Photographic Orbs
Edited by John Edwards
Photographic Orbs are probably not angels. There is a physical explanation for most of them. And if you're interested, there are ways to avoid them popping up and spoiling your portraits.
They come in many shapes, sizes and colors - such as white circles with different patterns and different colors; some of them can move; others can leave a diagonal trail; others have far more elaborate shapes.
God probably isn't into revealing angels to digital cameras. He sometimes shows angels to people, but probably not to digital cameras - and He does so when He wills, not when we will. He's not really into hiding His angels from us and instead revealing them to digital cameras.
There isn't any mechanism inside digital cameras that enables them to see into the spirit realm - it requires the gift of the discerning of spirits to be able to do that. And God gives the manifestation of the Spirit called the discerning of spirits to people, not to digital cameras.
And orbs are more likely to show up with certain types of cameras than others. This doesn't mean one brand of camera is Spirit-filled and blessed with the gift of discernment. There is a physical reason for it.
Last time you read your Bible, you might have noticed angels being described as having a face, eyes, arms, wings, and they talked. So angels apparently don't look anything like little white circles or other colored patterns.
The recent increase in orbs is probably not due to some new level of glory that's supposedly being released in the earth; rather, it's probably due to the increase of digital camera ownership all around the world. Incidences of orbs were much less common with 35mm SLR cameras.
You may also have noticed that orbs almost always appear where a flash has been used. This doesn't mean angels hide in the dark and need a flash to be made visible.
And there are also more incidences of orbs with brands of compact cameras where the flash is closer to the lens.
Orbs do not appear more often in revival meetings than in neutral settings. They appear in virtually any setting, even underwater.
And enhancing the 'depth of field' leads to a significant increase in the number of orbs photographed, compared to when the depth of field is normal.
Some of the more elaborately shaped orbs almost always appear outdoors and with a dark background, which gives you a clue as to their explanation.
It's rare to find an orb that appears partially hidden behind an object, which suggests they are probably a solid particle close to the lens. If they are angels, shouldn't they occasionally appear partially behind objects?
Under normal lights, the orbs usually appear whitish in color. But when the auditorium is flooded with red stage-light, an orb can appear red. This probably doesn't mean you've captured a red angel, or that angels change color to suit their environment.
It suggests that what you are seeing is probably reflected light from a sub-visible solid particle suspended in the air, illuminated by your flash, close to the lens, in the out-of-focus zone, and it appears red when it reflects the red stage-light filling the auditorium. Turn the red stage-light off, and the orbs usually appear whitish.
The technical photographic term for orbs is backscatter or near-camera reflection.
There are many sub-visible particles in the air, or on the camera lens, or even under the water, such as: dust, pollen, rain, sand, and other solid particles. Some of them move, leaving trails - and in some circumstances the behavior of moving light particles or waves can do some interesting things with your camera's digital pixelization, resulting in some spectacular effects that you wouldn't get with an SLR camera.
When a camera's flash is close to the lens, the angle of flashlight is such that any particles that happen to be close enough to the lens will reflect the light directly back into the lens. The objects that are reflecting the light are very close to the lens, so they are in the out-of-focus zone, and therefore they typically appear as out-of-focus circles.
The picture below shows how objects in the out-of-focus zone appear as circles. In this example the out-of-focus zone is in the distance.
Exactly the same thing happens when the out-of-focus objects are in the foreground, close to the lens. They appear as variations of small white circles.
Why circles? They are taking-on the shape of your lens aperture, depending on how focused the objects are.
Why can't we see the particles with our naked eye? Because the physical sensor inside digital cameras is more sensitive to infra-red light than the human eye. For example, if you press a remote control button, you can't see anything - but a digital camera can sometimes pick it up as a white light.
Why white? Because the mechanism inside digital cameras often shows infra-red light as white.
There are a number of other circumstances which can cause the light to interract with the digital camera's sensor mechanism to sometimes, in theory, cause variation in the size, pattern, shape and color of your orbs, including movement and some spectacular diagonal trails.
The patterns of orbs are similar to interference fringes, causing multiple concentric circles within circles, and can be replicated deliberately by taking pictures in dusty rooms or where there is water spray.
When you enhance the image of some different-looking orbs, they tend to look more similar to other orbs, even if at first they look very different. This shows that many orb images are probably optical products from small particles.
Lens flare is another cause of optical orbs in photographs, and explains, in theory, some of the more elaborate shapes, especially in outdoor, dark-background photography.
I have an external flash unit where I can adjust the angle. It's better to position the flash away from the camera, and at a 45 degree angle. This means most of the particles mostly reflect the flashlight away from the lens on a different angle, instead of what happens under full frontal light where the particle is exaggerated and reflects the light straight back into the lens. It reduces the chance of having the particle show-up as an infringement in the photo.
In the photo below, notice most of the orbs appear in the top. This was due to the angle of the light. The particles in the outskirts of the photo received the light on a different angle, and therefore reflected the light away from the lens rather than directly back into the lens.