Proposed Camera Setup to Confirm Still Photographs of “Orbs”

By Ghost Safari

www.ghostsafari.com

Entire contents copyright © 2001 Video Hammer Productions LLC  

Introduction

Paranormal investigators frequently offer photographic anomalies as evidence of a haunting or the presence of spirits or ghosts at a site.  One of the anomalies most common is the so-called “orb” or “spirit orb”.  Orbs appear as opaque or semitransparent round or oval areas on the photograph and are generally white in color although other colors are occasionally reported. 

“Orb” photos are very popular on practically every ghost club web site.  Photographs of this type of anomaly are so prevalent, in fact, that many ghost club sites are virtually nothing but a collection of orb photos with the occasional EVP or mist anomaly.  It’s no wonder that this subject is sensitive and often ghost hunters simply don’t want to delve into this subject with a truly critical mindset.  After all, if orbs are not really paranormal, then most of their evidence of the paranormal dissolves into thin air. 

It is this researcher’s opinion that the orb phenomenon should be tackled head on by conscientious investigators everywhere.  The purpose of this paper is two-fold: 

 If orbs are real, then the objective investigator should have no problem implementing the equipment setup proposed in this paper.  On the contrary, the conscientious researcher will want to implement this setup to confirm true anomalous evidence. 

The Controversy

Still pictures of orbs are controversial, even in the hardcore ghost hunting community.  Ignoring this controversy is unwise in this author’s opinion.  Many ghost hunters and researchers are building their entire case for investigations of haunted locations on orb photographs.  What if it is shown tomorrow that all of these are not paranormal at all?  Suddenly, your empire of evidence of haunted locations comes crumbling to the ground.  You look silly.  You’ve been discredited. You will probably never recover your hard-earned respect in the paranormal research community.  If it sounds like I’m trying to scare you, you would be correct.  The fact is, we need to know if there are any cases of orbs that are truly paranormal.  Some would say “Of course there are really orbs!  Are you a kidding me?”  Really?  Do you have objective proof rather than circumstantial evidence?  Are you simply relying on what you’ve been told by some supposed expert instead of asking to see proof? 

To aid in this discussion, I choose to distinguish still pictures of orbs from their film or video counterparts.  I’ll use the term “orb” when I’m talking about still pictures of these anomalies and the term “plasmoid” when I’m referring to video evidence of the same general type of phenomena. 

Some researchers feel that all orb photographs have mundane explanations.  Here are some of them: 

Explanations 1, 2 and 3 are fundamentally the same thing – foreign objects located very close (or on) the lens, out of focus and hence appear as large objects in the 3-d space beyond the camera.  Since stray light reflections are fairly easy to spot, where reasons 1-3 are often not, this author will concentrate on a solution to the first 3 causes.  

To illustrate how number 1 can cause “orbs” in a photograph, here are a couple of example photographs taken in my production studio:

To produce the “orbs” I shook an ordinary bath towel a few inches in front of the lens of my Sony MVC-CD1000 digital camera.  The pictures were taken in a dark room (almost pitch black) with the camera flash setting on “low”. 

As you can see, there are large and small orbs and some appear to be moving with a distinct “motion blur” or “tail”.  These are not orbs at all but rather dust from the towel close to the camera lens.  The apparent size of the “orbs” is because they are only a few inches from the camera lens and as a result very out of focus.   The problem is exacerbated in a dark location due to the decrease in depth of field caused by the camera aperture being wide open (or nearly so).  If you wish to reproduce this effect you need to make sure you perform this experiment in a large enough room so your camera will focus on infinity.  This blurs anything close to the lens (such as dust) and makes it appear much larger than it really is.  The room should also be dark and your camera flash should be used.  The problem will be lessened, or even not occur at all, if you take pictures in a closet or close to a wall.  In this case the camera will focus more closely in and the dust may not show up at all. 

If you don’t believe these are pictures of dust (maybe my studio is really haunted, hence the orbs) then here is another photograph that may convince you: 

The bright streak in the picture appears to be about the size of a pencil based on its apparent size relative to other objects in the photo.  This is, in fact, a picture of a human hair I’m dangling a few inches in front of the lens.  Now a human hair is pretty thin, so I’m sure you can imagine why a dust particle can look like a ball of light. 

Some ghost hunters will agree that the pictures I’ve presented here are good examples of fake orbs, but the pictures presented on their web sites, although they look similar, are “real” orbs.  I would have to say in response to this claim “prove it”.  I’m not trying to be contrary but rather just encouraging good investigative practice. 

