I have both orbs and a UFO!

No, just kidding. This is a photograph I have taken for the purpose a while ago from my front porch. I will tell you how I made it and what it represents but first I would like you all to leave a comment.

I can't see the photo ....

Does it work now?
Works fine for me...

Did you spill something on the lens? Or is it just dusty?



One thing I don't understand is the whole phenomenon of "orbs". It's too easy to get pictures tarnished by them, why do people kick up a fuss when they get them in a cemetery when they wouldn't bat an eyelid otherwise? As a keen amateur (very!!) photographer of 4-6 legged beasties (that includes feathery wings too!) this frustrating incident is all too well known.




I dunno, perhaps a new hatching of midges would give a similar result?

Im assuming you mean the hexagonal grey bits and not the line of what appear to be house lights near the bottom ? Whatever you created them from they are all pointing in the same direction and some catch the light better than others. No idea....

Still can't see the photo - any chance of a link instead? Thanks.

Funny you should post this picture Mauro, I've just a minute ago finished reading a short article about the physicist Klaus Heinemann who researches orbs in digital photography, and he's very convinced that there's more to them than just dust on the lens. I went to Bunratty in Ireland last year and took two identical photos inside a cottage, just seconds apart. One of them had a few orbs in it, I took lots of photos that day and only had orbs in the one photo so that did make me wonder. I'm gonna have a look later tonight, maybe I can still find it and post it on here.

Inghinn

They look like the crystals that form when you do science experiments with salt

mysteryshopper wrote:

Still can't see the photo - any chance of a link instead? Thanks.

Here you go: https://2img.net/h/i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm240/Mauro_Cella/trial_01.jpg

Lee, you are correct in assuming that the bottom lights are in fact streetlights while the "orbs" are those weird things in the middle, while the small light in the middle-top section is my "UFO". Obtaining these orbs was much much easier than you might expect: I'll explain but first I want to hear more from you all!

I would guess at something on the lens, they look more distinct than the usual orb pics though.

I can see the photo now - it was a problem with my ISP (now fixed - I hope!).

The photo appears to show a city or town night taken from above - a hill perhaps. There appears to be a stone parapet bottom right with foliage (trees and a hedge?) just beyond. All the larger orbs are hexagonal which means the smaller ones probably are as well even though it can't be seen.

Given the even distribution of the orbs, their most likely source is raindrops. What I assume to be the 'UFO' doesn't appear to be hexagonal but it is so small it is difficult to tell. Assuming it isn't hexagonal then that means it is in focus, unlike the orbs. It is difficult to say, from the photo, what it is. If it is within a few metres then it may be reflecting the flash and could be some small object dangling on a thread (a spider) or flying (a moth). If it is further away then it is shining by itself. It might therefore be a light on a hill opposite or aircraft lights.

Even if orbs weren't all down to depth of field etc, why on earth should we assume them to be paranormal? Let's face it, the links between what amount to some vaguely ethereal blobs and the existence of spirit are hardly conclusive!

I have seen balls of light in my own home for which there was no good explanation, so I suppose orbs to be possible... but I think they've been over-used (fictionally) by ghost tours, etc. to try to make people think they have seen something supernatural.

The word 'orb' started with digital photography. It describes circles (not spheres as the name implies) of light in certain photos. They have been discovered to be out of focus bits of dust, insects, etc caught in camera flash.

People have reported 'balls of light' in haunted locations long before orbs were invented. Such balls of light do not require a flash to show up in photos. Indeed, they don't require a camera at all!

Unfortunately 'orbs' are now sometimes confsed with balls of light. Orbs are mere photographic artefacts. Balls of light, by contrast, may be some kind of genuine phenomenon though, sadly, they are now swamped by reports of dreaded orbs.

Mystery - how interesting, I had no idea. What is it about digital cameras that creates orbs? (Please forgive my technological ignorance.)

It's because most digital cameras have a much bigger depth of field compared to film versions - see http://www.assap.org/newsite/articles/Orb%20Zone%20Theory.html#OZT

mysteryshopper wrote:

I can see the photo now - it was a problem with my ISP (now fixed - I hope!).

The photo appears to show a city or town night taken from above - a hill perhaps. There appears to be a stone parapet bottom right with foliage (trees and a hedge?) just beyond. All the larger orbs are hexagonal which means the smaller ones probably are as well even though it can't be seen.

Given the even distribution of the orbs, their most likely source is raindrops. What I assume to be the 'UFO' doesn't appear to be hexagonal but it is so small it is difficult to tell. Assuming it isn't hexagonal then that means it is in focus, unlike the orbs. It is difficult to say, from the photo, what it is. If it is within a few metres then it may be reflecting the flash and could be some small object dangling on a thread (a spider) or flying (a moth). If it is further away then it is shining by itself. It might therefore be a light on a hill opposite or aircraft lights.

Your powers of observation continue to serve you well. yes, indeed the picture was taken from a hill overlooking a town, yer there's a stone parapet with some potted plants and a few cypress trees in the picture and yes, there's even an aircraft landing light in it.
The only thing left to explain are the orbs themselves.
I took the picture during a very dry evening and there was a slight breeze coming from the south and hence blowing right across my field of view, moving dust from my right to my my left... that's some fine orb material!
No to the camera, without which none of this would be possible. I used a Fuji Finepix 500, decent quality but, as is common with most digital cameras, with a small lens (17 mm) and, what's even more important, a short focal length, f. In this particular model f = 4.7mm to 15.1mm, which is roughly equivalent to f = 28mm to 90mm in a traditional 35mm camera. About these orbs' peculiar shape I'll quote from a popular magazine "When an object with a similar shape as the aperture of the camera lens is brought out-of-focus, the object will begin to take the shape of the aperture", which will save me the trouble of explaining how intereference figures are generated. I also put the setting in "Auto" instead than on "Night": the latter delays shutter speed considerably and use a different exposure sensor than normal settings.
I will ask my brother to borrow his professional digital camera and try to take a picture with that...

mysteryshopper wrote:

Unfortunately 'orbs' are now sometimes confsed with balls of light. Orbs are mere photographic artefacts. Balls of light, by contrast, may be some kind of genuine phenomenon though, sadly, they are now swamped by reports of dreaded orbs.

Yup, there's certainly a whole range of other light anomalies, for want of a better word, that are a very different saucepan of haddock to photographic orbs. I think a lot of these can be explained by the eyes playing tricks in the dark, especially when people are regularly switching from torch light to pitch blackness, but there's certainly a rump of more interesting reports.

So then Mauro, by your explaination the shape of the "orbs" is caused by the iris of the camera giving the objects (dust) that hexaganol shape all facing the same way ? Makes sense to me.

LeeWat wrote:

So then Mauro, by your explaination the shape of the "orbs" is caused by the iris of the camera giving the objects (dust) that hexaganol shape all facing the same way ? Makes sense to me.

Precisely. And I may add that the flash I used, not being so powerful as I expected, probably spoiled things a little.
The funny thing is I knew there would be a lot of dust in the air that evening, but could not see any. Imagine how many times that happened during an evening ghost hunt.

It's rare to see dust but it's there all the time. To see it you just need a powerful light. A camera flash does the same job.

mysteryshopper wrote:

It's because most digital cameras have a much bigger depth of field compared to film versions - see http://www.assap.org/newsite/articles/Orb%20Zone%20Theory.html#OZT

mystery - ah! How very interesting - thanks very much.