Unexplained blurry thing in Photo

[DavoMan]

Hello. Can you tell me what this is in my friend's photo?
http://the-g33k.com/phpgallery/hosted/KIF_0581?full=1

It was taken with a digital camera just reciently and is unaltered.

This one taken immediately (within a minute) before hand.
http://the-g33k.com/phpgallery/hosted/KIF_0580?full=1

[andycal]

Ectoplasm. Your mate's the devil - look at his eyes.

Or a coffee perculator?

[Jas]

I'd get my money back for the camera, though it's a pretty neat photo.

I wouldn't post it on a dating service though (well, depends what you're into I suppose)

[Yaotl]

Looks like smoke to me.

[DavoMan]

Okay heres some facts:
Theres no smoke in the room. There was no steam. And its a Kyocera Finecam sl300r digital camera. Ya can see the photo taken before it was blurry. The guy said that most of the night the camera was taking 50 blurry pictures roughly cos it was having trouble focusing.

But I dont accept the blurry focus explanation on its own. Neither does my friend. I suspect its something and the blurry focus causing this effect.

[Orangutan]

It looks like a piece of fluff, Maybe only 2 or 3 strands together very close to the lens, illuminated by the flash.

On the blurry Issue, Is it now taking good pictures. You may have captured the fluff falling away from the IR sensor?

O.

[pyewhackett]

Looks like the effect you get from ciggie smoke. Good for creepy pics in a cemetery.

Maybe a smear on the lens?

[CurtC]

Fluff, close to the lens, lit up by the flash, but out of focus because it's so near.

[pjh]

Never mind the swirly stuff - YOU CAN SEE THE STARS.

Proof that those NASA guys must have been faking after all.

[gnome]

(red dwarf)
(General panic at approaching time vortex, as CAT enters)
Cat (agitated): Is that what I think it is?
Lister (patronizing): What do you think it is, Cat?
Cat: A big orange swirly thing in space!
(/red dwarf)

[andycal]

Originally posted by pjh
Never mind the swirly stuff - YOU CAN SEE THE STARS.

Proof that those NASA guys must have been faking after all.

Y'know I had a double take when I saw that, I nearly posted the same thing!

But I thought you might all laugh... :(

[Alkatran]

Huh, I thought you were talking about the big orange cylinder in the window. (Reflection of a lamp or UFO?!?!?!??!)

[DavoMan]

What is in question is the white hazey thingie. So far the best explanation I've seen is 2 bits of fluff out of focus & near the camera being lit up by the flash.

Thanks guys you're a big help. Anyone else got more to add?

* I wonder if that is stars outside or dust on the window. Outside is dark and inside is bright. The windows would be acting like mirrors. How the hell could stars be seen through that I wonder?

[TheBoyPaj]

The stars look like rain on the window to me.

[jmercer]

Originally posted by DavoMan
What is in question is the white hazey thingie. So far the best explanation I've seen is 2 bits of fluff out of focus & near the camera being lit up by the flash.

Thanks guys you're a big help. Anyone else got more to add?

* I wonder if that is stars outside or dust on the window. Outside is dark and inside is bright. The windows would be acting like mirrors. How the hell could stars be seen through that I wonder?

Don't know what the white dots on the window are, but they're not stars. There's no way you can see the stars through a window when the inside of a room is well lit - and a flash would certainly qualify as "well-lit". Try it. :)

Regarding the "white hazey thingie" - it's an artifact. Look at where it passes over the friend's thigh, and you'll see that the stripes on the trousers are far more easily seen than on the rest of the "unhazy" trousers. This indicates to me that the camera had some kind of techological event that changed the brightness, contrast or even gamma in the pixels of the "white haze". My money would be on the brightness - I suspect that the flash bounce hit a particular part of the scene too strongly, causing the program that averages out "brightness" to permit wash-out in those particular pixels. (Either that or there was a momentary power issue in the camera causing loss of information in those pixels.)

[DavoMan]

I take it you know a bit about these cameras? Your explanation sounds very plausable. However that leaves a few more pointy question marks poking in my back that I can't reach:

* If this is fault of the camera's firmware (programming) then would it happen in other similar cameras with the same firmware/components?

* Did anyone notice that there is a bright-spot in this haze? In the bottom right, about 80-100 pixels from the bottom & 80 or so inward. Perhaps this is the magical pixel that got hit too hard by light?

* What could cause the cool swirling shape? Why not the virgin mary for that matter? ;)

I have seen cameras that can't handle bright light before - such as filming fireworks & sulfur flames & all that. Most cameras I've seen show up a strong purple or yellow colour with no shading. Some live Rammstein videos suffer from that.

