Robert Cargill has made a video that demonstrates, step by step, how to correct the perspective distortion of the high-angle camera shots of the so called “Fish” on the “Jonah Ossuary”:
It’s nearly a half hour long, but it’s rather thorough.
I’ve been working on a similar perspective correction illustration by aligning the features of the drawing relative to its “canvas” (i.e. the size and shape of the ossuary itself).
I first started out with image #14 from the “The Jesus Discovery” website as it is so far the most complete of the pictures released.
It may be labeled “no CGI” but that’s a little bit of a fib. As we’ve seen from other images of the ossuary, this nice, uniform sepia tone is not the actual color of the artifact. This image has been put through a filter or two. But never mind about that. 🙂
I essentially mapped out all of the perspective-relevant features: Lines that should be vertical and horizontal relative to each other, and then I mapped the “grid” that was created as flat as I could.
It’s not perfect, as there is a little bit of distortion from the lens they used (in my next iteration I’ll see if I can fix that) and I need to expand the right hand side a bit more; however, we can see that when the features are more or less aligned relative to each other, and the final frame is re-sized to something the proportions of its place on the ossuary, we get something very vessel-like, and not ichthymorphic at all.
The rim is as wide as the hip of the vessel and “Jonah’s head” is flattened to a half-spherical base.
Since Bob was able to do this with one image, and I was able to do this with another, my haphazard guess is that if every photo of the “fish” we have was adjusted for perspective, it’ll end up looking similar to this as well. 🙂
Peace,
-Steve
UPDATE March 23: Some additional illustrations for my discussion with Dr. Tabor in the comments.
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| This illustrates how image #14 (on the bottom) is filtered compared to the “raw” image #15 (on top) where both are labeled “no cgi.” |
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| This illustrates how the reproduction ossuary did not capture the proper shape of the head/base. |
Thanks Steve…just to make one quick point, none of the photos we have distributed have been altered in any way, septa, color, cropped, sized, etc. They are precisely what the camera captured with the stills during the actual operation. I have them all on my laptop and they are untouched since the day we downloaded them from the footage and the still cameras of the monitors.
Steve, just looking more closely at what you came up with here. It looks surprising close to the image on the reproduction of the ossuary.
What I asked Bob I will ask you. If you took a clear straight on picture of your face, tiled it at 45degrees, took a shot of it, at that angle and from the side a bit, then used these techniques to “correct” perspective do you think you would end up with a photo that pretty much looked like you, proportional and pixel wise. In other words, does the stretching process shift things around. Maybe you can give it a try. It would be interesting.
Dr. Tabor,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
I’ll have to politely disagree with you on the color. The image is sepia-tone only. A quick peek at the color channels shows that they are proportional (i.e. there is no color noise or variation in color proportions anywhere; it *has* to be a filter as this is not possible naturally, even for the best digital cameras on the market). From what I could see from some of the video from the first Talpiot documentary, the camera itself can add on filters on the fly. For example, a negative filter was prominently employed more than once. A sepia filter simply changes an image to “brownscale” (as opposed to greyscale) with a different contrast coefficient. So, where I concede that most of the pictures posted are “untouched” directly from the camera, the camera itself was demonstrated as capable of applying some changes in real time.
And that’s a *good* innovation for real-time investigation. You don’t need to take photos, import them into Photoshop, add a common filter to get out details, re-adjust for the next shot based upon what you find and do the whole thing over again. The engineer who designed it deserves well-earned props for that feature.
Indeed I was pleased that my adjusted image is closer in form to the reproduction than the CGI composite (which is looking more and more dreadful in comparison to the original images by the day).
I would even go so far to say that the reproduction ossuary is the most accurate drawing of the figure released by your team to date.
There is only one glaring exception:
The reproduction does not express the bottom-most feature of the figure faithfully. It’s nearly a perfect circle on the copy (even smoother than in the photographs) where the actual images show it to be distinctly a half-circle, whose median is parallel to the bottom border.
I believe that the shape of this feature is the hinge pin upon which upon any possibilities of a Jonah interpretation can swing. If it’s a half-circle, it simply cannot be a human head.
Now as for your good suggestion, I have to admit everyone seems to be getting ahead of me! Bob did the video while I was working on this, and now *you’ve* suggested something I’m currently working on *now.* 🙂
I took some photographs of some chalkboard drawings I made last week on angles similar to the photos of the figure and reproduced the method to re-align the perspective.
It was very informative to me and allowed some adjustment to the technique, but I do not wish to get ahead of *myself* as well. 🙂
Barring distraction, it’ll be up in the next few days, so keep watching this space.
