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Photographic
Analysis: Orbs - Lens Flare
Flare has been the bane of photographers since the first days
of photography. Reflection of light can create many circular
flares. However, it isn't light reflecting off an object, it
is the reflection of light within the lens itself.
If light enters a lens at certain angles (these angles are dependant
on the type of lens being used), it can bounce between the various
elements of the lens instead of passing cleanly through them,
causing bright spots we know as flare. The more complex the
lens (for example, a zoom lens is more complex than a fixed
focal length, or "prime" lens), the more lens elements
it has. Some lenses can have eight or more elements within them.
The more elements a lens has, the more potential it has for
light to bounce around between the elements, causing flare.
If the lens is well-manufactured, it will be less prone to flare
than a cheaper, more poorly-manufactured lens. Expensive lenses
are often made with low-dispersion glass and various types of
coatings to reduce flare and other aberrations of light. This
is why professional photographers are willing to pay high (even
exorbitant) prices for high-quality lenses. The small-diameter
lenses used in consumer and prosumer-grade cameras (both film
and digital) are particularly vulnerable to flare despite having
fewer elements than a professional lens. Because they have a
smaller diameter, they can't deal with light from certain angles
as well as a large-diameter professional lens can.
Flare can appear as one or two spots, and they may not appear
to be emanating from any particular source because the source
may be outside the picture frame. Also, different lens elements
add their own color to different flare spots within the same
picture (usually blues, reds, oranges, yellows and greens).
This is due to the composition of individual lens elements and/or
impurities in them.
Flare often appears as semi-transparent, but can also appear
as fairly solid. If the camera moves as the photo is being taken,
a solid spot of flare can appear to have a blurred trail behind
it like "someone just threw a ping-pong ball across the
screen." Whether flare appears solid or semi-transparent
again depends on the type of lens and camera angle. Even the
slightest shift in camera angle can make a flare disappear and
reappear. That's why "orbs" can appear in one shot
and disappear in the next, even when the photographer doesn't
think he changed camera angles.
Dust can also appear to be orbs in photos with even a small
amount of backlighting. The backlighting illuminates the dust,
making it noticeable in the frame. Although dust particles are
not round, they are always extremely out of focus, making them
appear round. The "roundness" comes from the round
aperture of the diaphragm, which controls the amount of light
striking the focal plane from the lens. Interestingly, some
video cameras have diamond-shaped or other odd-shaped diaphragms
and can give dust or flare a diamond or odd-shaped appearance.
I have seen many videos of purported UFOs with a flattened diamond
shape that are obviously diaphragm images. Auto-focusing lenses
are notorious for producing these images as they "hunt"
back and forth trying to lock focus on a distant object. The
flattened diamond shape really makes the object (often the sun,
a star, or an aircraft) appear to have a "flying saucer"
shape, although the points of the diamond never change their
orientation (that's the tipoff).
As far as orbs being "collections of energy," I doubt
that film or digital cameras can record energy other than visible
light. If they can, then energy should appear in a lot of everyday
photos since we're surrounded by energy (electrical, solar,
etc.). Unless modified, cameras can only record visible light.
Visible light is actually a narrow band of energy on the electromagnetic
spectrum. That spectrum includes infrared, ultraviolet, radio
waves, microwaves, xrays, gamma rays and other cosmic rays.
You have cameras that can detect infrared (heat) energy, but
these are modified to record that type of energy. The same applies
to radiotelescopes, xray radiography, and other devices that
are specially-built to detect those types of energy. But regular
cameras, like our eyes, can only detect the small band of energy
in the visible light spectrum.
I hope this has added a little more to the knowledge of photographically-induced
orbs. Bottom line is, I haven't seen anything yet on your show
that I haven't seen in the hundreds of thousands (maybe even
millions) of photos I've examined in my 32-year career. That
does not mean, however, that we will never capture something
of paranormal significance. Every photo contains a vast amount
of data that can be analyzed. The trick is to know how to analyze
the photo and recognize something "unusual."
-
Randy Madera
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