Simple proof that the Zapruder film has been altered.

[Chris Davidson]

On 3/21/2022 at 7:52 PM, Chris Bristow said:

If the limo just slowed rapidly to 3 mph for maybe 2 seconds before acceleration it would lose 45 feet of travel down Elm. If you tried to correct it by using a matte to make the background move continuously then the limo and the background would have a 45 foot mismatch between background angle and the limos angle.
 

Not a bad guess. Just might not be exactly the way it was altered.

 

[Chris Bristow]

On 3/22/2022 at 8:15 PM, Pamela Brown said:

This is what you need...https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Blue-Black-Presidential-Assassination-ebook/dp/B07KRW1B5L

I will download it in a few days, thanks.

[Chris Bristow]

7 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

Not a bad guess. Just might not be exactly the way it was altered.

 

I thought the location of the limo in Wiegman just 9 seconds after the head may have been proof the limo never slowed. But the limo is going over 30mph as it approached the underpass and covering 45 ft per second. So it would only be one second out of place. If the limo stop was removed they would only have to increase the limo speed from head shot to the underpass by a relatively small amount to make in coincide with the Wiegman film.

[Chris Bristow]

On 3/22/2022 at 2:28 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Chris,

What I get from your analysis is that the motion blur we see in frame Z310 is what we would expect to see given the known shutter speed of Zapruder's camera. Which, for the record, is fixed.

Earlier, just by comparing the amount of blur of the limo and its passengers to that of the stationary objects in Z310, by eye alone, I could see that they were roughly the same. From this I concluded that the camera must have been following the stationary objects and the limo roughly equally. For example, assuming the limo was traveling 10 MPH, the camera's line of site was moving in that direction at 5 MPH. (Is that obvious? Let me explain: If the line of site of the camera is moving 5 MPH, then it is moving 10 - 5 = 5 MPH relative to the limo, and 5 - 0 = 5 MPH relative to the stationary objects. So therefore both the limo and the stationary objects get the same 5 MPH of motion blur.) This matches pretty closely the conclusions you made in your analysis.

Ultimately what your analysis shows me is that the motion blur in frame Z310 is correct, and that the additional motion blur we see in the stationary objects  of frame Z311 has been added (by humans).

 

Normally I measure the distance the background advances per frame and use that to figure how much motion blur there should be. It usually matches but not always. I think this is because while the amount the camera pans when the shutter is closed is usually about the same as when it is open, it is  not always the case. Normally we take the distance panned between frames, divide by 2 and that is how much motion blur we would see during the open shutter time. The complication arises because panning is a jerky motion and more of the movement can happen when the shutter is open. In that case you will measure more pixels of blur during the open shutter and more total blur in that frame than other frames.
 Lets say in 310 the limo is moving 9mph. If the camera is tracking a bit slow at 5 mph we would have 4 mph motion blur on the limo and 5 mph blur on Foster. The blur is almost equal as we see in 310.
 Now lets assume the camera panning sped up in frame 311 to a speed 5 mph faster than the limo so 14 mph panning speed(The limo position shifts slightly left from 311 to 312 supporting the idea that the panning sped up). Then in 311 the limo would still have 5 mph motion blur but in the opposite direction, it would look the same. We would now see 14 mph blur on Foster. The limo would barley change but Fosters blur almost triples. Since the panning could be more during the shutter closed moment than the open moment I can't measure the advance per frame to see if the camera panned faster during the open shutter moment of 311. But the amount of horizontal motion blur in 311(see Moorman) suggests the camera panned much more during the open shutter of 311 than frame 310. So the limo would have the same 5 mph blur in both frames but Foster would go from 5 mph in 310 to 14 mph in 311.
 One last bit to consider is there is vertical blur in 311 but not 310. The biggest clue is the angle of the blurred reflection on the crossbar from 310 to 311. Without that vertical blur in 311 the limo may look much closer to the clarity of 312.
I think the variables make it impossible to confirm if what we see is the result of alteration.
 

[Bob Ness]

On 3/5/2022 at 12:31 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

In photography there are two potential sources of blur. One is where the camera lens isn't focused, and the other is where object(s) in the photo move relative to the camera's aim during the short period of time the shutter is open. The former is called "defocus blur" and the latter is called "motion blur."

Note that motion blur can be caused by either something in the field of view moving, or by the camera itself moving. If the camera tracks the motion of an object, that object will exhibit little or no blur in the photograph, depending upon how well it is tracked.

