ORB's and Digital Photography

ORB's and Digital Photography

There is much debate and controversy about whether "orbs" in photos are spiritual/ghosts, dust, moisture or insects.
 On one side of the debate, "Skeptics" are saying the orb is a reflection/ refraction of light caused by the flash being too close to the lens on modern digital cameras.
Sceptics will also argue that dust, moisture, rain and dirt on the lens can cause the orb effect - with simple testing, this argument is quite correct.
Aiding the Skeptical debate is the fact some camera companies are now offering cameras that cannot take orb photos by adjusting the lens-to-flash ratio.


On the other side, we have the "Believers". Believers will tell you that orbs can be caught on camera without a flash, that many have seen the orb with their own eyes as it floats by and then taken a photo. 
They will point to evidence of older film cameras and video cameras, that have no flash, recording orb photos.

It is also widely believed that the "spherical" shape or orb is the most economical shape for energy to travel, and, as we are all energy, in one form or another, wouldn't it be easiest to appear as an orb?

 In my experience, spirits in spherical form do exist, after seeing a fully formed apparition, and taking a photo, the apparition in the photo appeared as an orb (I also know of another Paranormal Investigator locally that has had the same experience in the same cemetery!). Also, I and other team members have witnessed orbs with our own eyes in cemeteries and houses. They appeared to emit their own light and pulse at the same time, moving through the air much like a jellyfish moves through the water.
 Even though I do believe the orb is the easiest form for a spirit to travel, I do still believe that the majority of "orb" photos out there are contaminants from the local environment where the picture has been taken, with insects and dust being the most common causes.
 I suggest looking at your environment, taking notes of wind strength, dust, insects and anything that can cause loud vibrations (such as a band in a hall), moisture, rain etc. and if you cannot control these conditions when getting your orb photo, then you can probably discard it as a contaminant and not a spirit...
  I also suggest testing your camera in a controlled condition, say, inside your own house, put the camera on a tripod and throw some powder, or dust into the air while taking a flash photo just to see how the "orbs" will look in your photo. This will also give you some idea of how the flash, lens ratio works - We at Eidolon Paranormal have done our own experiments with dust, and other objects to see for ourselves that the majority of photos out there are dust or other contaminates - Allen Tiller 

Insects

The Picture below has been produced by a team in the USA named. "Midnite Walkers". Midnight Walkers went to extensive lengths to take photographs of various insects in their local region and explain how insects and incorrect camera use, or settings, can cause various shapes, or patterns that some teams or investigators will claim to be spirits or Angels

Composite picture showing the typical irregular shape and high brilliance of insect orbs.

 Image sizes have been scaled to a similar size for easier comparison of shape and brightness.

 Composite picture showing the typical image overexposure associated with insect orbs. Originals are to the left, and pictures showing overexposure are to the right. Slight overexposure shows up as coloured regions. Black central regions show heavy overexposure.

ORBS

What is an orb?
Wikipedia defines it as

The term orb describes unexpected, typically circular artefacts that occur in flash photography — sometimes with trails indicating motion — especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

Orbs are also sometimes called backscatter, orb backscatter, or near-camera reflection.

 

 This photo was taken in a cemetery by the Eidolon Paranormal team in 2009

The ground had ash on it from a recent fire and it was beginning to rain lightly. After walking through the ash pile,  kicking up dust we took the photo. Notice the red dust/red orb, the ash dust appears white/grey and blue - the rain drop appears bluish-grey and has the most density

Midnite Walkers have also granted us permission to use their conglomeration ORB photos as a reference tool for our readers, and future paranormal investigators

Composite image of white and grey dust orbs (Image sizes
have been scaled to a similar size for easier comparison)

Composite image of coloured dust orbs (Image sizes have been scaled to a similar size for easier comparison) 

Eidolon Paranormal also conducted some experiments within controlled conditions (as mentioned earlier on this page) here are a few of our "controlled orb experiment" photos

 Eidolon Paranormal would like to express our deepest appreciation to

"Midnite Walkers Paranormal Research Society"

based in Minnesota, United States of America, for allowing us the use of their photos and text.

If you would like to see the above experiments, in full, or other experiments performed by Midnite Walkers, please follow the link below to their website

http://midnite-walkers.com/