Haunting Research
Home of the Northern Minnesota Paranormal Investigators
Equipment
To begin with, before we can even consider going out into the field to search for evidence of the afterlife, we must first consider the equipment that we want to use so that we can attempt to collect the most solid, scientific evidence we possibly can. There are a couple of things to consider first before we even begin to look at what equipment we want to invest in.
Digital VS. Analog Debate
This debate has been running rampant now for many years. The information that I am passing along here now is from my own experience as well as the experience and advice from all of the most famous ghost investigators there are anywhere in the world.
The first item that I want to begin with is the most controversial there is where investigating ghosts are involved and that is digital vs. film still photography. Still photography is not able to stand on its own in the first place as evidence of the paranormal, heck, nothing should ever be counted on by itself to either prove or disprove a haunting at any particular location.
Let's first talk about the digital camera. The digital camera really offers no good qualities as far as scientific evidence goes. It is first manipulated when you hit the button to take the photo in the first place as every photo from a digital "built" by one pixel working off of the pixel next to it. They do make mistakes, even cameras costing $10,000 drop pixels and make these mistakes. When people say that if it has higher mega pixels it won't have these problems, they are either lying to you or they simply don't know that this occurs even with the most expensive digitals there are. Another issue is that they offer no evidence that can be scrutinized. The only way to come to a paranormal conclusion is by eliminating mundane factors in your shot. With the issues of digitals, this can never be accomplished and you cannot ever get to a paranormal conclusion. Another argument that I hear for digital cameras is that EXIF information is just as good as a negative. Poppycock...that is a very lame argument! EXIF information is unique to JPEG photographs. Any good creator of fraudulent photos will tell you that in order to get rid of all traces, you simply need to save it as a BMP instead and then upload that to a hosting site, download it again from the hosting site as a JPEG but this time, the EXIF information will come up with an error instead of any information. Also, a negative shows what exactly was in front of the camera at the time the photo was taken. EXIF shows none of this information. Other arguments for using digital are that you can have instant gratification by seeing your photo right away and that there is no cost for film development. One of the newest and most ridiculous arguments I have heard to date is that police forensics can testify to the validity of a photograph and that people in the paranormal community should be able to do that too. This is ridiculous and if you buy into that argument, I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale very cheap!
The film camera is the only viable method there is to take photographs of paranormal phenomena. Of course you get to fumble around with film in the dark and pay to have it developed but it does leave you with "hard" evidence that can be scrutinized where digital cannot be checked out to authenticate a photo. This negative can be checked by a photo expert and verified that what is in the shot was actually there in front of the camera when the shot was taken. This is real paranormal evidence.
The same can easily be said for audio and video tape as well. If you are going to collect evidence of the paranormal, you need to do it right and use all analog equipment. Digitals do have their place though and that is for mapping a location so you don't have to burn film. They work very well for capturing those family vacations and reunions too.
N.M.P.I. Equipment List
1. 35mm film cameras with auto advance.
2. I/R Security cameras that record to an independent VCR for each camera.
3. Sony Hi-8 film camera with I/R capabilities
4. EMF meters to possibly record electromagnetic spikes (of course never evidence but can provide a road map to possible paranormal activity)
5. Full size audio cassette recorders with a remote microphone.
6. Infrared Thermometers
7. Television to monitor security cams with a switchbox to toggle from one camera to another.
8. Pens and paper-This one gets overlooked by a lot of people but you need to make notes all throughout an investigation.
9. We have also added a generator to our arsenal to run the equipment when power is not available in a particular location.
