Photo experts, what caused this?

It almost looks like the reflection of your eye somehow made it to the camera lens?
Is that even possible?

There was no water spot on the lens. We have lots of photos taken at before and after this one within an hour or so and none of them show anything like this.

I don't believe it's a reflection of an eye.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


Or i could just be joking about the whole NWO thing and just putting "the eye of ra" thing in there because
A. Every NWO nut knows nothing but what they are told to believe by their conspiracy "experts"
B. Most people would have no idea what the eye of horus is.

Agree to disagree

I never said i disagree with you...

i am going to go with a piece of lint.

But seriously it could be just your lens needing cleaning.

Virraszto, I've never been too convinced that ghosts can be photographed, but your deceased grandparents having lived there definitely adds some ghostly spook-value to the photo. I've also photographed lots of orbs--none of them looked like this. Weird.

Nice photo in the sense that there is definitely mystery about it. Although I don't persue orb photos I have seen some strange ones personally that have always made me question it. So I'm investigating this for fun and haven't got a full understanding, but here's my 2 cents.

From a technical standpoint, there is a possibility of it being dust or similar. For example, if it's not simply a piece of dust floating past the camera, it could be a tiny piece that has attatched itself to the lens. Simply moving the camera about after that would blow it off and you wouldn't see the same "orb" appear in further photos.

Often in cases where photos show these orb things it is more frequently in pictures where it appears the focus is searching for infinity. How do I put it... basically able to focus on distant objects, rather than a close up. However, if something niggles at close up whilst it's trying to focus far away...it may produce these orbs.

But to counter that - although I'm not entirely sure about the spirit approach, I wouldn't throw that out the window either. Sometimes the positioning of the orbs in photos is just un-canny - almost a perfect co-incidence. I don't know much about the ghost/spirit world but let me explain.

Firstly, you'd think that if these orbs are dust, then you might be able to set your camera focus to extremely close up (ie the lens would almost have to touch whatever it is you're photographing) and just get a great photo in your dusty apartment of...well...floating dust.

But I don't know if anyone else has ever tried this but I have and it seemed impossible. In fact, I found it extremely hard even when direct sunlight was shining on dust I was purposefully kicking up. Sure, grains were evident, but there didn't seem to be any blob like orbs in areas where I hadn't the right focus. I don't have a digi-cam right now but when I next do and if there's an orb thread I'll try and document that with photos.

What's interesting is that orb photos, a lot of them, always seem to be a certain distance. It's hard to explain but it's like the camera is picking up something about 5 or 6 feet away.

As I said originally I'm not a huge believer in photo orbs and spirits about them or something, but if there is anything about it, I think it must be active concious or sub-conciousness at play, and could be live or deceased. But I need to research more to explain that.

Here's some case evidence for you. Now, not a lot of photos have been taken of me in the last 5 months. The last time anyone took more than one photo of me was at New years eve. But what immediately struck me about this set of photos was the strange appearance of orbs about me, constantly :/ And of all the photos of lots of people they seemed to only appear in ones with me. So I got a bit freaked out

In this photo, you'll notice one by the curtain, almost as if I'm blowing orb bubbles But also 3, 4 maybe 5 on the right hand side of the photo near my friend Simon.



In the next photo, at which point I was extremely out of it and on another plane...though for legal reasons I can't explain why But look at again what I described earlier as uncanny co-incidence. It's right in the centre top of my head, and is BLUE!



Now friends of mine have said that they have seen blue orbs above children's heads whilst they sleep sometimes. But apparently this is perfectly natrual (??) and a blue orb indicates something...but I can't remember what. But it's a good thing i think

What a WHITE orb might mean I have no idea. But I'm pretty sure dust isn't that colour, and would not produce a strange colouring like that. I could be wrong. It could be an amalgamation of people's conciousness in my mind, where as blue is for an individual. But I could also be speaking balls

Final photo, different angle, it's a wide shot though I've cropped it, but there's another one next to me. And again it almost looks like I'm trying to befriend it!



So I guess the best thing to ascertain is some elements of things going on "behind" the photo. You've already explained that it's the home of your deceased grandparents, and that already strums a high significance for the paranormal over normal-dust explanation.

The next thing perhaps is about the picture on the wall. Where did it come from, did it mean anything particularly to those members of your family, or does it mean anything to you? Did it ever get dropped on that corner edge, is there a story behind that or just the picture itself... You'd be surprised how the slightest thing could trigger something like this. But that I suppose if you truly believe in extraordinary co-incidence or stuff

Finally the only other thing I'd personally pick up on is the ring that almost gives the orb a surreal flight path. Here's an awful artists impression of what I'm seeing in your photo:



But I really don't know what to make of that aspect other than it seems totally un-natural. Are there any marks on your camera lens that could've caused it? Like someone said previously, that's a common artefact of a dried water droplet on the lens...but only kind of.

Just some food for thought. All in all an interesting concept and it was fun to read/speculate. Cheers!

reply to post by virraszto


Its the light reflecting off the door knob. Notice that the wear around the knob makes it less reflective, and it has an irregular border. IN fact the border is the same shape as the light border on the wall. No doubt in my mind.

Edit: Just to point out also, the negative image you created, look at the dot pattern on the small "orb." Compare that to the surface of the knob.

[edit on 24-5-2010 by thatblissguy]

The only time I have seen a picture along these lines was when a particuliar light was reflecting off a candy dish. It was driving me nuts why this apparent 3-D image was floating in the air. It caught our attention when we took a photograph of one of our kids, and that is when we noticed it at times without the camera. When the kitchen light was on, it happened to hit this candy dish exactly right to make an image appear to float in mid air. We moved the dish just a fraction of an inch and it disappeared.

You might say there were no reflecting surfaces around, but your own photograph shows a flash being used - this can clearly be seen in the doorknob.

This is by no means an absolute declartion of fact, but something I think you should consider in your investigation.

reply to post by thatblissguy


Are you saying the orb is a reflection of the doorknob? How could that be? Can you pls. explain to me how that is possible? What would it be reflecting from? The door is on one wall, and we are looking at the opposite wall.

There is no significance to the picture on the wall. I do think the orb is dust, but the white area surrounding it is what I can't figure out. The lens was clean, there was no water spot on it and I'm sure it wasn't a reflection of an eyeball because there is no viewfinder in the camera.

It could be a relfection off of the doorknob into the lens of the camera itself. As I said, just food for thought, not meant to be factual statements. Just something that needs to be considered.