[monochrom]

Oh my god - it must be a spirit-thingy!

Also in the picture I can see an orange spaceship, a blue cup-shaped alien, two sheet ghosts flanking the window and one of those little silver alien signal enhancers. And then your friend is obviously a werewolf.

[wahrheit]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
The stars look like rain on the window to me.
I agree, the white spots certainly look like rain on a window.

The flash of the Kyocera is on the right of the lens, that would make perfect sense regarding the fact that the white stuff (?) is more lit on the right side of the picture.

Anyway, whatever it actually is, that white thingy, it doesn't look "strange" to me at all, be it smoke, fluff, whatever. There's also that white stuff where the head of the guy is. Maybe it's some kind of reflection within the optics of that camera, I looked at pictures of the camera, it seems badly shielded against reflection hitting the lens.

[jmercer]

Originally posted by DavoMan
I take it you know a bit about these cameras? Your explanation sounds very plausable. However that leaves a few more pointy question marks poking in my back that I can't reach:

* If this is fault of the camera's firmware (programming) then would it happen in other similar cameras with the same firmware/components?

* Did anyone notice that there is a bright-spot in this haze? In the bottom right, about 80-100 pixels from the bottom & 80 or so inward. Perhaps this is the magical pixel that got hit too hard by light?

* What could cause the cool swirling shape? Why not the virgin mary for that matter? ;)

I have seen cameras that can't handle bright light before - such as filming fireworks & sulfur flames & all that. Most cameras I've seen show up a strong purple or yellow colour with no shading. Some live Rammstein videos suffer from that.

The camera is new, so there may have been an issue with the initial use of the electronics involved... occasionally, new electronics fail to work 100% correctly until they've been utilized a number of times. It could also have been a general firmware bug, but I doubt it for the reasons you said. (It may have been a minor firmware glitch in your specific camera. Had any other odd - perhaps very different - problems with it?)

Alternatively, the conditions might have been just perfect for the camera's logic unit to misinterpret light-levels for areas of the image when processing it. Perhaps some moisture in the air, or on the lens making that specific area slightly more reflective than the rest. Remember, these camera's average the images in terms of brightness. They don't adjust pixel by pixel.

The swirling shape is odd, but I wouldn't read too much into it. :)

Regarding other types of bright lights - you're looking at reflective lighting, not the direct source...

[Ladewig]

I agree on the rain. There are no "stars" visible through the open window.

Ya can see the photo taken before it was blurry. The guy said that most of the night the camera was taking 50 blurry pictures roughly cos it was having trouble focusing.

On the out of focus photo, the center of the photo is a pane of glass that is not parallel to the focal plane of the camera. It is possible that the automatic focus had a hard time determining the distance to the subject because of that.

As for the lightening, I am very uncertain as to what caused it, but I am also very certain that I could produce the exact same effect in Photoshop using the dodge tool.

[tracer]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
The stars look like rain on the window to me.
That sounds like a line from "Stairway to Heaven."

[Ceinwyn]

It's in front of a window, right?

Flash from the camera. Common error.

Windows are the worst for taking pics, they always have something weird going on.

[Ceinwyn]

Originally posted by tracer The stars look like rain on the window to me.
That sounds like a line from "Stairway to Heaven." "Like tears in rain."




Bladerunner.

[Kopji]

Clearly a manifestation of Stinkie or Strecth, two of Casper's nasty uncles.

The smear has some interesting 3d characteristics that persist under a variety of filters. The 'plastic wrap' one is especially eerie. If you can get this to look like the Virgin Mary there might be some money in it for you.

I ran the contrast all the way up and it looks like ccd saturation smear to me. There are three saturated spots within the "blur", my guess would be due to reflections off the window (from the camera flash.)

CCD's put images together differently than film, and can have quirky electronic artifacts. Might do a topic search on 'ccd smear', 'bloom', and 'saturation'.

(In another life I integrated ccd vision systems for robotic controls)
:D

Anyhoo, here is a simplified crop of the smear, you can see the three saturated spots"

[Kopji]

Here is the smear under an effect called 'plastic wrap' :D

[treble_head]

I noticed that it was most likely raining (not the stars, but from the lower corners of the windows), I don't know were you live, but I assume it may well have been the breath of the person taking the picture. The window was open, was it cold outside? I compared the two photos all I can tell is that the second photo is about 12 degrees skewed from the first. the flash seems to be in the same place.