Peace and thanks,
-Steve
Well Steve, you are wrong on the photos since I was there, I took them, and I don’t even have photoshop on my computer, so no idea even how one would introduce septia…It is possible that the camera system we used tried different filters, I know it could switch to negative to reverse lights and darks, and I posted some of those of the inscription today.
On the head, you are wrong it is as round as a ball, even as your image right here on the web site shows, after your adjustment…
BTW, what kind of a vessel do you imagine this is? This is a 1st century tomb? Do you have in mind some exemplar, as there is obviously nothing on any ossuary out of the 1450 ornamented that we know like this…One would think that the engraver would have some kind of template in mind, in head or at least in the culture of the time and place?
Dr. Tabor,
Aye that’s what I conceded about the camera: It can apply certain basic filters (negative, sepia, probably contrast) in real time, much like how Photo Booth on your Mac can do it in real time. However, this also means that the final image isn’t the raw data from the CCD; it has been altered.
The difference really is degree.
One cannot do that kind of composite work (like in the CGI reconstruction) in real time. That’s something that takes much manual effort.
A quick filter is much less of an enhancement, but an enhancement nonetheless. Sepia is unfortunate only in that the contrast is a bit washed out compared to, say, grayscale, and that color and texture details are not discernible.
So, let me repeat so I’m not misunderstood: I do not believe that you have photoshopped image 14. I do believe (and it’s a substantiated belief from a number of metrics) that the image was filtered by the camera.
(I’ve just posted an example.)
To make a numismatic metaphor: Much like cleaning a Morgan Dollar, it may “look better” in the end, but it’s value (in our case for pulling out details vs. numismatic worth) is lessened.
As for the roundness of the bottom-most feature… not to be impolite but — and I am not being snarky — are we looking at the same image?
Allow me to post them side by side.
One is flat, the other is round. I cannot see how it is possible to equate them. One doesn’t even completely overlay the other. They are of unequal area.
Please take a moment to look at the pictures I’ve just added. Perhaps they are better explanations.
Peace,
-Steve
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Buddy (aka “Seven Star Hand”),
I was wondering when you’d come by my blog, seeing that you’ve hit up everyone else’s already. 🙂
#1 – If you want to *dialog* I’m fine with it. I’m not fine with monologues.
#2 – I do not tolerate SPAM links to people’s book-selling websites.
#3 – Stop stalking Dr. Tabor’s responses. Wherever he posts, you seem to end up eventually.
Those three things said, please feel free to contribute.
Peace,
-Steve
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Seriously, can you Zeitgeist conspiracy nuts please stop? We’re trying to have a serious conversation here about real archeological and historical matters, and this nonsense is just cluttering it all up. No one cares about your bizarre assertions.
Aye, I think you have a very good point Gao. I’m going to clean up the comments on this thread immediately.
I’m through with nuttery and I would love it if Dr. Tabor would respond again.
Peace,
-Steve
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Seven Star Hand said…
Sorry to be a bother Steve,
Why do I worry when I hear that phrase…
I know that you and other Biblical scholars have gone out of your way to block my comments,
It was no trouble at all. 🙂
but please look at the image in my book on the first page of chapter 8
It matches the circular diagram on Ossuary 3. I published this in August 2010, before any details on this ossuary were ever published. How do you explain that? Either, someone etched that image after my book was published, or I am correct in my assertions.
Actually it part of a family of symbols that shows up on Jewish ossuaries all over the place. They’re generally called “rosettes” and come in a variety of shapes, “spokes,” and sizes. If you do a Google image search for “ossuary rosette” you will see a large number of them. It’s nothing unique or extraordinary to find it in either of the Talpiot tombs.
Illuminating the Talpiot Tomb and Jesus Discovery Controversy [link]
Please, no more links. I’m not giving your site any Google rank for this.
I will publish additional details tonight. By the way, I am not a mythicist (zeitgeist, etc…), but a symbologist. There are real differences…
Mythicists, zeitgeists, and symbologists, along with numerologists, iridiologists, graphologists, engramologists, and many others all fall under the common category of “pseudoscience.”
Your methodology, as demonstrated in the written body of your work, does not adhere to any academic or scientific framework. It’s a string of conjectures held together by claims of “this looks sorta like this, therefore it *must* be the same” followed by “and a conspiracy is hiding this connection from you, so read on.”
I’m sincerely sorry, Buddy. We will find no common ground in this direction.
Peace,
-Steve
Seems to be a bit of a fracas going on here
Driveway paving Harold wood