Inaguration crowd size

[oxmixmudd]

Yeah, we've been over that before, kiddo. Compression from a long lens doesn't magically turn an empty space into a full one. Despite the different perspectives, you can clearly see that the crowd was much more dense during the ceremony than it was an hour before when the infamous overhead shot was taken, despite your source blatantly lying and claiming that it was taken at 12:01PM. Sorry, but it's the exact same picture that was posted to Twitter nearly an hour before.

I doubt very much anything I say can dissuade you. But if you look at the link I gave you, there was in fact very little change between 11:30 and 12:00**. Several simple points. The Washington monument is 1.2 miles from the capital. around 6336 feet. Lets say the last block of people before the large gap to the back white building was about 5000 feet from where the photo was taken. and lets be somewhat generous and put the camera about 200 feet up (the top of the capital dome is 289 feet). So 5000/200 means that every vertical foot at that distance obscures 25 feet behind it. So the last line of people on the last full row at an average height of around 6 feet (say with hats) obscures 150 feet behind them.

What I suggest you do is look very carefully MM. Trace the shapes of the missing spaces in both photos, understand how much of the white space is obscured by the people standing, count the blocks of people back, compare left and right, use the tents as guides. Look carefully MM.

Notice that from the most forward large gap (clearly visible in shape and form in both) there are 4 large blocks of people. Notice that the shape of that first gap matches (accounting for the change in perspective) with the monument photo. Notice that the front of the two back left* tents are (though extremely foreshortened) effectively behind the first bit of visible white in the back blocks, especially on the right side, exactly like in the Monument photo - keeping in mind that from the last person on a given block to the first possible visible white of the gap is somewhere around 150 feet. Notice also that the blurred obscuring pole in the foreground on the right does not quite obscure the large gap on the right in the second block of people back from that first gap on the right.

They are basically the same configuration. The show the same thing at about the same time.

Nobody is trying to steal poor Trump's victory lap over an Obama sized crowd. The MSM isn't substituting photos from different times of the day.



Jim

*just in case you need to be told: please keep in mind that left on the photo from the capitol is right in the photo from the monument. Likewise the foreground of the capitol photo is the background of the monument photo.

** again look carefully, these are not the same picture, and there are a few MORE people there, just not a large number.

[oxmixmudd]

At best, partially true; they are heavily colored by your interpretation of the same, which interpretation appears to be governed far more by emotion than reason.

You are deluding yourself. You've been heavily emoting regarding Trump from the get-go, before you got any responses. Such responses are viewed through the lens of your emotions, which is why they seem illogical.

Ok, I hear that is how you perceive it. Let's keep an analytical eye on that going forward and see if you have a point. Feel free to bring that specific issue up in your replies point by point if necessary in future posts of mine which you reply to.


Jim

[Mountain Man]

But if you look at the link I gave you, there was in fact very little change between 11:30 and 12:00.

You fell for the bait-and-switch. The picture your source claims was taken at 12:01pm is, in fact, the very same picture that was posted to Twitter on the day of the inauguration an hour before the ceremony began.

Journalist Brit Hume was actually in attendance and can speak as a credible eyewitness:

brit.jpg
https://twitter.com/brithume/status/822975532656685061

The glaring discrepancies between the photo taken an hour before the ceremony and photos taken and during the ceremony itself can not be explained as a mere trick of focal length:

size.jpg

[oxmixmudd]

You fell for the bait-and-switch. The picture your source claims was taken at 12:01pm is, in fact, the very same picture that was posted to Twitter on the day of the inauguration an hour before the ceremony began.

Journalist Brit Hume was actually in attendance and can speak as a credible eyewitness:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30926[/ATTACH]
https://twitter.com/brithume/status/822975532656685061

The glaring discrepancies between the photo taken an hour before the ceremony and photos taken and during the ceremony itself can not be explained as a mere trick of focal length:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30927[/ATTACH]

Like I said, there is little I can say to sway you MM. This is what it looked like at 12:03 pm from that same building on the ground looking toward the capitol.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...size/96984496/

(scroll down a bit to Gillian Brockwell's tweet)

As for the fact they are the same building, yes I got that. That is why I counted blocks of people or you so you could validate what I'm saying. I was hoping you could look for yourself and that your knowledge of trig and optics could help you understand I'm telling you the truth. I guess I was hoping for too much again - right?

At this point MM you just display your own ignorance of optics and math. But - again - to you I'm just some anti-Trump guy that can't be trusted. The facts just don't matter. You've swallowed the cool-aid that the fellow that says the photo was from 12:01 pm must be 'lying' and its 'fakenews'.

