow them to record in the dark. We have found that the night vision setting on the Hi-8 camera is better and covers a larger area that the one on the HDD Handycam. For both we can also use additional IR lights in order to improve their night vision capabilities.
We tend to alternate the jobs that the cameras undertake on an investigation and what they do tends to depend on the location we are investigating. We may for example if we are investigating a location that has a specific hotspot of activity setup the HDD Handycam in a fixed location and leave that filming for the lenght of the investigation. We would then use the Hi-8 camera on our walk around and on vigils.
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Infra Red Lights
The infra red lights are used in addition the the build in night vision settings on the video cameras that we use. They can also if required be used in conjunction with the digital still cameras.
The IR Lights enhance the cameras abilities to film in the dark by increasing the amount of Infra Red light in the area. By using these we get a clearer and improved picture quality and we can also film a larger area that with the built in night vision settings on the video cameras.
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EMF Meter
This is a GaussMaster EMF meter. It is a fairly sensitive unit that has a metered and audible output. You hold down a button to get a reading from .1 to 1 mG, or let the button up and get a reading of 1 to 10 mG. This meter is sensitive not only to AC fields, but to moving DC fields as well, especially on the .1 to 1 mG setting.
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K2 EMF Meter
This is a K2 Meter as seen on Ghost Hunter being used by Jason and Grant from Taps. This device can be used to get a visual indication of an EMF field, whether this is a naturally occuring or if it is being generated by spirit. It is often used as a way of communication with spirit by getting them to get the lights to come on in response to questions asked by the paranormal investigators.
We have only just started using this piece of equipment and we are getting mixed results at the moment.
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Digital Voice Recorder
We use a couple of digital voice recorders in order to try and pick up EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena)(Electronic Voice Phenomena) recordings. This is where the investigators in the room do not hear anything (in some cases investigator do here the EVP) but the digital voice recorders pickup the sounds from the spirit world. It takes a lot of time and concentration to listen to an audio recording in order to find evidence of the paranormal. There is a theory that EVP recordings are not evidence of the paranormal but that there are our brains intepreting randon patterns as being familier ones. "Psychology and Perception Auditory pareidolia is a situation created when the brain incorrectly interprets random patterns as being familiar patterns.[35] In the case of EVP it could result in an observer interpreting random noise on an audio recording as being the familiar sound of a human voice.[34][36][37] The propensity for an apparent voice heard in white noise recordings to be in a language understood well by those researching it, rather than in an unfamiliar language, has been cited as evidence of this,[34] and a broad class of phenomena referred to by author Joe Banks as Rorschach Audio has been described as a global explanation for all manifestations of EVP.[38][39][40][41] Skeptics such as David Federlein, Chris French, Terrence Hines and Michael Shermer say that EVP are usually recorded by raising the "noise floor" - the electrical noise created by all electrical devices - in order to create white noise. When this noise is filtered, it can be made to produce noises which sound like speech. Federlein says that this is no different from using a wah pedal on a guitar, which is a focused sweep filter which moves around the spectrum and creates open vowel sounds. This, according to Federlein, sounds exactly like some EVP. This, in combination with such things as cross modulation of radio stations or faulty ground loops can cause the impression of paranormal voices.[4] The human brain evolved to recognize patterns, and if a person listens to enough noise the brain will detect words, even when there is no intelligent source for them.[42][43] Expectation also plays an important part in making people believe they are hearing voices in random noise.[44] Apophenia is related to, but distinct from pareidolia.[45] Apophenia is defined as "the spontaneous finding of connections or meaning in things which are random, unconnected or meaningless", and has been put forward as a possible explanation.[46] " Source Wikipedia.org.
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Digital Thermometer
We use a number of digital thermometers in order to record the temperature in the rooms that we are investigating. It is a popular theory that spirits draw energy from the surrounding area in order to have enough strenght to either communicate verbally or to try an manifest into a spirit form. One of the potential indicators of this is a sudden drop in room temperatur where there is no obvious sign of a cause such as an open window. Before an investigation you should take a baseline reading so that you know what the abient room temperature is for each room, with this information you can see if there is a marked drop (or increase) in temperature when the rooms are being investigated.
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Walkie Talkies
Thankfully this one is nice and simple one, we use "Walkie talkies" in order to stay in touch while we are investigating diifferent areas of a building.
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Laptop
We use the laptop to analyse images taken via the digital cameras while we are on an investigation. This allows us to see if there are specific areas that require further investigation. Unfortunately we cannot do this with the audio and video as we would be spending too much time analysing data on site rather than investigating.
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