Stumper: appeal for help from digital photography gurus

My guess is long exposure and he moved the camera before the shutter closed.

Couldn't you post the real photo and just blur out his face?

Stephane - I'm not sure a slow shutter would be the issue. Wouldn't this just smear the transposed picture rather than create the stutter?

Also - it's a FinePix E510, *not* a "E5100" (which doesn't exist).

If he took it himself on timer, the exposure might have been slow/long enough to catch him moving into place, or if longer, been partially illuminated by another light source, etc. Hard to say without seeing it. However, there are some para"normal" sites which deal with ghost photos and some are much more technically competent and used to seeing the fakes or anomalies so if you look up "ghost photos," some explain them, some accept them.

I'd expect there are a variety of reasons that I'd consider before the supernatural.

Was this a flash photo? Using flash can lead to some cool effects that look like double exposure. Again, the real photo would be helpful - blur out his face if he is too shy.

To know what really happened we'd probably need to see the original photo and if possible the EXIF data recorded by the camera in the file to see shutter speed, flash, etc...

Most "ghost" images where there's actually a "ghostly" person are caused by using a slow shutter speed and having someone walk in the frame and stop long enough to "impress" their image on the camera film or sensor, then move out of the frame before the exposure is completed, while most "orb" ghost photographs are dust or water droplets hit by flash that are closer than the "depth of field" that the camera is focused on. These images reflect the flash light and are rendered by the camera in the shape of the camera aperure iris - a circle or orb.

It might also be lens flare, if you have a stray reflection from light hitting the lens surface itself.

If the photo was taken at an event then he might have caught the red-eye flashes from another camera in his exposure. That would account for a multiple steaming image. This would be very easy to do in a dark room and his flash turned off. Or if the camera was put into a low-light (slow-sync) mode with flash. Any other explanation would require us seeing the original photo.

Bill Murray owns a restaurant not too far from where I live. Perhaps I can get him to show up with Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis to help you sort through it.

However it happened it has to be something to do with exposure and lighting.

What was the light like? was there a tv on in the background? I've taken photos with disco lighting and found when the lights are on an image comes through, the lights go off, then when they come on again the people have moved and another image appears. If someone was moving in the background (or foreground) and the light was intermittent - such as red-eye flash then this is not too peculiar. The room is definatley not haunted, but your nephew could be special like that kid in the sixth sense, can you ask him what the lottery numbers are please!

Okay - I've masked his face. You'll notice it's not too different from my mock-up though. I can tell you that he didn't have a TV on in his room, or a computer monitor. He was facing a wall when he took this.

File info:

Shutter - 0.5 sec (aperature priority) Aperature - f5.6 Focal length - 4.7mm (red eye reduction - off)

Thanks again for your suggestions.

Would you happen to know if your nephew's camera has a double exposure function? Some digital cameras do, and if you aren't used to the camera yet and still exploring the functions, you can sometimes end up with some very weird effects. If he has such a function on the camera, can he think back to where he might have accidently triggered a shot while walking and set it to the double exposure setting?

One of my brothers worked with similar effects on an Olympus camera he had.

Just a thought.

In my own humble opinion, it could be a �data ghost�.

I have run into this only two other times. Once in an early digital camera from five years ago and once in a computer program running AutoCAD and Photoshop simultaneously. The camera wasn�t the same as yours, but had an image that was over another object. It appeared to be floating. That turned out to be a deleted image from an earlier session. The computer issue was caused by the computer not able to process a raster image in AutoCAD and a Photoshop image running at the same time. The image from Photoshop was saved into the CAD file. First, find out if any pictures were taken with the memory card that resembles your ghost image. If so, then it is possible that the data on the card recorded the image of your boy with the ghost information still in it, but processing it improperly.

Secondly, if the image was not seen on the camera, or was originally on the card, then it could have been an image on the computer when the photo was viewed/processed/saved.

If such an image doesn�t exist on the card, or on any part of the computer memory, or internet then I would say you have a good story for Art Bell.

are the results consistent? is it always that old lady in the corner?

I would suggest trying another memory card. and if that doesn't work then turn the camera in for some warranty service.

Do you or your your nephew recognise the person in the picture? That is, has he taken this picture at some other time and somehow it's got mixed up with a later one?

Actually, the more I look at this the more it looks like a television picture - I don't suppose he had the TV on when taking the shot? Alternatively, it isn't a picture hanging on the wall, is it?

The way the "ghost" blurs up and to the right is somewhat mimicked by similar blurring in the lamp in the left background. Was he hand holding the camera in front of him, so that the background could "move" during a slow speed sync exposure?

If I wanted to reproduce this (ie. without PS etc.) I would photograph myself THROUGH an angled sheet of glass, which was reflecting an illuminated subject just out of shot to the left.

A good resource for these paranormal photos is coasttocoastam.com (radio talk show host: Art Bell and George Noory). I'm not personally a believer in the lame photos I've seen at these sites, but non-photographers can't seem to get enough of them.

One thing that has happened to me is I took a shot of a subject without nearly enough light. The camera set the exposure at 30 seconds, and when I went to take the next shot, the shutter wouldn't fire. I realized it was still recording the previous image. Some digital cameras do have multiple exposure capability, so a malfunction (on either the part of the camera or operator<g>) could cause this type of image.

I had exactly the same experience 2 years ago when I hired a Canon D1s.When I first tried to open an imamge on the computer I saw a ghost figure underneath mine, however it was not there when reading the image from the card whilst inside the camera.'Scary'.I erased the image and took another shot but the ghost was there again,then I noticed another folder inside the main one named "deleted images" on opening this I saw two image files but received an error message when trying to open them.I deleted this folder from the card via the computer and the problem went away.I suspect the previous user of the camera had deleted these files on camera but the card file system got corrupted.

It makes sense that the memory card could have been corrupted and combined data from a previous image. There is almost no limit to the amount of variation in a corupt file, it reminds me of teleporting a group of people together and their DNA maybe gets mixed up, when they go to put the person back together wrong or something. :)

I think the effect is similar to what our old plotter does here at the office (an old HP 600 designjet).

if you send a large file to plot and then cancel the plot or if it has an error in plotting (it is an inconsistent thing) then the next time you plot, it essentially plots both files out at the same time. so the second file is being plotted while the old file continues from where it was... the result being you have to cancel the job Again, and then pull the power plug for a little bit.. then let it start up again.