But you don't have to take anybody's word for it if you just look carefully at both pictures and apply a little knowledge of optics. They are clearly records of the same crowd configuration at about the same time of day.


Jim

[Tassman]

The fact that anyone would characterize this as some sort of "crisis" says it all.

The “crisis” being referred to by The Guardian article to which I linked, namely:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-photos-edited

...was not regarding this one deliberate lie (and it was a lie...see the link) which was just one day after Trump’s inauguration, but rather to the fact that Trump’s compulsive pattern of lies has continued ever since. Trump's lies and reversals reveal a rudderless leader without principles, who is a danger to the country and ultimately to the free world.

[Roy]

At this point MM you just display your own ignorance of optics and math. But - again - to you I'm just some anti-Trump guy that can't be trusted. The facts just don't matter. You've swallowed the cool-aid that the fellow that says the photo was from 12:01 pm must be 'lying' and its 'fakenews'.

Ignorance of optics and maths? It's more like ignorance of the fact that people aren't transparent.

[Sparko]

This is hard to fathom Sparko. Please take a look at the pictures in this link, which discuss the time frames of the photos. Especially that there are pictures from both 11:30 and 12:00. The pictures show Trump on the monitors. There is no comparison between the Obama crowd and the Trump crowd. How can you say "I don't think the crowd was any smaller than Obama's"? https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-01-...uration-obamas

And when you compare the photo on the right to the CNN megapixel photo you will see a LOT more people there. When you compare that photo with the photo on the left you don't see much difference at all. ALSO the photo on the left shows the street leading up to the Washington monument and the one on the right shows a different street, to the right of the main avenue to the Washington monument. If you slide the center bar over to show the washington monument on Trumps side you will see that the crowds are pretty close to the same. The "empty spot" in the foreground is where they kept the crowd away from the statue during Trump's inauguration. And the white areas leading up to the washington monument in Trumps photo are actually tents and a new building put up in front of the monument.

Here, I found a blow up of each inauguration showing the relevant parts and stitched them together.

click to expand.

compare.jpg

Trump is lying about the response, the effectiveness of the response. Here is it again tonight. Trump praising his response when 3000 died. Do you not remember how much was made of how bad the Katrina response when 'only' 1800 died, yet here Trump PRAISES the response without any sense of responsibility. And indeed, issues of mental health are again being raised. And again issues of his incapacity to be truthful.

He is not lying. See above. Also Trump uses a lot of hyperbole. That is not lying. And I still see no connection with PR and the crowd size.

Tell you what Sparko. You look over those photos in the article I linked to above. Tell me if you still think Trump's inauguration crowd was 'almost as big' as Obama's. I just need to know if reality can break through in this simple case before I spend any more time on this.

See above. Yes they are comparable. Has reality broken through to you yet? Sure Obama's crowd looks to be a bit larger, but not nearly as much as you or the press has made it out to be.

[Roy]

And when you compare the photo on the right to the CNN megapixel photo you will see a LOT more people there. When you compare that photo with the photo on the left you don't see much difference at all. ALSO the photo on the left shows the street leading up to the Washington monument and the one on the right shows a different street, to the right of the main avenue to the Washington monument. If you slide the center bar over to show the washington monument on Trumps side you will see that the crowds are pretty close to the same. The "empty spot" in the foreground is where they kept the crowd away from the statue during Trump's inauguration. And the white areas leading up to the washington monument in Trumps photo are actually tents and a new building put up in front of the monument.

Here, I found a blow up of each inauguration showing the relevant parts and stitched them together.

You can see the ground in front of those tents in your picture (and in the CNN one), despite the low angle, suggesting there is at least 50ft of empty space between the back of the crowd and the tents. The crowd at Obama's inauguration, though, not only extended to where the tents are now, but way beyond.

Obama's 2009 crowd extended far beyond the curve in Jefferson drive at the Smithsonian Castle. Trump's 2017 crowd stopped short of it. Showing pictures taken from the other end of the crowd won't change that simple fact.

crowds.jpg

[Sparko]

You can see the ground in front of those tents in your picture (and in the CNN one), despite the low angle, suggesting there is at least 50ft of empty space between the back of the crowd and the tents. The crowd at Obama's inauguration, though, not only extended to where the tents are now, but way beyond.

Obama's 2009 crowd extended far beyond the curve in Jefferson drive at the Smithsonian Castle. Trump's 2017 crowd stopped short of it. Showing pictures taken from the other end of the crowd won't change that simple fact.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30931[/ATTACH]

And posting some dumb drawing doesn't prove anything either.

