Now What??

   Okay now you got your camera, lets do one last check. Film, fresh batteries, infared light, camera is on and the lens cap has been removed. Were do you start with the pictures? Go in first and shoot pictures of the place of the hunt. This is your "baseline" photographs. This will be vital should you take a picture later that has something in it you can't explain, For example was that door open before or was that book there or has it been moved? This give you the chance to see if things were really that way and you just forgot, or has things changed? Now we do a walk-through with meters en-tow just to look for high EMF readings and try to find the causes for the spikes. If no cause can be found, take some photos, and write the location down, so you can go to the same place during the hunt and photograph the same area again. Now I will do this either with a 35-70 zoom or a 50mm lens. Used to be the zoom lens wasn't as good as the singles so the lens such as the 50mm were called "Prime". Zoom lens have come a long way with all the modern ways of building them these days, so I don't mind the zoom. Now depending on how fast your lens is, "The smaller number of the F-stop means the fastest speed it is), this will help you decide on the film speed you will need to use. Myself, I like to use either 400 or 800 ASA speed film. Keep in mind that the faster the speed the more grain that will show should you enlarge the photo. You have your flash and infared so 400 will give you a good 8x10-11x14 print. While not giant prints, 800 speed's grain will show in both sizes. Now one will tend to set the lens wide open to get the fastest speed. The problem is Some of your shot may be in focus while the objects in the distance will be out of focus. I'm blown shots by doing this myself. The 30-70 zoom I use measures 3.5 wide open and is 5.6 wide open and 70mm. In a normal size house use no faster than a 5.6 as this will give you good depth of field. You will also want to use as fast a shutter speed as you can to prevent fuzzy pictures caused by camera shake. Granted some are more steady than others so the numbers can change, but most risk camera shake at speeds of 1/60 of a second or slower. I'd say go for now slower than 1/60 but if light allows go for 1/110-1/125  to take care of this so it won't be an issue. This is why I like a hand-held light meter.  This one little too takes out so much guess work out of you job. You simply point this at an object, and it will tell you the settings you will need. Set the shutter speed you wish yo used and it will tell you the rest. This handy little object also works on video too! Now I can understand this seems like too much work, and granted it is more work. The point is do you want a piece of evidence that a company such as Kodak will stand behind as not a fake, or do you want to hear all about how you faked it when you put it up one the web? Until the next time..........