Sony DSC-P32

Hy, I have a problem with my sony DSC-P32 digital camera, When I take a
photo with flash on, i get something like this

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/6459/dsc01667vd3.jpg

(look above the flag)

I think, maybe flash is broken...
Or some dust got on the lens...

Any of your opinions???

 

Ghosts-spirits, post more.

 

did you see the photo?,

i don't know - its like bubbles of watter

 

From the EXIF data it looks like the lens used its widest aperture
and was zoomed to a very wide angle setting. I don't know how the
front of the lens is situated with respect to the flash, but perhaps
this allowed the lens to pick up a bit of the off-axis light from
the flash, creating reflections (those globular things) or flare.
If at the same lens settings you always get those globes when the
flash is used, try fashioning a crude lens shade from opaque paper,
either taping it to the P32 or just holding it in place while taking
a few shots, to see if the globes remain or disappear. Without the
lens shade, do you have the same problem with flash shots when a
smaller aperture is used and the lens is zoomed out to a longer
focal length?

 

This is dust in the air, a common phenomenon with compact P&S cameras.
The flash is close to the lens, and often dust is illuminated enough
to show as out-of-focus blobs.
Or, maybe you've managed to capture the spiritual aura of some dead
pirates?

 

That's the first thing I thought of, since it has been discussed
here before. But it if was dust near the lens, it would have been
much brighter. No?

Arrrrrh!

 

They are almost certainly caused by light from the flash being
reflected back into the lens form airborne particles very close to the
front of the lens. Don't take my word for it, recreate them by doing
the following:

Have somebody shake a piece of clothing like a cotton tea
shirt or slap a couch pillow a foot of so in front & above your camera
& then take a wide angle flash picture within a second of doing so.
You might be amazed @ just how many prarticals you just released back
into the air & just photographed.

Another interesting thing I have observed is just how
reflective most airborne particals are to Near InfraRed light which
most people call Infrared for short. If you have a video camera
(camcorder) or a day/night video camera with built-in N.I.R. LEDs, you
can see these particals in motion by doing the same type of experiment
as I suggested you might want to try with your digital camera (but
without the flash). Note, it should be obvious that this would work
best if done @ night or inside in a poorly illuminated room. A black
or dark backgrounds will help too.

I am still amazed @ some of the airborne "stuff" I have
recorded using inexpensive CMOS N.I.R. illuminated video cameras that
I have setup to record nocturnal yard visitors. The best part of this
is that it does not take much of my time since it records while I am
asleep. At 1st, I programmed a VCR to record @ the time of night I
hoped for activity but many nights I got nothing & had to sit there &
watch for activity while it fast forwarded along.

Now I have various sensors around the area where each camera
is aimed & they trigger the VCR to turn on for X amount of time when
it detects activity in the area of the camera's view. Eventually I
will replace the my VCR with a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) but that's
another expense I don't need just yet.

Sorry about the long response but I hope you or others found
something in it of value.

Respectfully, DHB


"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

 

Thanks for your help. I tried that thing with the couch pillow. With
flash turned ON and OFF. The photos were both taken with AUTO settings,
I've got these results:

1st photo with FLASH OFF

parameters are:

Aperture value: F2,8
Shutter speed: 1/8
Exposure Value: 0,0
ISO: 320
Metering mode: spot
flash OFF

link: http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6567/dsc01716of7.jpg



2nd photo with FLASH ON (ghosts came back)

parameters are:

Aperture value: F4,0
Shutter speed: 1/40
Exposure Value: 0,0
ISO: 160
Metering mode: spot
flash ON

link: http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8452/dsc01717tu6.jpg



I think is dust in the air, but why isn't there when flash is turned off?
Is this normal?
BTW, Bill Funk - spirital auras of dead pirates was my firs idea

 

Because these airborne particles don't reflect much light &
they are in motion, so not enough light is reflected from them to make
them visible in most non-flash illuminated pictures. The exception
might be in a room will a direct beam of sun light shining across a
dark background, in which case you may be able to see the particles by
eye.

Yes it's fairly common with built-in flash on a P&S camera
both because of the angle of illumination (lens & flash very close
together) & the very strong & brief illumination from the flash that
seems to freezes them in place. Understand that these particles being
called "dust" that can show up as these out of focus *orbs* can be
almost anything from water vapor, pollen, shedded skin or you name it.
Also I believe that this effect happens far more with digital cameras
for 2 reasons:

1> We tend to take far more pictures with them than we ever would have
considered doing with film because of the cost. So you have a greater
chance of encountering this effect.

2> Many of the airborne particles are especially reflective of near
infrared & all digital camera sensors have some sensitivity to record
near inferred light because their built-in IR-cut filter is not 100%
efficient.

The most pronounced effect I ever got was years ago when I
photographed a few new rooms in a friend's house. There were so many
of these *orbs* that it almost looked like it was snowing indoors.
The pictures were taken the day after the fiberglass insulation was
installed so it's very likely that they were caused by tiny particles
of airborne fiberglass that we kicked back up just by walking around
in the rooms. That's proof enough for me of the need to wear a filter
mask when installing fiberglass insulation. What you normally can't
see can sometimes harm you.

Here is an interesting observation of mine & other's.
Although these *orbs* can be easily explained, others & myself have
noticed a disproportionate accuracies of them over or very near
certain people in group pictures. So either it's just a coincidence
or?

Respectfully, DHB


"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

 

Not as seen in many other shots of the same sort of dust, no.
It's out of focus by a large margin, which means that the dusts' image
covers more of the sensor than if it wer ein good focus, meaning the
light the dust reflects is also spread out, making it dimmer than you
might expect.

 

The pictures I've seen before of illuminated dust were much
brighter, almost resembling round, fuzzy snowflakes, and they
appeared in much greater numbers than these few blobs and were
distributed more randomly than these, many of which in this shot are
positioned along an arc. A blob not lying along the arc, which is
barely touching the right side of the flag close to its top has a
nearly identical but much dimmer sibling just to its right. To me
they appear more like internal lens reflections than light scattered
by dust near the lens, but if the OP is satisfied that the blobs
were caused by dust, that's fine with me.

 

The flash on this camera is on the upper-right corner. Dust would be
expected to be in that corner of the image, and it is. The cone of
light from the flash would illuminate that corner of the area
immediately in front of the lens there more than in the rest of the
image.
Where would reflections come from? Why are none of the reflections in
a pattern, as they usually are?

 

But there is a pattern, as I described. Two of them. Most of the
orbs appear along the path of an arc, and the other two were also
mentioned (the near identical siblings). It's certainly possible
that true randomness could have produced this pattern, but all of
the previous shots of flash illuminated dust particles had them
scattered in obviously random patterns. If it's dust, the particles
can't be too close to the lens, or they'd be completely blocked from
the flash's light. And if they're an inch or two in front of the
lens, then any particle within the lens's image circle (over the
sensor) should have been lit by the flash, unless the lens extends a
great deal beyond the front of the camera. Interesting idea though,
and if you or I had access to a P32 I'm sure it would either be
quite easy to figure out what's happening, or non-reproducibility
might indicate a defect in the OP's camera. Seeing where the globes
appear in some of the other OP's other shots might also provide some
clues.

As for where other causes of the reflections, the time the picture
was take (assuming accurate EXIF data) was after 9 PM, so there may
have been a Coleman lantern's bright mantle glowing off to the side,
bouncing off internal surfaces of the lens causing the blobs. Or
maybe it's caused by a different type of "dust", but you'd have to
read some of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" novels (The
Subtle Knife, etc.) to know what that's all about.

 

OK, it's possible.

 

As you can see here, you're not the only one that's typing
challenged. I used to often post followup corrections, as you
did a couple of hours ago, but I rarely do that anymore.
Fortunately I catch many of the typos, but unfortunately, many of
them get by spell checkers. Proofing before posting is good policy.

 

Proofing? What's that?

 

Proofreading.

 

You're not giving enough credit.

 

It's your turn to explain. I have no idea what you mean by that.

 

In the ghost hunting world these are called Orbs. For a while
they had the woo-woo crowd really "snowed" (note pun). I
believe only a minority still insist these are ghost or
ectoplasm images. Try a search on orbs, there was quite a few
sites.

Ol' Bab, a photographer who really wanted to Believe...