What are these spots in my pictures?

Question

i was taking some photos with my friends digital camera a few nights ago of him, my girl, his wife and other people. we were in a really dark area outside. when the pictures came up on the camera, however, we saw the people okay, but then there were these spots in the pictures. round spots in different pictures. What causes this, because they also came up in some shots we took with a disposable camera. someone suggested it was the digital camera focusing on dust particals since the background was pitch black, but there was one spot right in front of a tree and you could see the tree right through this spot. mind you this particular spot was the biggest and brightest.

the thing was that i took two or three of the same pics and they all hd tthe "orbs in the same spots just about in every picture, shouldn't they be gone or moved

Answer 1

Hate to tell you... it's dust.

To check to see if its the lens, take pictures with different lenses. If the picture is different and some of pictures doesn't have dust, then it's definitely one of the lens.

However, if all the pictures has the "spot" and it's all in the same place, then you need to clean your camera's sensor. To be sure, take a picture of a white wall.... then see if there's any gray spots on the white wall picture. You'll know for sure.

Here it goes, do not clean the sensor if you don't know how!!! Take it to an authorized service center listed by your manufacturer. If you must do sensor cleaning, then the first suggestion I could give you is to buy a rubber air blower. Blow the dust of the sensor (it's underneath the reflex mirror). If that didn't do all the trick, then you will need to buy a sensor swab with a cleaning solution. I'm hesitant in suggest the latter because if you rub it too hard with the swab in cleaning the sensor, you might damage it. Just do it once or twice in the same direction, don't push it.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Geez...it's really difficult to determine what the spots could be without seeing an example.
Anyway, based on your description and the fact that the spots were 1) round, 2) spot right in front of a tree and you could see the tree through it....
I think what you are seeing are "sun spots" caused by the camera being pointed in the direction of the sun so that it caused the sun to leave a "glare" or those spots you're describing.
Since you say the pics were taken at night, you could get the same anomaly from a bright light like a spotlight or a cars headlights. This possibly combined with a dirty lens that causes the light to "bounce off" the dirt on the lens and reflect into the picture.
If this is what is causing the spots, then the next thing you should know is that this is the purpose of a "lens shade" that screws on to the front of a lens to "shade" the lens from the sun shining directly into the lens.
Can you post one of the pics?

I found these pics that might show what you are talking about:
http://www.worth1000.com/entries/125000/125492bHjg_w.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/9/14613222_d62f6a2ebb_m.jpg

SOLUTION: always keep the sun "behind" you instead of shooting in the direction of the sun.

Answer 3

It sounds like flare to me. Light hitting your lens at an off angle, especially if the aperture is wide open as it would be at night, creates these ghostly orbs or rings. This is why you sometimes see photographers with those extra extensions attached to the end of a lens. They shade out the off-angle light to prevent flare. The light that appeared in front of your tree may have actually been just a bit of light from a house light or street light shining through the tree and it was so much brighter than the rest of your scene that it created this flare effect.

Fuzzy spots could also be the parts that are naturally out of focus when the lens is wide open (again, as it would be in the dark), but those spots would not let you "see through them" to identify the object behind them the way that you describe.

Answer 4

u know, i think while you were taking pictures with your friends i think somebody is also joining with you and those are spirits
some spirits can be captured in a camera because the camera detects the frequencies of those ghosts but some are not.
i have a suggestion, why dont you try taking picture sin the morning in the same place with your friends. if you got the same spots as you had on your previous photos. maybe i am correct
that that place is a place for ghosts

Answer 5

Dust, that's what it looks like. Really, if you don't trust me lie down on a rug and beat it so you get the dust flying, then take a picture at floor level. You'll see the "orbs" all over the pictures.

Answer 6

Spirits coming to say hello!

Answer 7

try cleaning the lens...may be something like dust or something like that.