To give investigators the means to prove their claims of “spirit orbs”, I’m offering a simple camera configuration that will allow them to do this.  I intend to use it extensively in my own investigations because I would like to prove (or discount) my own “orb” pictures.  Although it requires some effort and possibly expense, the conscientious investigator should be willing to go this extra mile to prove his/her claims. 

Explanation of the Problem

The following diagram illustrates what is actually happening when the camera captures a dust or lint particle on “film” and how the investigator interprets the picture:

In the diagram, the camera is focusing in the range a foot or so beyond the lens and out of focus in the foot region directly in front of the lens.  Anything within this “false orb” region may show up as an anomaly on the photograph.  The lint particle in this region appears much larger than it really is leading to the interpretation by the investigator as a large, translucent object directly in front of the plant.

The Solution

The solution to this problem is deceptively simple – add a second camera!  Here’s what the investigator will see now from a two camera viewpoint:

Note that with two cameras, it becomes immediately apparent that the object is, in fact, NOT in front of the plant at all!  From Cam1’s viewpoint it certainly appears to be in front of the plant, but Cam2's viewpoint shows the “orb” completely on the opposite side of the room or it may not even show the “orb” at all!  Of course, this assumes that both cameras snap their pictures at the same instant in time.  In all likelihood the lint particle will not be stationary, so both camera shutters must be released simultaneously.  In practice, this really isn’t all that difficult to accomplish if the cameras are mounted on a tripod or monopod.  More on this later… 

Now, what if the object really is an orb and really is in front of the plant?  The next diagram illustrates this scenario:

Now it becomes apparent that we’ve captured a real anomaly as we can see it from slightly different angles.  Humans are really pretty good at judging perspective if given sufficient information.  The problem with a single camera setup is that it simply does not give sufficient information!  With the two-camera setup, the investigator can compare the two photos, one from camera 1 and another from camera 2 and be confident of the nature of what he/she captured on film. 

The Critics

Critics of the two-camera setup may complain that this is simply too expensive and they can’t afford to implement it.  I maintain you can’t afford not to implement it!  If you are satisfied with the very real possibility of presenting false results as real and not implementing simplest of controls in your “investigations” then I’d say stick with your single-camera setup.  At minimum, you should shoot dual-cameras occasionally to at least prove some of your orb anomalies are real.  Otherwise, you run the risk of your “evidence” not being taken seriously by the truly serious researchers in the ghost hunting community.  At worst case one day all orbs photos may be shown to be the result of mundane phenomena and suddenly all your years of work will be totally discredited.  If it sounds like I’m trying to scare you again, I am! 

Some would argue that they only use film cameras and that digital cameras should never be used for paranormal photography.    Using dual film cameras would simply be too expensive!  Since I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of analog versus digital in this paper, I would only say  why not use both?  This would be a great way to compare the results of a film versus digital camera using a dual-camera setup! 

Building a Dual-Camera Setup

Implementing a dual-camera setup is pretty simple – all you need are two cameras, a tripod or monopod (you probably have these already, right?) and a dual-head camera mount.  The last component is not usually in a researcher’s arsenal of tools, so I’ll explain how to make one pretty easily.  If you’re “mechanically challenged” like me, you might consider having one made for you.  Most local handymen (or handywomen) could make one of these in a couple of hours. 

What you need: 

All of these components are available from Ace Hardware.  They may also be available from other local hardware stores.  Ace will cut the metal bar from longer stock if you ask.  Otherwise you’ll need a hacksaw to cut the bar yourself. 

The length of the steel or aluminum bar needs to be at least 12 inches long.  This puts enough distance between the cameras to resolve any objects close to the lens.  I prefer steel because it easily supports not only still cameras but also relatively heavy video cameras. 

The objective is to build a bar that will mount on a tripod and then hold a camera on either end of the bar.  When you’re done with the bar, it will look something like this:

How to build the mount: 

In all, the mount is pretty simple – a bar of steel or aluminum with 3, ¼” screw holes, a couple of knobs, a couple of snap rings and some rubber or cork padding.  If you want to get fancy, you can paint the bar after drilling and tapping the holes but before gluing the gasket material on. Mine is metallic green.

