Cross-posted from www.futureandcosmos.blogspot.com
Orbs are circular anomalies that have been observed in many flash photos. You can see very many examples of orbs by looking at this list of web sites or this web site. These are often big, bright, colorful orbs that often appear to resemble faces, and many of these orbs appear to be moving very rapidly (as you can see by looking at this poster-type image). But skeptics often claim that orbs are just dust. They advance the theory that when you take a flash photograph of orbs under some ordinary conditions, you are really just photographing tiny specks of dust in front of the camera.
Orbs are circular anomalies that have been observed in many flash photos. You can see very many examples of orbs by looking at this list of web sites or this web site. These are often big, bright, colorful orbs that often appear to resemble faces, and many of these orbs appear to be moving very rapidly (as you can see by looking at this poster-type image). But skeptics often claim that orbs are just dust. They advance the theory that when you take a flash photograph of orbs under some ordinary conditions, you are really just photographing tiny specks of dust in front of the camera.
This
theory is wrong, and I can tell you by how much of a factor it is
wrong. The theory is wrong by a factor of 1000 times, and is
therefore as wrong as the claim that you can buy a shiny brand new
car for only 20 dollars. The particles of dust in ordinary air are
about 1000 times too small to produce conspicuous orbs in your
photographs.
To
support this claim, I will present a logarithmic chart of particle
sizes. The chart is very similar to many charts that have already
been published, except for the yellow and green parts. You can find
many similar charts on the Internet by doing a Google image search
for “particle size chart.” One such chart can be found here. My
chart uses the same estimates found in such charts. There is no
real controversy or debate about the particle sizes of the items I have
listed here in blue – the great majority of the “particle size”
charts list the same estimates I have listed here (although some list
“heavy dust” as being no larger than 500 microns).
In
this chart I list in yellow a range of particle sizes that might
produce a conspicuous natural orb in your photograph because of a
camera flash reflecting off of a particle in front of your camera. I
define a “conspicuous” natural orb as one that has a size greater than about 3
percent of the original width of the photo. The word “original”
here is crucial. By original, I mean the photo before any cropping
has been done.
Note
that the maximum size of ordinary atmospheric dust is only about 1 micron. But
what is the minimum particle size that might produce a conspicuous
natural orb in a normal photo, one greater than about 3% of the original photo width ? My experiments tell me that the size
is about 1000 microns, or about a millimeter. By a normal photo I
mean a photo taken with a normal camera setting as you might use to
photograph a person, not some “macro-mode” photo in which the
camera lens is extended way out (as you might use to get a closeup
photo of a tiny object).
Specifically:
- I have done tests pouring cinnamon powder near the camera, which produced no orbs. Cinnamon powder has a particle width of about 70 microns.
- I have done tests photographing while vacuuming, which should have raised dust levels to as high as 100 microns. These tests produced no orbs greater than 2 percent of the original photo width.
- I have done tests photographing steam produced by photographing in a steam-filled bathroom. This should have created particle sizes of about 300 microns. No orbs were observed.
- I have done tests photographing mist sprayed in front of the camera, mist from a plant sprayer. This should have created particle sizes of between 100 and 500 microns. This produced a few very small “orbs” (really just droplets), but none that were “conspicuous” as defined above (none greater than about 3% of the original photo width).
So
based on these tests (which all used flash photos), I can conclude
that when using a normal camera setting (not “closeup
photography” settings), you need a particle size of at least about 1000
microns to get a natural dust or vapor orb that is “conspicuous”
as defined above (having more than about 3% of the original photo width).
There is an entirely separate reason for drawing such a conclusion. Those who maintain that
orbs are produced by dust tell us that dust is being photographed in
a little “orb zone” area more than half an inch in front of the camera lens. Such an area would have a length that could not be smaller than about 30 millimeters. So if a dust
particle were to appear in such an area blocking more than 3% of the
original photo width, how big would it have to be? Apparently about 3 percent or more of
this small area that is no smaller than 30 millimeters long – in other
words, about a millimeter (the same as 1000 microns) or larger. If one assumes an even larger "orb zone" width of greater than 30 millimeters, than an ever larger particle size would be needed to block 3% or more of the photo width.
