beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 Hello All, I was visiting a friend who also happens to be a photographer this past weekend. He'd just bought a brand new Sony DSC- T1 digicam, mostly as a novelty to take pictures around the house. Since he was new to digital, I suggested we try kicking up the ISO on his camera to 400 to see how it did noise-wise. He did and snapped a shot of the side of his house. We didn't even pay much attention to it and moved on to snap some other things. The next day, while looking at the shots in Photoshop (I couldn't make this out in the thumbnail), I finally opened up the pic and there it is - this strange ball, hanging in his yard, beside his house. No, this thing is *not* really there! (I looked!) Except for resizing, nothing was done to the pic - no levels, no curves, nothing. Has anyone out there seen anything like this? We joked about another Bigfoot/Elvis siting, but you have to admit, it's rather strange, isn't it? It sort of looks like a giant dandelion head, floating beside his house. No picture before or after has done this. The camera works fine. Really, the only thing my friend did was manually crank up the ISO to 400 - which the camera probably would've done anyway since it was getting close to dark. I just thought I'd share - I'll include a 100 percent crop of whatever it is too. Any comments welcome... Cue Twilight Zone tune here . . .<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 And here's the 100 percent crop<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_bright Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 Beau. Maybe it's a 'giant dandelion head, floating beside his house' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staticlag Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 Its a ghost. Spooky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark u Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 I think it is a dandelion head, probably only 2-3ft from the camera - hence its apparent size relative to the rest of the scene and its out of focus appearance. Seems to be a good demonstration of AF limitations and shutter lag, and the inadequacy of LCD viewfinders... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 <I>I think it is a dandelion head, probably only 2-3ft from the camera</i><BR><BR>I neglected to mention that I was standing at his side at the time this was taken and watched him press the shutter. We're both around 6 feet tall, just standing in the middle of his yard. There was no dandelion in the way of the shot, giant or not! I don't recall seeing any in his yard, either. I'm not implying that this is some supernatural phenomenon. It's probably some random error generated by one of the chips in his camera. It's not dead-center in the pic though, and it is rather uniform. I honestly cannot explain it and was just wondering if anyone else out there might've encountered something similar. I'm still scratching my head over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 is the sun in front of you....looks like internal flare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 LOL.. The sun had already set. Honest, this isn't a "guess how I did this trick!" post. Whatever this is, it was not there - at least visibly - when the shot was taken. We were maybe 15 feet away, both looking in the same direction. Took the pic, and saw absolutely nothing unusual until the next day, in Photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 Grant, I wasn't laughing at your suggestion - in fact, I hadn't thought of that, but like I said, the sun had already gone down. I didn't mean to sound rude. In some ways, it's sort of amusing because it's so weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 the trees look slightly flared in the background, thats why i said that....i still think its flare... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 27, 2004 Author Share Posted May 27, 2004 Well the flash did fire - it's one of those do-it-all for you digicams. So perhaps that had something to do with it. You'd have to see where my friend lives to understand the light; he's very much in the woods and lives only a mile from The Great Smoky Mtn National Park. On a sunny day, his yard might get a couple hours of sun, when it's directly overhead. If you could see past his yard, in the same direction, there are only woods and big trees all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_elek Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 It's weird and spooky. I'm going to notify Mulder and Scully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffrey_scott Posted May 27, 2004 Share Posted May 27, 2004 I agree with Grant. The trees above the house have an aweful lot of flare for a shot taken after sundown. What you see is flare/ghosting from the sun. Or perhaps it is a wormhole forming! A spatial anomoly? That definitely explains a lot of things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_piper2 Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Like grant, I guessed flare at first. But hearing the other evidence, here's my revised guess: A few miles from the Smokies, on a humid sultry southern evening - and the flash went off - and it's an ultra-short-focal-length-lens digicam. This is something small floating in the air 1-2 feet in front of the camera, that reflected the flash light when nothing else did (too far away), sort of like OOF snowflakes in "Yankee" pictures and was ALMOST in focus due to the huge DOF. The dandelion folks were probably close - I'll bet it's a "fluff" from a seeding magnolia or some such. Bet the cicadas were ZZZzz-ZZZzz-ZZZzzing in the dusk when you shot this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark u Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 I think Andy is about right. I've seen flash photos taken in a smoky atmosphere with a small sensor, large DOF digicam where individual smoke particles close to the lens seemed like christmas lights - getting a lot of illumination due to the inverse square law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_streit Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Apparently you guys havent seen dust in a microscope. You were walking around in your backyard and kicked up some dust\pollen with your feet, stuck to the lense and bam you have an "orb". This just happens to be a pretty wickedly huge one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_streit Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 Look familliar? http://wilfred.berkeley.edu/~webpage/backgrounds/Daisy-1024-768color.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted May 28, 2004 Share Posted May 28, 2004 thats a kool dust orb.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beauh44 Posted May 28, 2004 Author Share Posted May 28, 2004 I've got it... It's the ghost of Charlie Brown. After exhaustive, sophisticated "computer enhancement" of the image, I think we can finally put this mystery to rest. But seriously folks, I really do appreciate all the comments. I could certainly be wrong because I don't know what in the hell it is, but I personally do not think it's dust, pollen, smoke, dandelions, or even a cicada breaking wind nearby. If I had to choose, I suppose I'd go with flare because the flash fired, but it's unlike any flare I've ever seen. The lens did seem rather prone to CA and purple fringing, and at 300 percent, you can see that. Unfortunately at ISO 400, the noise is pretty bad. Beats the heck out of me. I have the original file if anyone wants a look-see. Thanks again.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phule Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 << but I personally do not think it's dust >> You would be wrong. It is most certainly dust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phule Posted August 10, 2004 Share Posted August 10, 2004 http://home.fujifilm.com/products/digital/tips/reflect/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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