User talk:Cprobertson1

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Christopher (talk) 07:17, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

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Article suggestion: The camera (or would "optical woo" be better?)

Mostly notes-to-self:

Cranks seem to struggle with the idea of the camera (despite the first camera being made more than two centuries ago and practically everybody walking around with one (or more often, two) in their pocket practically all the time)

The biggest problems seem to come from cranks not realising that cameras are not the same as the human eye!

Of note are: Exposure - particularly common with astrocranks: everybody from space deniers, flat earthers, geocentricists, and moonlanding deniers, but it also crops up amongst all sorts of other crank fields. The most common issue is to do with light and dark objects existing in the same frame... and only the light objects being visible ("If that picture was taken on the moon how come there are no stars, huh!"). Likewise, weird streaks on images (dust), rods (insects) and orbs (diffuse reflections) are popular artifacts relating to exposure. Similarly, a lot of cranks seem to take issue with shadows being really dark in a well lit scene (poor dynamic range). Finally

Astrophotography - relatedly, a lot of space deniers, geocentrists and flattards seem to struggle with understanding startrails caused by the earths rotation (and how simply rotating the camera at 0.3°/minute around the polar axis (that is, pointing north and elevated by your latitude so that you are aligned with the axis of earths rotation) perfectly corrects for this, providing a convenient proof of the rounditude of the earth while they're at it (since on a flat earth, the polar axis would always be perpendicular to the plane of the earth, you would always rotate it around the horizon... astronomers figured out in the 18th century that the polar axis isn't perfectly aligned to the ground wherever you are...). Deep sky objects are also a problem for creationists - as they seem to struggle to comprehend why god would create a whole observable universe that you can't actually observe without the ability to take a long exposure... oftentimes with a ridiculously long focal length lens, and that's before we get to how astronomically far away these objects are, and why some of them have a habit of randomly exploding and wiping out entire star systems only to replace them with bedlam. I have heard at least one street-preacher, when asked about this, claim that the devil was doing it to mock god by destroying his creation/mislead humanity. Satan has a star-crusher, who knew!? I'll need to find citation for this if I'm using it as an example - if a street preacher said it (when asked) it might not be a common opinion...

Mosaics - again, popular with various space cranks - who don't seem to realise that if you want a large image with detail, you can't capture the whole image at once (not without amazing optics and a very good big sensor) - so you zoom in to capture maximum detail in a small area... but if you want a panoramic image you have to stitch a bunch of very small images together to make a very big image... with the advent of panorama/photostitch modes in practically every smartphone (and how incredibly easy these modes are to operate), it is a true testament to willful ignorance that people can't appreciate mosaic images taken by space probes.

Optics in general - popular with cranks claiming that anything and everything is a hologram - from aircraft, the stars to the moon. Almost always the result of things being out of focus and thus the edges appear to be expanded. This ties in with exposure due to light diffracting around objects making them appear smaller, particularly during long exposures. Likewise, a lot of cranks (usually but not always related to eclipses) seem to take issue with the possibility that shadows don't simply start and stop, but actually have a penumbra, and umbra, and an antumbra depending on where you are relative to the light sources and any obstructions.

Depth-of-Field vs field-of-view - again, popular with flattards who claim that the apparent size of continents when seen from space changes (this is due to background compression: if you use a wide-angle lens up close, you will capture a lot of the background, while if you use a narrow-angle lens from a distance (zooming in), you capture relatively little of the background because your field of view is decreased, and you have simply moved further back to allow you to fit your subject in. Can be easily demonstrated with a globe and a zoom-capable camera)

There are plenty more examples (parallax (both terrestrial and stellar), sensor noise, image compression artifacts, colour correction, etc). ^{— Unsigned, by: Cprobertson1 / talk / contribs}

A better place might be either in your User:Cprobertson1/Sandbox or by creating a draft article.[1] Bongolian (talk) 08:01, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

That...would be a good idea actually - I'll fire it into the sandbox just now as what I've written above is mostly notes to myself for writing the article properly... however, I still need to learn how to write articles in the wiki syntax properly - thanks! I had actually forgotten that the sandbox existed... ::blushes:: Cprobertson1 (talk) 08:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

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Because of your edits to and time on the wiki, wizard Sysop has been added to your user rights. Feel free to let your newfound POWER course through your veins. Once the high wears off, see RationalWiki:Sysop guide for more information. If you have questions, bleat ask away. Bongolian (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)