21 replies to this topic

[project-reveal]

Here you will send your orb photos

and i will try my best to tell you what i see and How its done.

thanks
lee.

[cburns]

I have two photos that I took of an outdoor gig with my band that have an unexplained blue orb in both of them. Both of the photos are of girls in a dunk tank - one of the photos the girls have their tops on and there is still some daylight- the other photo they are topless and it is shortly after the sun went down. I would really like to have someone check the photos out and give me their opinion on the orb , but I don't want to post something considered offensive to this forum. Could I send them to someone to view them and give me their opinion on the orb in question? Thanks for your time. Please feel free to email me about this. Thanks!

Edited by cburns, 18 February 2012 - 06:33 AM.

[Timonthy]

cburns, on 18 February 2012 - 06:30 AM, said:

I have two photos that I took of an outdoor gig with my band that have an unexplained blue orb in both of them. Both of the photos are of girls in a dunk tank - one of the photos the girls have their tops on and there is still some daylight- the other photo they are topless and it is shortly after the sun went down. I would really like to have someone check the photos out and give me their opinion on the orb , but I don't want to post something considered offensive to this forum. Could I send them to someone to view them and give me their opinion on the orb in question? Thanks for your time. Please feel free to email me about this. Thanks!

Just use paint to censor the images then post them here

[Englishgent]

project-reveal, on 28 January 2009 - 05:07 PM, said:

Here you will send your orb photos

and i will try my best to tell you what i see and How its done.

thanks
lee.

Hi project-reveal
Kind of you to make such an offer but could you let us know exactly what expertise you have in this field or will it all be merely guesswork. There are many people here with knowledge and expertise in various fileds who frequently add to posts made.
I am not trying to be rude here but I am sure others would also like to know, specially those who might post orb images
Thank you

[Oppono Astos]

Photographic orbs are particulates illuminated by the camera; this has empirically proven by researchers again and again over the past 15-20 years.

[ColoradoParanormal]

Oppono Astos, on 18 February 2012 - 09:28 AM, said:

Photographic orbs are particulates illuminated by the camera; this has empirically proven by researchers again and again over the past 15-20 years.

Thank you Thank you Thank you! I was just getting ready to post that. To anyone whom is still on the fence about "Orbs" and doesn't want to buy that they're all particulates or already explained and debunked natural occurrences I want to add this. Orbs as "evidence" are completely dismissible. Even if you think you've received the "best" evidence ever of an Orb, Toss it as "evidence" simply for the reason that they have been already scientifically debunked, are too easily replicated as dust, rain, mist etc etc, and as such are not eligible to be considered as "evidence."

[cburns]

Timonthy, on 18 February 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

Just use paint to censor the images then post them here

I'm not too computer savy , but I'll see what I can do. Thanks for your advice!

[Chrlzs]

Yes, P-R (apt initials!), I too would like to know what expertise, including testable and repeatable results, you bring to this.  Show us one of your Very Best analyses, and we'll see, shall we?  I don't claim much expertise on the topic (immodest grin) - I'll just let my words do the talking..

Given your name and web-links I'd have to say it all looks like thinly veiled spam, but I'm happy to be proven otherwise.  For anyone tempted to visit his site, may I strongly warn you that you will get live, loud video ads whether you want them or not, and at the top of the page.. an ad for a free energy device - woohoo!

Just screams credibility.  

To cburns, why not do that censoring as suggested and post them here so you can get some differing opinions?  I would offer to look at them by email (and still will if you really don't want to post them here), but I think it is probably better to do this in the open.  Do you have the original full-res images if needed, including the images before and after the ones in question?  Would you be willing to take a few additional test images, if the analysis could benefit?  On a previous occasion at a different forum, a similar request for help was made and the person was most cooperative - we went through the entire process of analysing the images and determined to his complete satisfaction that the orbs were indeed dust motes illuminated by flash.

To elaborate, modern digital compact cameras have the following characteristics:

1. Small sensors
This results in a very wide depth of field, such that things that are close or even on the lens remain either in focus or as slightly out of focus 'blobs' of bokeh.  (Feel free to google!)  Older cameras (eg the typical 35mm film compact) had a much more limited depth of field which throws anything that is close to the lens so far out of focus it is effectively invisible.

2. Flash close to lens
This means that even when, say, a dust mote is close to the lens, it is still illuminated by the flash.  Again, on older cameras the flash was often separately mounted and farther away from the lens so anything close to the lens would not be so brightly illuminated.

The problem was known and understood back in the days of ole, but it was rarely encountered for the above reasons.  The new breed of small-sensored digital cameras suffer from it much more often.

I'm sure P-R knew all of that, and was just about to tell us..

