Camcorders

The camcorder is one of the main evidence collecting pieces of equipment in the kit bag. Normally carried with the investigator or locked off in an area where activity has been reported.

There are two main types of camcorder; Analogue and Digital.

Analogue: - Suffers from poor quality and the inability to edit the footage on a pc without some expensive conversion hardware, but they are cheaper than their digital counterparts.

Digital: - This type is still the expensive option but do not suffer the same problems with quality as their analogue predecessors. Also the conversions from the tape to a PC for editing is much easier and most units come with USB or Firewire ports installed.

When selecting a camcorder for paranormal work it is vital to choose a Zero Lux model, these usually have IR Illuminators built in, although more powerful IR illuminators are available as accessories.

In the picture below you can see a dark stripe running downwards from the lens, this contains a number of very high output Infra Red LED's. These produce a lot of light, but not in a range that can be seen by the human eye, thus in a dark room the camera can see perfectly, while the user see's nothing, unless they are looking at the display screen.

A camera of this type is capable of displaying a scene on its display comparable to that seen by normal torchlight, although there is no human visible light seen by the viewer.

These cameras are fantastic for seeing  your way around in the dark, although in a large room, you may not be able to see the walls, they can also see anything paranormal going on, hence these cameras are an invaluable aid to any serious paranormal investigator.

The only slight downside with images taken in the dark is the hideous green tinted B&W image that results, but if you need to use this sort of camera, then anything is better than nothing.

The cameras come in various sizes but most paranormal investigators prefer to use the smaller handycam versions (as above) due to their small size. These are widely available, the choice of a mid range model is advised; although a low cost simple version that will do the job can be found for £200 - £300 from discount shops.
 

© County Society for Paranormal Investigation and Research - 2008


Last Updated 27/07/2008