If I had to venture a guess, based on the two photos I saw, it would probably be reflections off the water vapor of the breath of the person taking the photo.

Rainy night + open window + (cold evening), don't know that for sure = scary ghosts. I disagree with the others who say that it was the camera's fault other than someone coudn't take a good picture for a while. Digital photography is the same every time.

Also from a review of the camera "A manual focus mode option is available as well, though the SL300R's distance readout on the LCD monitor makes it a little tough to accurately gauge focus. The image in the LCD monitor doesn't enlarge, so it's tough to know whether or not you have a tight lock on focus. Additionally, only a few distance numbers appear on the focusing scale, making it difficult to judge actual distances in between markers unless you can remember the exact distances for each marker as described in the user manual"

Also, I cannot find the different photos before you shot the "magical" one. I also noticed that there are multiple exposure times from 0 to 8 seconds. if someone was unfamiliar with the camera, an overexposure could have caused the effect, if someone had for expample, brushed their hair. There is too much too look at, but I would have to assume that it was most likely a consequence of focus. I really hope this might help. I did almost too much background check.

Basically, a sub-pro camera may well mess with a photo that shoud otherwise be normal.

[Wolverine]

Originally posted by jmercer
Don't know what the white dots on the window are, but they're not stars. There's no way you can see the stars through a window when the inside of a room is well lit - and a flash would certainly qualify as "well-lit". Try it. :)

At first glance I thought they were splotches of paint on the window panes or something, but yeah, looks like water droplets to me. It can be challenging enough to take decent pictures of stars outside under clear skies. For example, here's a recent shot I took of Canis Major:

http://img103.echo.cx/img103/5996/cmaj25comp4lb.th.jpg (http://img103.echo.cx/my.php?image=cmaj25comp4lb.jpg)

That's a stack of five 4" manually-focused exposures with a Canon 20D & 50mm lens @ F/2.8, ISO 1600, tripod mounted under clear, dark skies. No way stars are gunna show up in a short exposure indoor shot w/flash (not to mention with that particular camera).

[Donn]

It really looks like a lock of errant hair to me, or:
The subject of the photo has a cup of something on the ledge, perhaps the photographer also had a cup of hot tea (off camera right, on a table or something) and that is steam...?

[DavoMan]

Whoa. Thanks for the hardcore response. What seems likely is the CCD over exposure screwup.

By the way - nice stars picture. Anyone ever notice there is heaps of stars in a straight line? Like 3 or 4 stars in a straight line - but heaps of them. Dunno if it ammounts to anything but its an interesting observation.

Once again thanks for all your help. My friend said he is overwhelmed with all the feedback & is quite satisfied with your explanations. In other words he wants me to stop bugging him with 'heres more info' :p

[Wolverine]

Originally posted by DavoMan
By the way - nice stars picture. Anyone ever notice there is heaps of stars in a straight line? Like 3 or 4 stars in a straight line - but heaps of them. Dunno if it ammounts to anything but its an interesting observation.

Thanks. All that really amounts to is that there are heaps of stars, and short, unguided exposures like mine above can only capture so much, but show more than we can see with the naked eye alone. The rest of it, much like how we see the patterns that comprise constellations, is just a matter of perspective from our location.

Images taken with the proper gear to do much longer, guided exposures more effectively convey just how much stuff is out there. Check out this shot (http://www.photomeeting.de/astromeeting/constellations/040522cruxa.jpg) of the Southern Cross by Stefan Seip and you'll see what I mean.

[Soapy Sam]

Its a window.

Stars? What stars?

I notice this is a zoomed shot. Has it been cropped at all?
there is a lot of flash reflection , increasing bottom right, apparently from something which may be out of the shot as presented. I see in some of the other shots from the gallery that there are glass cupboard windows as well as an angle poise lamp and several beer glasses and bottles on the right side of the room. I bet those are the source of reflection.

I also note there are NO real stars visible through the open window behind your mate, and that the apparent "stars" in the closed windows get more and more desely packed around the flash reflections on the window.

[DavoMan]

The dots on the window is dust. I actually havent looked at the other photos. Kinda a closed case now. But thank you anyway.

Also that picture of the southern cross - absolutely awesome. Makes for a nice wallpaper ;)

[Homeo Man]

Hmmm nice pics ;)

Homeo Man
www.homeoweb.net

[DavoMan]

:tr:
This WAS a well-informed and worthwhile thread untill you ruined it with your spam. Come on you don't care about the photos - you just wanted to paste your stupid link. :mad: