Nature’s Pic Images Blog

TV3’s 3rd Degree show last night said they have ‘new’ evidence proving Robin Bain was the murderer, from tiny marks on 20 year old photos. I’m a professional photographer, and once an A grade competitive target shooter (full bore and .22), so I took an interest in the ‘new’ photographic evidence.

I think what was portrayed was VERY UNSAFE and doesn’t offer a ‘slam dunk’ to the case as claimed by some. I looked into it and can easily show the new evidence does not prove anything. I’ll show you why:

Original evidence. Note shadow direction, high contrast, sharpened image

This was taken on film, printed to paper, scanned and presented here. It’s high contrast, has been through various reproductions already, was a crop of the original frame, and looks to have been sharpened to maximise it’s contents (this is a problem as I’ll explain).

I looked at my own hand and immediately saw I had two marks, which turned out to be exactly the same size as my .22 rimfire magazine. Hmm, interesting. I grabbed my iPhone and here is my quick shot taken on the couch during the programme:

my first snap with my phone on the couch watching the 'new' evidence. Wow, I have two natural fold lines EXACTLY the same width of a .22 magazine too. Getting itneresting.

NOW I’m interested! How can it be so easy with a quick photo of someone else’s thumb (mine), get immediately into the ballpark of the new evidence? OK, let’s try with my Canon 1DsMk3 and 24-70 lens, and try to roughly copy the lighting (note the shadow direction – it will give very good relief to any folds or imperfections on Robin Bain’s skin from that side angle). Here’s the first go (quite difficult with camera angles and only 2 hands):

Raw file as shot

I then had a go at upping contrast,…

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MOLESWORTH STATION, stories from New Zealand’s largest high country station, has been a 2 1/2 year journey with author Harry Broad, attempting to create a book that does Molesworth Station justice.  At 500,000 acres the station is bigger than Stewart Island, and contains one of NZ’s biggest cattle herds.  Here’s the first glimpse of the cover of the book, due for September release.

The name of Molesworth has huge national recognition, not only because it is our largest high-country station, but also because of the remarkable story of how, from the early 1940s, the legendary manager Bill Chisholm rebuilt a ruined landscape and turned it into a flourishing and profitable farm. Molesworth covers an area greater than Stewart Island, and is in every sense a working farm, home to one of the country’s largest cattle herds… > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >