A strange photo from my collection

Here is a photo by me. The image is original, no any manipulation or editing, str8 from the camera. The image is also in RAW file so it can be easily proved its originality... The settings can also be seen in the file, I used:

Canon 5d mark ii with 100mm canon macro lens and canon macro ring flash

the story.. I visited a house with a huge garden, I was taking pictures (I love to do macro photography), then I saw this fly "flying still in the air" she was not moving back or forth... So I found it very interesting to snap it. I choose a flower as a background, but instead of the flower, I got this strange smoke in my photo!!!! You can see some orange color behind the smoke!! its my flower!! lol

In the beginning I thought that I over expose the image and I minimized my flash settings, but then my image turn to be very dark.. I have many photos from it.. but here u can see it very clear (the first image). It was moving also!!... I send it once in a university to have an opinion, they said maybe its breath particles.. But thats crazy! Breath particles???? There is no photographic solution for it... I also asked entomologist, if the fly's have the ability to see more things that human does.. And the answer was, that flys can see much more than the human.

There is also some surprises in the image, but I am not going to tell u anything, because I dont want to manipulate ur thoughts before u see it... I wait ur comments...



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reply to post by Ploutonas

cool pic of the fly but dont see anything else in the smokey background can ya give a hint???

reply to post by Ploutonas


It kind of looks like a blurry photo of an overcast day with some trees in the back.. I don't get what is special about it besides the nice insect captured so clearly. I don't get it.

the smoke shouldnt be there... it was not visible in my eyes..! The white thing...

reply to post by Ploutonas


I think I'm missing something.. can you explain what's special about it?

Thats not smoke.. its light from the sky coming through the bushes in the background

No its not!!!.. wait I am uploading more pics from the same photoshoot... Dont forget that I used flash... and there is no sun in the background or sun flairs through the leafs... even if it was sun flairs, the flash was about to burn the light.

here is an image about 5 minutes before I try to photoshoot the fly...

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Here is an image that I was trying to stabilise my camera settings in the same fly...

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And here is an image bellow, u can see it comming!!!

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I can saw u many pictures with the same setup of equipment, with the sun in the background... Nothing to do with that!.. the canon 100mm macro lens is very advanced good lens for macro, it doesnt produce flairs I can prove it to u with more than 1000 pictures ! anyway... I just shared it with u.. Its many years now

Here is one image with sun flair (bellow).. I used the sun as a source of light WITHOUT FLASH...
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I know how to recognise sun flair, I normally use it if I have it for more artistic pictures!

reply to post by Ploutonas


Very interesting photos. Love how you captured the details so perfectly.

As for the white "smoke"....I have no idea. Could it be possible condensation on the lens? Was someone nearby smoking? Otherwise...I got nothing.

S&F

Those are pretty cool photos - but I have to agree with the other poster - it looks like out-of-focus daylight through the trees to me. Were you pointing up or down when you took the photos?

Ok I will recap... Sorry if my English are not the best, their better than u think, lol.... its because I am dyslexic.

I studied photography... A basic principal is, that the flash is ALWAYS BURNING the sun light. so even if a sun flair is popping out an object (eg. trees and flowers), it will NOT appear into ur image! because u burned it with the flash!

I will give u an example...

remember tha shadowy bug in the prev mesg? here it is again, both... with flash and without flash...

The img bellow WITHOUT flash...
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The img bellow is with FLASH...
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But either ways, in the original strange image, there was NO sun flair.. at all!

If you notice the strange image (I will repost it again here, the bellow link), what happened is: The flash hit the white thing and reflected back to me!!! It reacted like an object... not as a sun flair.

imageshack.us...

A tip: in a prev msg someones says about smoking... I have a steam box (machine that produce studio smoke) and I cant make smoke like that, what about 1 little sigar... the smoke in the picture is very thick!

reply to post by Ploutonas


I never thought your picture was a flare effect. The reason I said "It looks like the sky." is that I wanted you to tell me what's in the background.. If you really were pointed at the ground, somewhere that there is no white object to your eye then it is an interesting picture..

You are obviously very good with a camera, but for me blurry photos just can't tell me much.

What do you think it is? Something like a ghost?

Originally posted by Ploutonas

There is also some surprises in the image, but I am not going to tell u anything, because I dont want to manipulate ur thoughts before u see it... I wait ur comments...

img827.imageshack.us...

edit on 1-5-2013 by Ploutonas because: (no reason given)

You mean like the position of its legs, for example?

In the main picture, I pointed the camera in the ground (I pointed a flower as a background, inside a pot )
As for the surprises I referred, look in the left side of the image, behind the fly, inside the smoke.... (what the smoke creates as an effect/ shape ) But I dont want to tell u, I wanted u to analyze the image.

reply to post by Ploutonas




I see a face/skull in the "mist"... but I suppose it's like cloud gazing.

Thanks for sharing your pictures. They are very cool pictures, even without the possibly paranormal element!

I know.. This images will remain in my misteries... funny..

Thank u...

here is 2 more, u can save them as a background if u want... I do macro because I love nature, it gives me energy... I love it... I dont do it for living.

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I see an alien head in the white smoke, but it could be cloud gazing like the poster above said.

Thanks for sharing.

I see an angry old woman in the white "mist"... eyes, nose, teeth, ears and a rather fat neck.

in reverse it looks like the side veiw of a balding man with a handlebar moustache.

I See faces- 4 i think and 1 "skull"...

well, if we searching for faces, they are countless... but this little faces is a result of this kind of white steam, smoke whatever.. The skull is a big one, so thats a bit strange..

As I said, when I originally captured that, I didnt noticed what that trully is, in my tiny camera screen, I thought that I over exposure it with the flash, it proved wrong because I started to experiment with different settings, I used different aperture values (2.8, 4, 8...) Just to minimise the light but it was not light... Anyway... when I saw the result in my computer screen, I got shocked a bit...
My main subject was the fly. I was consumed of getting a crisp image but this thing confused me alot and I didnt made it..

ps: In my job experience the last 5 years, it happened to me one more time, in my photos, but I cant post these images, because in this pictuers there is celebrities on them (not big celebrities, local ones, the mayor and some politicians, etc)...lol (they are really creepy, you can see them comming out from their mouths, etc.. hahahaha).. I couldnt saw them to anyone...I used different equipment to them, nikon d300.

Generally I stop taking photos the last 2-3 years, thats why I dont have any recent ones...I am doing something else now, but from my small pro experience, I was getting things like that, very easy, without asking for it...I hope that all photographers getting strange things, but they dont speak about... I dont think i am the only one. Macro photography is something I love and I do it for my self, its not for my living.

A heart is in the "smoke"