Hey if the photos don't convince you that is fine with me. My initial point to Jim was that a lot of this is a> pointless b> a matter of opinion and interpretation.

[Cerebrum123]

I know right? Almost like you want to just give Trump a hug to tick off the left.

I would probably want a hazmat suit for something like that.

[oxmixmudd]

And when you compare the photo on the right to the CNN megapixel photo you will see a LOT more people there. When you compare that photo with the photo on the left you don't see much difference at all. ALSO the photo on the left shows the street leading up to the Washington monument and the one on the right shows a different street, to the right of the main avenue to the Washington monument. If you slide the center bar over to show the washington monument on Trumps side you will see that the crowds are pretty close to the same. The "empty spot" in the foreground is where they kept the crowd away from the statue during Trump's inauguration. And the white areas leading up to the washington monument in Trumps photo are actually tents and a new building put up in front of the monument.

Here, I found a blow up of each inauguration showing the relevant parts and stitched them together.

click to expand.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]30930[/ATTACH]












He is not lying. See above. Also Trump uses a lot of hyperbole. That is not lying. And I still see no connection with PR and the crowd size.



See above. Yes they are comparable. Has reality broken through to you yet? Sure Obama's crowd looks to be a bit larger, but not nearly as much as you or the press has made it out to be.

Ok - so I figured you at least would know how to process the information I gave MM, but I was wrong. Yikes!

No Sparko, the gigapixal image suffers from extreme compression and foreshortening combined with the fact the audience itself is obscuring large areas of the white empty space due to the angle of observation of the camera and the extreme distance involved.

The first thing you need to understand is that the gigapixel image AND the monument image of the trump inauguration are images of the same crowd at about the same time of day. The gigapix image is NOT a 'bigger' crowd later in the day, it is the SAME crowd. Go back through my post to MM and work it through logically Sparko. Count the crowd blocks, look at the open spaces, if you need to, work out by proportion with knowledge of how much is being blocked by the trailing edge of the crowd. The blank spaces and the crowds are the same in both the monument photo and the gigapix photo. They are just viewing the crowd from different angles and subject the the apparent compression that comes from viewing objects at a great distance (inverse square law*)

After you figure that out, then it is easy to see that the Obama crowd far exceeded the Trump crowd.


Jim

*Objects viewed at great distances and then magnified do not present with the same relative size as objects closer to the viewer. This is because the light refracted from the distant objects is more parallel than the light from closer objects. So if two balls viewed from a distance of 10 and 20 feet, the closer ball will subtend twice the arc as the distant ball. However, at 1010 and 1020 feet, the two balls will appear almost the same size even though they are separated from each other by the same 10 feet.

As a simple example. Look at how close to each other the two back tents on the left look in the gigapixel image, how nearly the same size they are, but how far apart they look in the monument photo (right side). This is what is happening to the white open area space in the image that makes the crowd appear larger even though it simply is not.

[Cerebrum123]

That is sad. Do you really think the points I've made are 'histrionics'? That the president of the United States would lie nearly each and every day about something? That he once tried to claim it wasn't his voice on the Access Hollywood tape? That he kept trying to deny prior knowledge of the Stormy Daniels tape when we had a tape with him discussing how the payment should be made? That he in this case simply would not believe the truth about the audience size of his inauguration relative to Obama's, to the point that his staff and those around him would believe they needed to create cropped pictures so he would think the crowd was bigger than it was?

These are all just 'nothing'?


Jim

I'll grant your whole list as accurate for the sake of argument. It is dishonest and stupid, but still nothing to get worked up like you have. It's certainly no worse than your average politician, and actually tame compared to most in recent memory. It's almost as if you have been living under a rock your whole life until Trump showed up.

[Sparko]

Ok - so I figured you at least would know how to process the information I gave MM, but I was wrong. Yikes!

No Sparko, the gigapixal image suffers from extreme compression and foreshortening combined with the fact the audience itself is obscuring large areas of the white empty space due to the angle of observation of the camera and the extreme distance involved.

The first thing you need to understand is that the gigapixel image AND the monument image of the trump inauguration are images of the same crowd at about the same time of day. The gigapix image is NOT a 'bigger' crowd later in the day, it is the SAME crowd. Go back through my post to MM and work it through logically Sparko. Count the crowd blocks, look at the open spaces, if you need to, work out by proportion with knowledge of how much is being blocked by the trailing edge of the crowd. The blank spaces and the crowds are the same in both the monument photo and the gigapix photo. They are just viewing the crowd from different angles and subject the the apparent compression that comes from viewing objects at a great distance (inverse square law*)

After you figure that out, then it is easy to see that the Obama crowd far exceeded the Trump crowd.