It is known that the original Zapruder film was quite sharp. So it doesn't suffer from defocus blur. However, most public domain copies of the film are noticeably blurry. This is due to defocus blur introduced by inferior copying of the film. Fortunately we have access to the John Costella collection of Zapruder frames which are quite sharp. If you look at the limo in frames Z304, Z312, and Z323, where Zapruder is very accurately following the limousine, you will see that there is very little blur. Therefore we know that this copy of the film is in focus. We need only to concern ourselves with motion blur when examining these frames.

Following are two consecutive frames from the John Costella collection:

 

Z310

 

Z311

 

Look at frame Z311. The limousine and its occupants, as well as the motorcycle cop, show only a slight amount of blur, which indicates that the camera was following the limo quite well, but not perfectly. In contrast, everything else shows significant motion blur. This is due to the fact that the camera wasn't following them at all.

Now look at frame Z310. In this frame we see very little blur in ANYTHING. There is no significant motion blur at all and this means that the camera was tracking EVERYTHING. (Though not perfectly, given the small amount of blur we do see.)  That's right... the camera was held motionless in order to track the stationary background objects, and at the same time the camera was moving in order to track the limousine! The only way this could occur naturally is if the limousine were moving very slowly or not at all for that single frame. And we all know that didn't happen, and in fact would be impossible.

Therefore, since the significant motion blur disappeared in frame Z310, and since disappearing motion blur is an impossibility, we have no choice but to conclude that the film was altered in a way that introduced this anomaly.

 

ADDENDUM

It must be noted that it doesn't matter whether motion blur was added to Z311 or removed from Z310. Either way it can be easily proved that a human being had to do it. I decided that I would write a proof for both possibilities, one here and the other in the following post, which I reserved for that purpose. So far I haven't had time to write the other proof. (And I have used the reserved #2 post for other purposes.)

As it turns out, as shown by Chris Bristow below, frame Z310 shows the correct amount of motion blur for the given shutter speed of Zapruder's camera. Which means that motion blur was added to Z311 (by humans). I wish I would have written the proof for that case instead.

 

Without going through it in detail I believe your assumptions are incomplete. Film cameras, emulsions, lenses and processing can all lend variations into the final product, as well as simple aging, which makes conclusions about manipulation based on sharpness impossible.

Gate registration errors in a cheap home movie camera alone would be enough. Depth of field related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture as well as aberations in the glass could introduce errors compounded by the subject's distance from the camera.

It's one of the reasons why Panavision cameras with Zeiss lenses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are built out of solid blocks of aluminum or whatever. The B&H or whatever Zapruder used wasn't exactly a surgical tool. I don't think it was even Super 8. Single sprocket 8mm, in relative terms, wiggles in the gate and at 18fps I'd guess it's worse than at a higher frame rate.

8mm film would be harder to firmly register than 16,35,70 etc just because the physical size of the film would require precisely machined micro parts to accomplish the task and only has sprocket holes on one side.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Bob Ness

[Chris Bristow]

29 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Without going through it in detail I believe your assumptions are incomplete. Film cameras, emulsions, lenses and processing can all lend variations into the final product, as well as simple aging, which makes conclusions about manipulation based on sharpness impossible.

Gate registration errors in a cheap home movie camera alone would be enough. Depth of field related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture as well as aberations in the glass could introduce errors compounded by the subject's distance from the camera.

It's one of the reasons why Panavision cameras with Zeiss lenses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are built out of solid blocks of aluminum or whatever. The B&H or whatever Zapruder used wasn't exactly a surgical tool. I don't think it was even Super 8. Single sprocket 8mm, in relative terms, wiggles in the gate and at 18fps I'd guess it's worse than at a higher frame rate.

8mm film would be harder to firmly register than 16,35,70 etc just because the physical size of the film would require precisely machined micro parts to accomplish the task and only has sprocket holes on one side.

I think there are a couple things we could look at to test for some of the issues you talked about. The single sprocket wiggle is really obvious in the copying of the Nix film. The grass in the background undulates throughout the film. If it is effecting Foster in the Z film it may be visible in the grass around her too. It may also be seen in undulating objects throughout the film. I guess if the film flexed and arched like the Nix film was said to have, then the focus would change but I have never found anything like the undulating Nix images in the Z film.
 We are comparing two consecutive frames here and that makes many of the difference you noted moot, imo. But I don't think the natural spherical aberration of the lens design, aging or film emulsion difference from frame to frame would have much effect or we would see it in many frames. There could be an aberration or defect in the lens at a specific spot and we may find it in other frames and verify it. Something as big as Foster, imo, would have been seen already.
 

[Sandy Larsen]

44 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Without going through it in detail I believe your assumptions are incomplete. Film cameras, emulsions, lenses and processing can all lend variations into the final product, as well as simple aging, which makes conclusions about manipulation based on sharpness impossible.

Gate registration errors in a cheap home movie camera alone would be enough. Depth of field related to the focal length of the lens and the aperture as well as aberations in the glass could introduce errors compounded by the subject's distance from the camera.

It's one of the reasons why Panavision cameras with Zeiss lenses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are built out of solid blocks of aluminum or whatever. The B&H or whatever Zapruder used wasn't exactly a surgical tool. I don't think it was even Super 8. Single sprocket 8mm, in relative terms, wiggles in the gate and at 18fps I'd guess it's worse than at a higher frame rate.

8mm film would be harder to firmly register than 16,35,70 etc just because the physical size of the film would require precisely machined micro parts to accomplish the task and only has sprocket holes on one side.

 

I don't think so Bob. Please choose one of the things you pointed out and explain how it could possibly increase the horizontal blur in the frame, but ONLY on stationary objects. (Not on the limo and its passengers, and not on the motorcycle cops.) And do so in one frame but not the prior frame.

A camera or film that could do that would have to be a magic one in my book.

 

[Bob Ness]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I don't think so Bob. Please choose one of the things you pointed out and explain how it could possibly increase the horizontal blur in the frame, but ONLY on stationary objects. (Not on the limo and its passengers, and not on the motorcycle cops.) And do so in one frame but not the prior frame.

A camera or film that could do that would have to be a magic one in my book.

 

The camera itself could be momentarily frozen relative to the subjects in one frame and not in the next. The point of optimal focus is closer to the camera thereby allowing subjects further away to vary, particularly when they are in motion, which she is. If proper focus is resolved on a foreground subject the background subject's clarity will fall off with distance. The camera operator may have been following focus at the time. The potential explanations are endless and not unreasonable.

There are a number of variables which are beyond the two possibilities for blur which is why I think your assumptions are faulty. I'm fairly knowledgeable about the subject and anyone who is actually authoritative I'm sure could point out other possible explanations. It's a steep hill to climb to make any solid conclusions IMO.

[Jonathan Cohen]

8 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The camera itself could be momentarily frozen relative to the subjects in one frame and not in the next. The point of optimal focus is closer to the camera thereby allowing subjects further away to vary, particularly when they are in motion, which she is. If proper focus is resolved on a foreground subject the background subject's clarity will fall off with distance. The camera operator may have been following focus at the time. The potential explanations are endless and not unreasonable.

There are a number of variables which are beyond the two possibilities for blur which is why I think your assumptions are faulty. I'm fairly knowledgeable about the subject and anyone who is actually authoritative I'm sure could point out other possible explanations. It's a steep hill to climb to make any solid conclusions IMO.

Thank you, Bob Ness, for injecting a dose of reality into this thread.

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

Normally I measure the distance the background advances per frame and use that to figure how much motion blur there should be. It usually matches but not always. I think this is because while the amount the camera pans when the shutter is closed is usually about the same as when it is open, it is  not always the case. Normally we take the distance panned between frames, divide by 2 and that is how much motion blur we would see during the open shutter time. The complication arises because panning is a jerky motion and more of the movement can happen when the shutter is open. In that case you will measure more pixels of blur during the open shutter and more total blur in that frame than other frames.
 Lets say in 310 the limo is moving 9mph. If the camera is tracking a bit slow at 5 mph we would have 4 mph motion blur on the limo and 5 mph blur on Foster. The blur is almost equal as we see in 310.
 Now lets assume the camera panning sped up in frame 311 to a speed 5 mph faster than the limo so 14 mph panning speed(The limo position shifts slightly left from 311 to 312 supporting the idea that the panning sped up). Then in 311 the limo would still have 5 mph motion blur but in the opposite direction, it would look the same. We would now see 14 mph blur on Foster. The limo would barley change but Fosters blur almost triples. Since the panning could be more during the shutter closed moment than the open moment I can't measure the advance per frame to see if the camera panned faster during the open shutter moment of 311. But the amount of horizontal motion blur in 311(see Moorman) suggests the camera panned much more during the open shutter of 311 than frame 310. So the limo would have the same 5 mph blur in both frames but Foster would go from 5 mph in 310 to 14 mph in 311.
 One last bit to consider is there is vertical blur in 311 but not 310. The biggest clue is the angle of the blurred reflection on the crossbar from 310 to 311. Without that vertical blur in 311 the limo may look much closer to the clarity of 312.
I think the variables make it impossible to confirm if what we see is the result of alteration.
 

 

I did think of the possibility that in Z310 the camera's FOV was moving horizontally at half the limo's 10 MPH speed, and then for Z311 abruptly increased to 15 MPH. Which should make the motion blur on the stationary objects triple in Z311. But it appeared to me that the blur went far beyond tripling.

I am going to post here frames Z310, Z312, and Z311 in that order. Why that order? Because that way the expected amount of motion blur of the three will be in order... 5 MPH for Z310, 10 MPH for Z312, and 15 MPH for Z311.

If what you said is true, then we should expect that -- in comparing the stationary objects --  the motion blur in the second frame will be twice that in the first frame, and the motion blur in the third frame will be triple that in the first frame.

 

(Z310)  Stationary Object Motion Blur = 5 MPH
 

(Z312)  Stationary Object Motion Blur = 10 MPH
 

(Z311)  Stationary Object Motion Blur = 15 MPH

 

Okay, now never mind the blurriness of the running woman. Her amount of blur is hard to determine because the color of her jacket where it is blurred gets hidden in the color of the grass. Instead, look at the woman in blue (or is it black?).

The woman in blue in the first frame is only slightly blurry. She's supposed to be twice as blurry in the second frame. But she's far more blurry than that! She's so blurry that you can easily make out a double image of her! (And BTW, if you look carefully at the running woman, you can see she's got a double image as well... just a little hidden in the grass on her left side.)

And as expected, the blur is worse in the third frame. But it's far more than triple the blur in the first frame. I think it's more like six or seven times as much!

 

[Sandy Larsen]

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The camera itself could be momentarily frozen relative to the subjects in one frame and not in the next.

 

Yes, that is what we're discussing. Along those lines.

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The point of optimal focus is closer to the camera thereby allowing subjects further away to vary, particularly when they are in motion, which she is. If proper focus is resolved on a foreground subject the background subject's clarity will fall off with distance.

 

It has already been established that the camera was in focus, and it obviously had a very large depth of field. Therefore the blur that we're talking about is nearly all motion blur.

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The camera operator may have been following focus at the time.

 

No need to focus on-the-fly given that the camera was in focus and had a large depth of field.

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The potential explanations are endless and not unreasonable.

 

I don't think so.

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

There are a number of variables which are beyond the two possibilities for blur which is why I think your assumptions are faulty.

 

I don't think so. There's focus blur and motion blur. And in the Z film there is very little focus blur on the objects of interest (in this proof).

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

I'm fairly knowledgeable about the subject and anyone who is actually authoritative I'm sure could point out other possible explanations.

 

What makes you so sure of that? I mean, maybe you're right. But you don't know that.

 

15 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

It's a steep hill to climb to make any solid conclusions IMO.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Thank you, Bob Ness, for injecting a dose of reality into this thread.

 

And, as expected, the cheerleader runs in on cue and gives his Rah Rah Rahs!

Even though Team Ness didn't contribute anything worth repeating.

(I mean... jeez... all Bob basically said was 1) stuff that's not relevant to my proof, and 2) that he thinks I'm wrong.)

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[W. Tracy Parnell]

8 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

And, as expected, the mindless cheerleader runs in on cue and gives his Rah Rah Rahs!

I'm sure you didn't mean to say "mindless." That would be a violation of forum rules.

[Sandy Larsen]

And how do you explain Z321, where there is almost no blur to be found at all!

 

 

Well, okay, there's a little bit.

Be sure to check out the woman in the sprocket area. Very little blur. But the limo's moving, right? There's gotta be motion blur somewhere. Even the grass is pretty clear.

Chris and I both noted above that the blur on this woman could be up to three times as bad as what we see here due to Zapruder's hand jerking, given the worst case conditions. That is what is supposedly happened in the frame below (Z311). So imagine the blurriness in the woman above multiplied by three. It still wouldn't be bad, right? Nowhere near as bad as what we see in the blue lady in the frame below. Why is that? It should be the same.

(Only Chris may have a grasp on what I'm pointing out here. Sorry... it's hard to explain.)

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

54 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

And, as expected, the mindless cheerleader runs in on cue and gives his Rah Rah Rahs!

I'm sure you didn't mean to say "mindless." That would be a violation of forum rules.

 

"Mindless" was meant to refer to his habit of congratulating people on a job well done without even knowing what they did. (I have little tolerance for that.) It was not meant to say or imply he can't think.

But I removed it so there would be no confusion or hard feelings.

By the way, I am often the butt of my critics ridicule. Why don't you ever stand up for me?

(Well, I still like you. I think you're a really decent person and it wouldn't hurt me to try and be a little more like you.)