[cburns]

Timonthy, on 18 February 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

Just use paint to censor the images then post them here

I edited the other photo with paint as suggested. Both photos are posted in the "Orb" photo gallery. Please have a look at them and give me an opinion if you think this is an actual orb , or just dust , condensation , ect... I'm very curious as to what caused this abnormality to show up in my photos. Thank you for your time - I appreciate it very much!!

[cburns]

cburns, on 19 February 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

I edited the other photo with paint as suggested. Both photos are posted in the "Orb" photo gallery. Please have a look at them and give me an opinion if you think this is an actual orb , or just dust , condensation , ect... I'm very curious as to what caused this abnormality to show up in my photos. Thank you for your time - I appreciate it very much!!

These are the original photos taken with a Kodak EasyShare C813 8.1 Megapixels camera. I took these photos in 2009 and I believe the 1st photo was taken without a flash since it was still kinda light out and the 2nd photo was with a flash because it just got dark out. That is what I remember to the best of my recollection. Thanks again!

[Englishgent]

Hi cburns.
The fact that these two photographs were taken outside means that the orbs could possibly be insects (or even the same insect)  Many insects have shiny or reflective bodies which will easily reflect light giving the effect of an orb. It would also be dust of course, or......dare I say,,,,,,,nah lol

edit. I note that you say the first photo was taken without flash. You can see in the photo that there is considerable light shining in the direction in which you took the photograph. Enough to reflect off an insect or dust particle I would suggest.

Edited by Englishgent, 19 February 2012 - 10:34 AM.

[cburns]

Englishgent, on 19 February 2012 - 10:23 AM, said:

Hi cburns.
The fact that these two photographs were taken outside means that the orbs could possibly be insects (or even the same insect)  Many insects have shiny or reflective bodies which will easily reflect light giving the effect of an orb. It would also be dust of course, or......dare I say,,,,,,,nah lol

edit. I note that you say the first photo was taken without flash. You can see from a reflection on the dunk tank and also the white structure in the photo that there is considerable light shining in the direction in which you took the photograph. Enough to reflect off an insect or dust particle.

As stated before - I took these photos a couple of years ago so my recollection of the circumstances are a little hazy (If I used flash , ect...).  I happened to be browsing through my photos of various gigs the other day when I was backing up my photos when I happened to notice the orbs in both of these photos. I do recall that it was the end of August and it was an unseasonably cold day (50 degrees) - even for Green Bay , WI and that I thought that the girls had a screw loose to even go into the dunk tank. I honestly don't recall seeing any insects flying around - of course there may have been. If there were insects you'd think more would have shown up in the pictures. I honestly don't know what the orbs where - that's why I posted the photos here. I sincerely appreciate your opinion on what you think the orbs could be - because I have no clue. Thanks again for you response - I appreciate it.
Craig

Edited by cburns, 19 February 2012 - 10:47 AM.

[Chrlzs]

Craig, can't really help that much here, largely because these aren't originals.  There are a number of issues that tell me that - the most obvious one being that the exif data has been stripped (I don't think UM's gallery does that, but I'm happy to be corrected), but also they do not appear to be full sized (unless you were shooting that camera at a reduced resolution, which is a *really* bad idea..).  Plus at least one is cropped - the image ratio of width v height doesn't match  (although again it might be possible that the camera offers different image aspect ratios, but I'm not going to spend my time chasing that possibility up).

In regard to what you posted, let's first assume they are genuine - without seeing the full-resolution images I'm not going to make that call...  Without exif and the file date/time signatures embedded in the originals, it is difficult to tell if flash was used in the second one.  The 'blobs' do look rather like bokeh-blur (ie defocused dust/insects/whatever close to lens and lit by flash (or ambient lighting in the second one)), but it would only be possible to make a decent guess at that from looking at other images showing 'known' objects.  Both blobs have a directional blur effect that could be from movement (of camera or object), or it could also be 'coma' from a lens that isn't aligned very well.  Could even be lens flare, but it's an unusual type if it is.

A couple of other issues - you say your recollections are a bit hazy, but they were about ten minutes apart.. and then you say one was taken later when the sun was down..? - There seems to be a more-than-ten-minute difference in light levels (although again, without exif I'm flying a bit blind..)  Also, you say that you don't recall insects, but then you say that if there were, there should be more in the picture?  Not sure I grasp that logic..  Don't forget that to be out of focus and/or caught by the flash, they have to be in a relatively narrow band in front of the lens.


Anyway, without them being real originals.. not much can be deduced.  Although I have to say, I don't think I would have looked twice at those effects from that camera in those conditions.

P-R - do you agree?  Care to add anything?

[Beany]

A friend of mine saw these orbs & took photos. Here's one of them. Had to resize it, which I think kind of distorted it.

Attached Files

•  Orb.JPG   102.63K   24 downloads

[ColoradoParanormal]

Beany, on 20 February 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

A friend of mine saw these orbs & took photos. Here's one of them. Had to resize it, which I think kind of distorted it.

Hey Beany, please refer to my above post in response to these images.