Jim

*Objects viewed at great distances and then magnified do not present with the same relative size as objects closer to the viewer. This is because the light refracted from the distant objects is more parallel than the light from closer objects. So if two balls viewed from a distance of 10 and 20 feet, the closer ball will subtend twice the arc as the distant ball. However, at 1010 and 1020 feet, the two balls will appear almost the same size even though they are separated from each other by the same 10 feet.

As a simple example. Look at how close to each other the two back tents on the left look in the gigapixel image, how nearly the same size they are, but how far apart they look in the monument photo (right side). This is what is happening to the white open area space in the image that makes the crowd appear larger even though it simply is not.

JimL I have worked with cameras all of my adult life. I do video and graphics for a living. You can clearly see in the shot I posted that both Obama's and Trump's crowd are fairly close. There is no magically hidden white space. You can SEE the white space in the Trump photo. At the back of the first crowd block and the last one. It clearly shows a lot more people than the overhead view that the MSM was showing from an earlier time. I never claimed that Trump's crowd was as big or bigger than Obama's. But they are comparable.

I don't expect to convince you, but you are wrong. But you are taking your view as "fact" and then judging Trump's comments based on what YOU believe and calling him a liar. From his point of view, even lower down than the camera shots I posted, the crowd would indeed look completely packed, do you agree? If you think some of the white space is hidden by the camera angle, what do you think it would look like from Trump's angle? So to call him a liar is a incorrect, wouldn't you say?

[Roy]

And posting some dumb drawing doesn't prove anything either.

Hey if the photos don't convince you that is fine with me. My initial point to Jim was that a lot of this is a> pointless b> a matter of opinion and interpretation.

It is mostly pointless; it is not a matter of opinion. The photos haven't convinced me that the crowds were roughly the same size because I've looked at them, because I understand geometry, and because I'm investigating reality rather than supporting a presumption.

But feel free to delude yourself about anything you wish.

[oxmixmudd]

JimL I have worked with cameras all of my adult life. I do video and graphics for a living. You can clearly see in the shot I posted that both Obama's and Trump's crowd are fairly close. There is no magically hidden white space. You can SEE the white space in the Trump photo. At the back of the first crowd block and the last one. It clearly shows a lot more people than the overhead view that the MSM was showing from an earlier time. I never claimed that Trump's crowd was as big or bigger than Obama's. But they are comparable.

I don't expect to convince you, but you are wrong. But you are taking your view as "fact" and then judging Trump's comments based on what YOU believe and calling him a liar. From his point of view, even lower down than the camera shots I posted, the crowd would indeed look completely packed, do you agree? If you think some of the white space is hidden by the camera angle, what do you think it would look like from Trump's angle? So to call him a liar is a incorrect, wouldn't you say?

Trump has advisers and people on his staff that should be able to figure this out and steer him straight. Anyone in the position of leading the nation should not take their own judgement of 'crowd size' as gospel, nor should they force their staff to modify the pictures and information to fit their view. Yes, a lie is appropriate when there is real information available and even when told what it is one persists in ones own view, ignores the truth, and demands one's staff only tell him and the rest of the country what he wants to hear.

As to the two images:

Sparko - its basic physics. Please don't just dig in. Go figure it out. Look at where the tents are, where the white space begins. where the crowd blocks are. Heck, if you'll just look at where the tents are in the gigapix photo you can see that there are literally hundreds of feet of white space compressed into that short white strip behind the crowd between them and the building. The tents tell a lot of the story there. There are not significant crowds beside the tents, and there is a huge amount of space that is compressed into that short strip.

Also look forward at the other gaps. See how they align with the monument photo, as I pointed out to MM. Look on the right side of the gigapix photo, which is the left side of the monument photo. From the gigapix phote perspective, after the first main gap there is another gap on the right mostly blocked by the out of focus pole - that is the second large gap on the right (working towards the observer, away from the capitol) in the monument photo. Notice most of the crowd it on the right (monument, left gigapix).

One element that contribtues to the confusion here is the out of focus pole in the gigapix photo overlaying the right side of the crowd. You need to look carefully to see that the gaps on that side seen in the monument photo are also there in the gigapix photo.

And again, at those great distances, large amounts of depth looks very, very short and small. You need to 'calibrate your eyes' so to speak, the the two back tents on the left in the gigapix photo as compared to the monument photo can help you do that.

Jim