Looks like out of focus light, but maintains shape when partially obscured.

That's a fun one. At first glance the orb really seems to resemble the video from the thread about a camerman that captured an orb:

1736388816136.png


In this thread here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/pr...new-jersey-out-of-focus-point-of-light.13838/

It turned out to likely be a point of out of fucus light. As you say in this one, the orb stays the same behind the trees. It also seems to be sharper around the edges. Maybe too sharp? There is a lens reflection of the orb:

1736389452987.png


But maybe CGI? The reflection can be added, and the trees are completely opaque, like a mask letting an out of focused light source pass behind. Other than supposedly being from August of last year and somewhere in North Carolina, is there any other location details?

Is it possible that it's just an out of focus light and it's the camera that's moving? Hold the camera high with the orb on the screen, then move the camera to make it look like the orb moved in relation to the trees? Not sure.

Let's see what other come up with.
 
They look so much like out of focus stars/Venus that if they're aliens then they are camouflaging their ships as out of focus stars/Venus. Not a bad idea I guess.

I tried to be outside and take a video with my cell phone zoomed in on Venus to see how it behaved as I moved behind some tree branches but my phone wasn't up to the task and I didn't get a crisp pupil image.

I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to replicate that first video with a decent camera and see if that's the expected phenomenon.
 
AmberRobot said:
I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to replicate that first video with a decent camera and see if that's the expected phenomenon.
Click to expand...


In my backyard just now. I think that's Sirius. Behind a tree. The "orb" bokeh stays the same as it passes behind things.

A slightly more controlled example. The "orb" goes behind a fork, then my thumb, then I focus on the light source.



So:
Officepolicy said:
If it was just out of focus it wouldn't do that right?
Click to expand...

Wrong, that's what bokeh does.
 
Note: I've altered the original post to account for this silhouette illusion. But I can't fully explain that effect. I suspect that the silhouette illusion is caused by the semi-transparent overlay being dim, due to the spread out nature of the light. Would a brighter light source create a different effect? Or is there some other optical effect at work?


This is my educated guess. But I'm nothing more than an advanced amateur photographer, and not an expert on optics. So I'll present this as a tentative explanation.

Let's say that the "orb" is an out of focus image of a star or planet. Would the blurry image maintain its angular size when the star is peeking through gaps in the tree?

Yes.

Could the out of focus image seem to be overlapping the leaves and appear to be "in front of" the leaves?

Yes.

Or could parts of the tree appear to be in silhouette against the blurry image?

Yes. Demonstrably. (But I don't fully understand why.)




Let's clarify that the light from the star is not actually being hidden by, or being partially obscured by, any part of the tree. A star is a dimensionless point of light. A planet has a very small angular size, but much the same condition. The light from the star can pass through small gaps.

The big blurry image is a camera artifact. It's being produced within the camera. The big, odd looking image can look as if it is "in front of" the trees, but that's a seductive illusion. Or it can appear as it is being blocked by parts of the tree.



As technical as I can get...

Let's talk about two related terms:
The blur circle is about what you see—what a blurry image looks like.
The circle of confusion is all about defining what is considered "sharp" in an image based on perception and standards.

Without going deeper, what we are seeing in the video is a blur circle, and it's produced inside the camera. It doesn't exist in the outside world. That blurry image can't be "blocked" by the tree.

More technically: The star's blur circle is an optical effect produced by the lens and sensor, not a direct representation of the star's actual position relative to the leaves.

When the camera is significantly out of focus, the light from a point source (like a star) spreads out into a diffuse circle of light (the circle of confusion). This blur circle does not have spatial depth or a fixed position in the image; it is a projection of light onto the sensor.



Let's talk about the optical illusions...

It's about depth cues. Monocular depth cues:

Depth perception is distorted because the blur does not correspond to any specific plane in the image. The blur of the star effectively acts like a semi-transparent overlay.

This is the tricky and surprising thing, and something I don't fully understand. But this is what seems to be the case...

In this case the blur circle is not very bright. Therefore the leaves appear to be in silhouette in front of the blur circle.

We only get monocular depth cues from a single camera. I've talked about this issue elsewhere on MB. Photographic images or hand drawn images are both fundamentally optical illusions. They can be successful illusions (the image makes sense), or unsuccessful illusions (there's something off). In this case something is off.

With monocular depth cues...
Objects that block the view of others are perceived as being closer. Example: A tree partially obscuring a house appears to be in front of the house.

We take that kind of thing so casually that it may seem odd to even mention it. But it's an example of how the brain produces an image (a virtual reality) that makes sense to us. The brain produces everything we see moment by moment. It doesn't just happen.

The brain follows certain fixed rules. In this case the rule is: objects that block the view of others are perceived as being closer. And we can't consciously change that.




Motion Parallax:
Objects closer to the viewer appear to move faster across the field of view than distant objects when the observer moves.
Example: Trees close to a car window "move" past quickly, while distant hills seem to move slowly.