So
both the results of experiments and camera field considerations lead
us to the conclusion that under normal camera settings (not
close-up photography settings) you need a particle size of at least about
1000 microns for some dust or water particle to produce a conspicuous
orb in a photograph (one that is more than about 3% of the original photo
width). But the particles of dust in ordinary air do not have such a
size. Instead they have a size about 1000 times smaller, a size of
only about one micron or less. This is why when skeptics claim
that photos of prominent orbs taken in ordinary air are showing
particles of dust, they are off by a factor of 1000, and are making a
claim as wrong as the claim that you can buy a shiny new car for $20.
Could
it be that when someone photographs an orb they might be
photographing the “visible heavy dust” listed in my chart? No,
that refers to the kind of dust you get in things like a steel
foundry, a building collapse, or a volcanic eruption – dust so
thick you can see the particles in front of you, and feel the
particles collecting on your skin. Particles larger than about 10
microns can be seen with the eye.
Judging
from this link which gives results from a fancy electronic particle
counter, we should not at all expect particles of more than 10
microns to be floating around in typical air in residences or
offices, and
the particles in such air are mostly less than 1 micron.
But
could it not be that when you are photographing an orb, you are
photographing some relatively large particle of dust raised by some
event that happened a few hours ago? No, it is not possible. This is
because particles of dust larger than 10 microns always settle to the
ground fairly quickly. This is shown by the chart below, derived from a chart at this URL.
Particle Size (Microns) | Settling Velocity (How Fast the Particle Falls) | Settling Velocity (Meters Per Minute) |
0.1 | .0000865 centimeters per second | |
1 | .0035 centimeters per second | |
10 | .306 centimeters per second | .18 meters per minute |
100 | .262 centimeters per second | .157 meters per minute |
As
we see from this chart, it takes only about six minutes for a 100
micron particle to fall a meter (about 3 feet), and dust particles of
1000 microns or larger have about the same settling velocity. While
the dust particles in ordinary air (too small to produce orbs) take
quite a while to settle to the ground, all of the larger dust
particles above 10 microns settle to the ground fairly quickly at a
rate of about a meter per six minutes. That means that unless some
dramatic dust-raising event occurred very close to you within about
10 or 15 minutes of the time you took your photo (such as someone
knocking out a wall, beating a rug with a stick, or toppling a large
book case), there is no significant chance that conspicuous orbs
produced in your photo are caused by dust.
This link has 11 photos of orbs that are more than 10
percent of the original photo width. How large would a dust speck have to be
in order to produce such a large orb? It would have to be about
10,000 microns, larger than the width of a pencil (almost as wide as
a dime). Such dust simply doesn't exist, not even in buildings that
are being demolished. It is generally agreed that the maximum size of
heavy dust is only about 1000 microns.
It
would seem that our skeptical friends who claim that most orbs
are just dust simply have not bothered to do their homework. Judging
from their web sites, they apparently haven't done the experiments
they should have done, and apparently haven't bothered to
thoughtfully research the size of particles. So it's not surprising
they've come up with an answer that is off by a factor of 1000.
If
you go to one of the leading web sites of the “orbs are dust”
skeptics, you will find some revealing text in which the author
pretty much “gives away” that he doesn't seem to think dust in
ordinary air is remotely sufficient for producing orbs. In a page
called “How to Take Great Orb Pictures,” the author makes this
revealing recommendation on how to photograph natural orbs that are
just dust:
The
basic idea is to drop or spray small particles close in front of the
lens of the camera while taking flash pictures of an object beyond.
This should yield orbs. Various solids (like flour, cinnamon, etc)
can produce some pleasing, typical-looking orbs.
Here
the writer revealingly seems to give away that he doesn't actually
believe that ordinary photo conditions are anywhere near sufficient
to produce natural orbs caused by dust. He asks us instead to create
some ridiculously extreme and preposterously unnatural conditions in
hopes that this would produce orbs, conditions that would create
particle sizes 1000 times greater than in ordinary air. (I've tried
the cinnamon test, and it doesn't produce conspicuous orbs.)
Such
a recommendation is, of course, ridiculous. A theory that can only
explain orb photos when people drop or spray particles in front of
the camera is worthless for explaining 99% of all orb photos, which
were not taken under anything like such absurdly extreme conditions.
The
bottom line here: the orbs in the great majority of the better orb
photos on the Internet are not photos of dust, because they were
almost all taken in ordinary air, air in which the average dust
particles are 1000 times too small to produce conspicuous dust orbs.
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