About Orbs

The truth about orbs. What can I say. 99% are nothing more than dust, water vapor, pollen or some such thing. Take a photo near a tree and the picture will be full of orbs. Is it spirits? No, it just pollen! Take a picture in a dusty cemetery, is it ghosts? No it is more than likely dust being kicked up. Even what looks like a clean house can have a lot of dust in it. These orbs show up  because most cameras used while ghost hunting have the flash built in and placed very close to the lens. The flash then illuminates the dust and the light is reflected back into the lens. The only way to eliminate this occurrence is to get the flash off the camera. Don't light your shots with the flash close to the lens. If possible bounce the flash off another surface so that you don't directly light the scene. For example, if you are in a house bounce the flash off the ceiling or a wall. It will still light the subject very nicely and eliminate the reflections from all the dust, moisture or whatever small particles are present. Also look for lens flare from these on camera flashes. Unfortunately a lot of cameras now days do not have the ability to use an external flash.

With that in mind it is important to know what to look for. Look for an orb that is self illuminated. You will see a bright border around the orb. Dust will have no such border. Just so you know this effect can be created by photographing a pin point light source out of focus. So be wary of anything some one shows you. You will also want to look for possible structures within the orb. Structures such as a face. Be careful you can take the noise in the shot and create an image in your mind when there really isn't anything at all. One other thing to look for and maybe the most important thing of all, is movement in the frame by the suspected orb. The orb will often leave a trail of light behind them. If everything is frozen in the time of the photograph then there should be no detectable movement by the suspected orb. But, remember all these anomalies can be created by just shooting an out of focus pin point light source against a black field and super imposed on a picture. So be wary.

There is one other source for orbs and this occurs with film. If the day is dry and/or cold you can get a static discharge in your film camera. This discharge will result in an orb appearing on the film. Even a line of orbs. Just so you know these static charges will appear bright with no definite border. The edges will be fuzzy. Like lines radiating from the center.

So don't be so quick about claiming that something paranormal has occurred when studying your photographs. It can more than likely be explained. If you do get a photo with a self illuminated orb showing movement, a bright border and with some structure inside (one of these anomalies or all of them) then you possibly have something that is paranormal. So look your evidence over very closely, think of all the things it could be, before declaring it paranormal.

Good Ghost Hunting!!!