Using the Mount

Once you’re done, you simply screw the mount on a tripod or monopod like you would a camera.  Make sure it’s securely bolted to the tripod because you will be mounting two cameras on either end of the bar once on the tripod.  Now, screw a camera on opposing ends of the mount, facing the same direction.  Align the cameras where there as parallel as you can get them by eyeing them from above the mount.  Look through each cameras viewfinder and align a object around 10-15 feet away to be centered in each viewfinder.  You’re set to go.  The entire affair should look something like this:

In this picture we have two Sony nightshot cams mounted on the dual-cam mount rather than still cameras.  Use your imagination with this mount!

Here's the "orb cam" with two still cams a Sony MVC-CD1000 and a Canon 35mm:

To use your “Orb Cam”, use one of the camera’s viewfinders to aim.  Once you’re ready to take a picture, use you left hand to snap the left camera’s shutter and your right hand to snap the right camera’s shutter.  Do this simultaneously on both cameras.  It’s best to let one person operate the cameras rather than two, because you will be able to take pictures at the same instant more easily.

The “trick” in using the dual-camera setup is releasing the camera shutters at the same instant.  With practice, you can become pretty good but I’d suggest practicing a bit before using the setup in an investigation.  Also, if you fail to push the shutter buttons simultaneously, make a note so later you know the captured frames from both cameras are invalid for that shot.

Benchmark Tests

I ran benchmark tests using a Sony MVC-CD1000 and Sony MVC-CD200 digital cameras on the dual-cam mount.  Both of these cameras are high quality

digital cameras (the CD1000 is $1000 and the CD200 $700).

Here are the benchmark pictures:

The MVC-CD200 camera was on the left and the MVC-CD1000 on the right.

For the benchmark I constructed a “centering target” made from a large coffee can with a piece of glossy photo paper taped to its top.  The target is indicated with a red arrow in the photographs.  Note how the target is slightly off-center as indicated by a green line in the photographs.  The target was about 12 feet from the dual cam mount. 

To simulate a “real” orb, I suspended an ordinary cotton ball with a length of thread from the ceiling.  I induced a gentle motion by turning on the ceiling fan overhead.  The “orb” is indicated by the magenta arrow in the photos.  Notice how it’s relationship to the background is also offset in both photos but within what we would expect given the offset of the cameras.  The astute reader may notice that the “orb” is offset more in the two frames than the target.  This is because the “orb” is actually closer to the cameras being approximately 8 feet away, while the target is 12 feet away.

To create dust “orbs”, I shook, while brushing, a roll of ordinary toilet paper in front of both cameras, roughly centered between them, about 12” in front of the lenses.  Here’s the first picture:

Orbs present in the first picture (the CD200) are indicated by the green arrows and where their predicted location in the second picture (the CD1000).  Notice they are conspicuously absent in the CD1000 picture.  There is an “orb” in the CD1000 picture over to the extreme left, but it is completely in the wrong place.  The MVC-CD200 has captured false orbs!

This is a much more extreme example, but I’m sure we’ve all seen pictures like the first one (the CD200).  The picture is filled with numerous large and bright “orbs”.  Note the very conspicuous lack of practically any orbs in the CD1000 picture!

Here’s another picture, showing numerous “orbs” captured by both cameras: 

In general, the MVC-CD1000’s “orbs” are smaller probably due to the lens system on this camera.

These examples illustrate how the dual-cam can be used to identify real orbs (the benchmark pictures) and orbs caused by airborne contaminants.

Interpreting Your Results

Here are some tips for interpreting results from photos taken with the “orb cam”:

Lastly, use your common sense when interpreting photos taken with the orb cam.  If you feel like you captured something that’s probably mundane, but it looks paranormal, it’s probably mundane!

Taking It Further

Some ideas for further enhancements:

At Ghost Safari, we also plan on experimenting with standard, stereoscopic 35mm cameras.  At this point we’re not sure they’ll be as sensitive as the dual-cam setup due to the close proximity of the lenses in these types of cameras.  Here’s a link to a relatively inexpensive one that requires no special film processing:

Vivitar Stereo 35mm Camera

Argus makes a similar one available on the same web site.

Here’s a couple of pictures we took with the Vivitar at a recent investigation:

These photos show the advantage of using stereo imaging to validate anomalies.  Although there appears to be “ecto” or a “mist” on the left frame, the right frame shows that the anomaly is simple stray light contamination.  Without the stereo image we might be tempted to claim we had captured a paranormal anomaly when in fact we have not.

Summary

Ghost Safari is just beginning to use dual-cams extensively.  We will be publishing our results over the next few months.  We encourage other investigative teams to do the same to confirm each other’s findings and hasten results from this research.

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