What are these orbs in these photos?

In My Humble Opinion
1

What’s the straight dope on the orbs seen in some photos taken at night by digital cameras?

Here are some examples:

www.iam-iam-iam.com/indianb4.jpg

files.myopera.com/Words/blog/orbs1109019.jpg

www.meetthespirits.com/images/niagarafalls.jpg

I’ve seen these in quite a few photos, always at night, but am not sure what they are. Is this moisture in the air, an artifact of light or something else?

2

Airborne particles, close to the lens so they’re out of focus and illuminated by the flash.

3

This makes complete sense. Thank you.

4

Nice fox. :slight_smile:
I vote for water on the lens.

5

or dust on the lens.

6

They’re ghoooooooooooooosts. woo noises

Or you need to clean your lens off / turn off the flash. Either one.

7

It would be interesting to set a digital camera on a tripod at night, take two consecutive shots using the flash and compare them. This would determine if it is indeed something in the air or dust/moisture on the lens.

8

It’s dust in the air.
Dirt on the lens would not be illuminated by the flash.

9

I second that. Cool pic! :cool:

10

It most of those pictures, there appears to be different sizes of specks at different levels of brightness, indicating dust particles in the air.
If you were to take multiple pictures from a tripod, as long as the subject isn’t moving and the particles are moving, you could remove the particles with this cool technique in Photoshop.