Curvature of Earth on photos is a lens effect, which proves nothing.

I see often the argument showed by both parties, that the Earth as seen from high altitude or low orbit looks flat, or curved. When it looks curved it is a lens effect.

Whatever your altitude is, every point of the Earth horizon is at equal distance from you, and therefore looks flat if you're close to Earth (ISS orbit of 350km above ground is very close to Earth compared with its 12'740 km of diameter). The Earth will start to look round when you're far away to catch a big enough portion of its size on the photo, and this is not possible on lower orbits unless you use a very wide angle or fish eye objective, and these have important optical distorsion effects.

So, that Earth looks flat from low orbit is no hint towards FET (and assuredly no proof), and that Earth looks curved from low orbit on some photos is not a valid proof for RET. In any case, you can't hold perspective responsible for conspiracy.

I don't know how you've determined that the ISS's height is not giving you enough field of view to have a big enough arc length of horizon to detect curvature.

If you have a camera that starts out on the ground with the horizon looking flat but then shows the horizon looking curved at higher altitudes then it's because the it's actually curving, not because of the lens. This is exactly what you see in the Qu8k video. FEers don't deny this, they merely claim that you're seeing the edge of the sun's illumination of the earth instead of the actual horizon.

I just drawed that in scale to see and well you might be right, it might be possible to see a light curvature at 350km above earth. But i still think that a lens effect can be much stronger than the natural curvature and that it's not possible to tell from a photo how curvy it really is, and therefore i still tend to consider this argument weak.

Would be interesting to hear it from someone who saw it with the eyes and not through a lens.

What makes eyes necessarily better than a camera? They both gather light with lenses. Certainly a lens's distortion can be stronger, but it can also be nearly zero, especially if the camera is compensating for it.

Does anyone have the math to determine how much of the horizon should be visible given a height, view frustum presumably defined by focal length, and what I'm guessing is an eyeline tangential to the surface of the earth? Nolhekh maybe? This feels like too much brain power for me right now and googling hasn't turned up anything >_> But my gut feeling is that you'd see the horizon span a much greater distance than your height above it...

FE cameras can record perfectly straight perspective lines and flat structures on the ground, but as soon as they get to any altitude,  they suddenly develop 'fisheye', giving the illusion that the edges of the horizon are curved. 

FE cameras can record perfectly straight perspective lines and flat structures on the ground, but as soon as they get to any altitude,  they suddenly develop 'fisheye', giving the illusion that the edges of the horizon are curved. 

Even pictures of the "International Space Station" show very little, if any, curvature.  Yet, you believe that pictures from balloons and aircraft which show a very curved horizon are not distorted.  You believe what you want to believe and ignore facts.

yet you present this photo as an illustration of your idea and it induces:

– the iss is real
- the curvature of the horizon is visible on this photo

Quote from: RW on November 19, 2012, 12:27:36 AM

FE cameras can record perfectly straight perspective lines and flat structures on the ground, but as soon as they get to any altitude,  they suddenly develop 'fisheye', giving the illusion that the edges of the horizon are curved. 

Even pictures of the "International Space Station" show very little, if any, curvature.  Yet, you believe that pictures from balloons and aircraft which show a very curved horizon are not distorted.  You believe what you want to believe and ignore facts.

This is simply amazing. This poster has admitted that it is curved yet goes on to say that because other things are also curved, it cannot be curved.
The perspective that this photograph was taken is at a very obtuse angle to the horizon, as such will make it look flatter as you are using that as your focal point.
If you stand atop, for instance the Burj Kalifa, and look down, your focal point is that which you are standing on and as such you can see the curvature of the earth as more pronounced.
That there is a similar effect that can be created by some lenses does not mean that this accounts for all things. That is simply an instance of someone who's beliefs are being disproven clinging to whatever they can and saying that it is true. It's not.

I always loved the images that try and debunk a curved earth. I'm attaching two screenshots.

In 3DSMax I created a large sphere, I added a camera on top of that sphere with a field of view of 95 degrees which is definitely a wide angle, which means if there is any curvature it will be exaggerated.

So on the left you see the sphere itself with the camera on top, on the right is the camera's view looking straight out (this means, things like refraction aren't even there). The second image is that thick line FE'rs like to put over the horizon to prove how flat a round surface can actually appear.

The sphere is perfect (well perfect enough, it's technically created by a series of flat quads and triangles, limitations of the software).


Click on for larger images, sorry for slower internet users.






And this is a very CLEAR line between the "earth" and the "sky". Add in things like, refraction, blurryness of the eye, fuzzyness of the camera, humidity, heat, cloudyness...etc, you're NOT going to see that curve.


So this just goes to show that the "flatness" of the earth, is just a play on the eyes, and what is round can also appear flat.

also if you zoom in close enough to that sphere it will be so close that it looks flat, sort of like a person standing on earth. the size of earth is so large in comparison to a person that it looks flat, therefore looking outside and seeing a flat plane in no way is evidence for a flat earth.

Yes very convenient.

also if you zoom in close enough to that sphere it will be so close that it looks flat, sort of like a person standing on earth. the size of earth is so large in comparison to a person that it looks flat, therefore looking outside and seeing a flat plane in no way is evidence for a flat earth.

Yep, exactly what I had demonstrated

A flat plane is evidence for a flat earth. You are the ones screaming illusion.

A flat plane is evidence for a flat earth. You are the ones screaming illusion.

My floor is a flat plane. Is that evidence?

Quote from: Tom Bishop on November 29, 2012, 07:46:15 PM

A flat plane is evidence for a flat earth. You are the ones screaming illusion.

My floor is a flat plane. Is that evidence?

Yes. Looking at a flat floor is evidence that the floor is flat. It is not evidence that it is round.

tom, what part of the diagram did you not understand? you seem to be mistaken by how big the earth is

yet you present this photo as an illustration of your idea and it induces:

– the iss is real
- the curvature of the horizon is visible on this photo

No, I put the words "International Space Station" in quotes for a reason.  I am not saying it is real.  I am saying that pictures of the pretend ISS do not even show a curved horizon, even though pictures from balloons do.

^ it does show curvature

Quote from: Mantaxi on November 29, 2012, 08:32:51 PM

Quote from: Tom Bishop on November 29, 2012, 07:46:15 PM

A flat plane is evidence for a flat earth. You are the ones screaming illusion.

My floor is a flat plane. Is that evidence?

Yes. Looking at a flat floor is evidence that the floor is flat. It is not evidence that it is round.

How big do you think the Earth is? Have you not traveled anywhere? I don't think any sane FEr or any sane REr will say the Earth is small.

My diagram was explaining how a flat horizon does not prove the Earth is flat, nor does it prove it is round. From the ground that is.

A flat plane is evidence for a flat earth. You are the ones screaming illusion.

For all your talk about perspective when crying foul about sinking ships it's funny to see you be so reliant on your perspective when it suits you.

tom, what part of the diagram did you not understand? you seem to be mistaken by how big the earth is

You seem to be neglecting that the observation of living on a flat plane is evidence that one lives on a flat plane, not evidence that one is living on a big ball.

Quote from: canucks#01fan on November 30, 2012, 02:00:26 AM

tom, what part of the diagram did you not understand? you seem to be mistaken by how big the earth is

You seem to be neglecting that the observation of living on a flat plane is evidence that one lives on a flat plane, not evidence that one is living on a big ball.

That isn't the case, it would be if it there was absolute certainty to its flatness but there isn't. As the earlier comments of this thread have shown you the observations one makes about "everyday life" allow for any shape to be possible upon this observation. The comments tell you that a seemingly large plane could be a flat plane, but it could also be a sphere.

The only certain conclusion to be made without much investigation is merely that whatever shape it is, it must be enormous. The initially observable data is insufficient to make a reasonable judgement so more empirical evidence is required.

The thing is that your talk about perspective is easily proven false with just some simple analysis to see where Rowbotham was mistaken. On the other hand, the perspective case in this thread is easy to understand. It is easy to tell why the observer can make the mistake.

Quote from: Tom Bishop on August 31, 2013, 09:43:03 AM

Quote from: canucks#01fan on November 30, 2012, 02:00:26 AM

tom, what part of the diagram did you not understand? you seem to be mistaken by how big the earth is

You seem to be neglecting that the observation of living on a flat plane is evidence that one lives on a flat plane, not evidence that one is living on a big ball.

That isn't the case, it would be if it there was absolute certainty to its flatness but there isn't. As the earlier comments of this thread have shown you the observations one makes about "everyday life" allow for any shape to be possible upon this observation. The comments tell you that a seemingly large plane could be a flat plane, but it could also be a sphere.

The only certain conclusion to be made without much investigation is merely that whatever shape it is, it must be enormous. The initially observable data is insufficient to make a reasonable judgement so more empirical evidence is required.

The thing is that your talk about perspective is easily proven false with just some simple analysis to see where Rowbotham was mistaken. On the other hand, the perspective case in this thread is easy to understand. It is easy to tell why the observer can make the mistake.

That the Earth is flat as we see it from a building or even a plane is not evidence for a FE. It could be, as rottingroom states, just because the Earth is large. If you make a ball large enough it looks flat if you look at it up close. A large enough ball would appear flat even from a plane! This is just common sense. The reasoning for supporting FE needs to be from a sound theory that explains the distribution of daylight over a 24 hr period, as well as the seasons, and the Sun's movements across our FE sky, and the observed motion of objects to fall to the ground. Without this, we FE'ers simply have no ground to stand on.