🚀 go-pugleaf

There is another possible explanation for what you captured on tape: If you used a
camera with a CCD imaging device - most are nowadays - you can get all kinds of
strange effects as a result of the scan technique used in the camera. The image
sensor activated for storage for a brief instant - like a snapshot - the stored
image is then read from the sensor at normal t.v. scan rates. The result is that
images that only exist for a brief instant - like lightning- can appear to only
take up part of a frame even though they actually went the full height on a frame,
or may be in the wrong place on a frame. You can verify this by taking a camera
strobe, and video tape yourself flashing the strobe at the camera. You'll find
that the image of the strobe appears in really odd locations in the frame. Older
tube type cameras do not cause the same effect because the image persists long
after the flash.

Chuck Doswell wrote:

> In article <Pine.A32.3.95.980810040303.33730A-100000@freenet2.afn.org>,
> "Todd L. Sherman" <afn09444@AFN.ORG> wrote:
>
> ...deletia...
> >   But when I looked at it in slow motion, I saw what I at first thought to
> > be a lens reflection on the ground about 20 feet from where the camera was
> > set up, off to the left a bit.  In subsequent slow-mo runs, though, I came
> > to the conclusion that this was not a lens reflection.  The forked branch
> > was of normal brightness.  But the return stroke was much brighter, and
> > followed the same initial track and in the same place, of course, as the
> > initial branch stroke where the "reflection" appeared.  But, in the brighter
> > return stroke, there was no lens reflection at all.
> >   This "reflection" went straight up from the grassy ground in front of the
> > camera by about a foot, then bent 45 degrees upward to the left and
> > terminated in the air.  It disappeared when the branch disappeared, and did
> > not reappear during any of the subsequent return strokes.  (There were four,
> > the first three being probably of not enough brightness to even make any
> > lens reflection visible, though.)  But the last stroke was extremely bright,
> > and if there were going to be a lens reflection, there should have been one
> > then.  There was none.
>
> I have no clue what this "analysis" means ... I see nothing here to
> preclude the possibility of an internal lens reflection.  The brightness
> of a flash has nothing to do with the possibility of internal reflections
> ... it's simply a matter of geometry and the characteristics of the lens.
>
> >   I am concluding that this "lens reflection" was actually a step leader
> > eminating from -- of all strangest of things considering what was around me
> > -- a blade of grass in a patch in front of the camera.
> >   Now, what hits me as so awesome is the fact that not twenty feet south of
> > the camera were two metal vehicles:  mine and a fellow spotter's.  Mine had
> > three antennas on it.  My friend's had one.  As well, there had to have been
> > at LEAST twenty tall lamps around to light the parking lot at night.  Then
> > factor in all the many metal vehicles also sitting in the parking lot at the
> > time.  And you have to wonder.....Why did it pick such an odd, low,
> > isolated and random thing as a blade of GRASS amongst all of that?
> >
> >   I never expected in my life to actually capture something ike this on
> > my own videotape.  But I am totally blown away by it.  It's so awesome.
> ...
> >   The most incredible thing I've ever beheld.  I must've sat there last
> > night for ten total minutes just staring at the thing in freeze frames with
> > my mough agape.
> ...
> >   ...So I guess this means it doesn't just happen to Warren.  ;-)
> >
> >   What are the chances of someone getting something like that on video
> > anyway?
>
> I think there is virtually NO chance this is a step leader ... sorry to
> let the air out of your balloon, but I am pretty confident you are
> mistaken in your interpretation.  The one Warren claims is, like yours,
> certainly the result of internal lens reflections.  Such reflections are
> the result of flashes off-axis, perhaps even out of the field of view.
> I've seen Warren's video claiming to have captured something comparable
> and I GUARANTEE it's a reflection of a distant off-axis flash, not a
> nearby step leader.  My guess, without seeing your video, is that what you
> recorded is comparable.  I've seen similar things in my videos, where
> flashes even well off-camera appear within the video.
>
>    Chuck Doswell
>
> --
> Dr. Charles A. Doswell III     NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory
>           1313 Halley Circle, Norman, Oklahoma  73069
> phone: (405) 366-0439  fax: (405) 366-0472 <doswell@nssl.noaa.gov>
>      WWW home page: <http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~doswell>
> Standard disclaimer ... my views are my own, so don't blame my employer.
>
> The only rule in storm chasing that works all the time is that
>            there are no rules that work all the time!