Paul Vincent

"A problem with that hypothosis is that the shroud predates da Vinci's birth by a century." Of course a known prankster like Leonardo would have the contacts and resources to obtain "old" material in order to add the the veracity of his final product. There was no carbon dating in the Renaissance Period ... any suitably aged cloth would suffice to fool the masses. Sweat stains don't make perfect photographic negatives. Sweat would only leave marks at points of contact... thus leaving an overexposed blob for a nose and little or no facial detail. The shroud has eyes, cheeks, etc. Those are no sweat stains. Besides, the shroud has been proven to consists of scorched linen, which gave rise to the popular "resurrection radiation" theory. The shroud is a proven hoax... the question is thus: who did it? The obvious answer is Leonardo. The next question begging an anwer is: why does it posess all the qualities of a photgraphic negative? Regardless of *who* faked it, the answer is logically: because it *is* a photograph!

British Television pioneer John Logie Baird invented a type of film chain telecine for his mechanical scanning Nipkow disk television system in the 1920's and 1930's. This allowed him to avoid the absolutely brutal lighting required by the mechanical cameras. In some cases the sets and costumes caught fire from the extreme heat! By filming the action in the regular manner and through an ingenious fast chemical film developing tank combined into a wet gate telecine, Baird could broadcast within a few minutes of the actual filmed event. He even performed experiments with use of a film chain/mechanical camera in RAF aircraft for "live" broadcast of battlefield action to military HQ. Baird also invented the first video recorder - using 78rpm records. Some still exist and have been digitally extracted with astonishing, spookie results! 15fps 30 lines PROGRESSIVE!!!!! Baird eventually got his mechanical system up to 300 lines 30fps, quite amazing really. The invention of the CRT killed Baird's system and ironically imposed crap interlaced video upon the world for the next 60 years! Yes, TV was progressive for the first 20 years or so :rolleyes:

Those who can, DO Those who can't, TEACH :blink:

Oooh! I'm rather interested in a Still camera blimp!!! Where would I obtain one of those? I work all over the world but I will be in LA for a week at the end of August. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

There's an interesting theory proposed by Holy Grail writers Lynne Picknett and Clive Prince: the first photograph ever taken is actually Leonardo's great hoax The Shroud of Turin. The book is called "The Shroud of Turin: In Whose Image?" In the context of the Shroud's undisputed photograpic qualities it is a sound theory, and the authors have successfully demonstrated a methodolgy for reproducing Leonardo's Shroud using materials available to the Master in his day. They even go so far as to assert that the man on the Shroud is Leonardo himself! It's not so far-fetched if you compare the Shroud Man to any of Leonardo's self portraits, and if you think about it - no-one else in that era had the wit, the resources or the blasphemous sense of humour to pull off such a stunt. I for one do believe the Shroud is a photograph. There's simply no other way to explain its blatant photographic negative quality. Artists at the time were familiar with the camera obscura, and some people *were* experimenting with the interaction of light and chemicals - Leonardo being the most famous and most likely to succeed. Interestingly, the authors claim the Shroud image is actually a burn mark, with the density of burning corresponding to the density of chemicals left after "fixing" the image subsequent to exposure. This was the hoaxer's work-around for getting a permanent image with inadequate chemicals available at the time. I forget the name of the documentarian but I remember seeing a recent program (BBC I believe) about an art historian who believes he can demonstrate the use of lenses and camera obscura technology in the paintings of Dutch and Flemish masters many decades and in some cases centuries prior to the "official" invention of the device. He even goes so far as to show how the artist has unwittingly included lens flaws and chromatic abberation into their paintings! It certainly goes a long way to explaining the sudden appearance of photo-realistic paintings from a tradition of cartoon-like medieval art. Food for thought! Check out the Shroud of Turin and tell me it's not a photograph!