Orbs!

[Russ]

On Halloween we did an outside broadcast from one of Wales' most haunted buildings, the Craig y Nos castle. I've never denied the existence of spirits but their source of origin is not something I trust.

Anyway, we did the show, everything went pretty well and plenty of photos were taken and on many of them, 'orbs' appeared. Do a google to form your own opinion of what they were. I won't offer any views other than to say I can guarantee the pictures are 100% genuine and have not been altered, enhanced or modified in any way. The lenses were constantly wiped clean and at no time did we see anything in the rooms which could have been mistaken for these objects. Unfortunately there was plenty of red-eyed people in the shots and in the last one, the scary looking bloke with the headphones and microphone......that was me! Enjoy!

[Russ]

A few more....

[TheBlueRaja]

Let me guess - you were using a standard compact digital camera with a flash that was close to the lens yes?

The effect of orbs is caused by light particles relecting off water droplets in the air when the flash is positioned close to the lens on a camera.

[Russ]

A flash was used on about 5 of about 45 occasions.

[TheBlueRaja]

Except all of the photos above used a flash. (bar possibly the second one)...

Either that or its dried water or juice on the lens.

[dilligaf1701]

I'd suggest that it's something to do with the camera that took them, unless you're suggesting I managed to get a 'haunted' picture of a computer and a LEM

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

I'd suggest that it's something to do with the camera that took them, unless you're suggesting I managed to get a 'haunted' picture of a computer and a LEM

Science museum in London?

[Russ]

Originally Posted by theblueraja

Except all of the photos above used a flash. (bar possibly the second one)...

Nope! There was a lot of subdued lighting to create an 'atmosphere' but the flash was barely needed (therefore barely used)

Originally Posted by theblueraja

Either that or its dried water or juice on the lens.

Nope number 2: as stated above, the lenses were regularly wiped for the very reason you suggest.

[dilligaf1701]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Science museum in London?

Indeedy

[paulyoung666]

looking at some of the pictures , it looks as though the living dead were in them

[Russ]

These 'orbs' could be anything - perhaps they're tricks of the light, who knows? I'm not claiming them to be anything other than what you see - images on pictures.

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by Russ D

Nope! There was a lot of subdued lighting to create an 'atmosphere' but the flash was barely needed (therefore barely used)

You can clearly see a flash has been used in all but perhaps 1 or 2 of those photos mate. And in those two photographs you can see relection off items in the rooms which look suspiciously like flash bounce.

How did you manage to get red-eye BTW? You all been smokin weed out there too?

[Russ]

I never actually said a flash was not used, but only on about a tenth of all the pictures we took that night.

Weed?? Me???

[TheBlueRaja]

Not implying you did mate - just saying that there are more than 5 images there that have the flash on which is parhaps not quite the "atmosphere" you described above

From Canon Website here

What are the circular distortions that I see on some of my images?


Solutions
The most common cause / explanation of the problem is common to a lot of digital cameras with small CCDs, not just the Canon digital cameras. Such digital cameras have a greater depth of field compared to 35mm cameras due to their smaller focal distance. This in even higher degree when the camera is set to wide angle.

Because of the above, small dust particles, droplets of water, etc, drifting in the air close to the camera and not within depth of field for normal 35mm cameras, are within depth of field for digital cameras. Under normal circumstances this is not too big a problem, as these are very small. When flash is used its light illuminates these dust particles, water droplets, and these therefore show up extremely obvious on pictures taken. The problem is worsened for most digital compact cameras because the flash unit is positioned close to the lens barrel. Due to the setup and operation of digital cameras using small CCD’s, there is not much that can be done about this phenomenon.

There are some measures which can be taken to prevent this problem from occurring as much as is possible.

1: Switch off flash in environments where there are likely to be small dust particles or water droplets in the air. Instead increase the gain / ISO value for the camera to compensate for this lack of flash. This is only possible with cameras for which the gain / ISO value can be adjusted.
2: Use an external slave flash unit further away from the camera and partially cover the camera’s flash. These units are not available from Canon, but there are third party companies making such units. Make sure a slave flash unit is chosen which can be set to synchronize with the second flash as used by Powershot cameras. With Powershot cameras, the first flash is used to measure, the second is the actual flash.

[Russ]

Ah well - they're good pictures anyway