But in this case, it was the camera that was moving. The motion of the tree and star image is an illusion.

The tree is close and the star is distant, so they appear to be moving in relation to each other. But that's an illusion because we are relying on monocular depth cues.
 
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Alternate scenarios.

This is an artificial light on a hobbyist drone and the drone is controlled by the author of the video, or assistant. It's a flat out hoax. The relative motion of tree and light is real.

It's an artificial light on a random, distant aircraft. The camera is out of focus because auto-focus feature is in use. A happy accident. In support of this: The light is moving "down" which is what a distant aircraft would appear to do because of perspective effects.

Ditto but the image is out of focus on purpose. A flat out hoax.
 
A plea:

Bokeh is not an optical term. Bokeh is an artistic term, meaning an aesthetically pleasing background.

Bokeh is produced by the way a camera lens renders out-of-focus areas, primarily background light sources, or specular reflections, or bright diffuse reflections. Bokeh is commonly produced by blur circles. The blur circles can be influenced by the aperture size and shape.

Diffraction effects and aperture ghosting or other ghost images can play a role. But none of these things should be called bokeh.
 
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As I understand it, some lenses are designed with intentional under- or over-corrected spherical aberrations to enhance bokeh.
 
Z.W. Wolf said:
A plea:

Bokeh is not an optical term. Bokeh is an artistic term, meaning an aesthetically pleasing background.

Bokeh is produced by the way a camera lens renders out-of-focus areas, primarily background light sources, or specular reflections, or bright diffuse reflections. Bokeh is commonly produced by blur circles. Also by spherical aberration, diffraction effects and aperture ghosting or other ghost images. But none of those things should be called bokeh.
Click to expand...

I use bokeh because it's the common term used for the shapes produced by out-of-focus lights. Bokeh isn't "blur circles" (which really isn't a term)

with optics, it's usually best to just post an example. It does not lend well to text.

2025-01-09_00-38-20.jpg
 
The problem is it's much easier to demonstrate using examples from the internet to non technical people using the term bokeh for them to find sources that demonstrate the effect that are independent of sources like Mick and Metabunk.

Bokeh balls is the term I as a photographer use specifically for out of focus point lights where the shape is dictated by the shape of the lens aperture, to distract from the other meaning of bokeh which is an out of focus background blur.
 
Officepolicy said:
This video looks like it is just an out of focus light, but as it goes behind a tree the size and shape of the circle remains the same. If it was just out of focus it wouldn't do that right?
Click to expand...
It's what I would expect, because the light rays that aren't taking the straight line between the source and the point the lens is focussing them on (it matters not that this may be behind or in front of the sensor when out of focus, that's simply not important) really don't give a monkeys whether there's a twig blocking the straight line route, i.e. whether there's something smallish in the way. They'll still contribute their bit to whatever would be formed if the twig wasn't there. And if that was an out of focus orb, all of the rays that can see any part of the lens will just contribute to as much of the orb as they can.

This works both ways - if the star is in focus, the any of the rays from the star to the front of the lens will contribute to the star's point-like image, they don't care about the ones blocked by any twig that's in the way, so you might barely even detect that there's something in the way apart from the dimming of the image as not so much of the light is getting through.

The crispness of the silhouette of the trees in your example, and the fact that it seems highly zoomed, supports a claim that a star would be out of focus, only a limited range of distances can be in focus simultaniously - we'd need to know the camera/lens' hyperfocal distance too to support that with data. (h/2 -> h/0 can be in focus, h/3 -> h/1 can be, h/4 -> h/2 likewise - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance )
 
Z.W. Wolf said:
A plea:

Bokeh is not an optical term. Bokeh is an artistic term, meaning an aesthetically pleasing background.

Bokeh is produced by the way a camera lens renders out-of-focus areas, primarily background light sources, or specular reflections, or bright diffuse reflections. Bokeh is commonly produced by blur circles. The blur circles can be influenced by the aperture size and shape.

Diffraction effects and aperture ghosting or other ghost images can play a role. But none of these things should be called bokeh.
Click to expand...

And whilst you're banning terms, can we ensure no musicians ever use "reverb", "sustain", and heaven-forfend "wah-wah". Variable band-pass filters forever, baby!
 
Over the "18 years" span that he claims, he appears to be using the same source light with the same type of internal structure, including the darker line at ten o'clock. It makes me wonder if he has had the same home with the same kitchen light for that long. Maybe fitted with a dimmer switch for the 18-year video?

IMG_2980.jpeg
IMG_2979.jpeg
 
FatPhil said:
And whilst you're banning terms, can we ensure no musicians ever use "reverb", "sustain", and heaven-forfend "wah-wah". Variable band-pass filters forever, baby!
Click to expand...
Holdup, these effects are not made by using band-pass filters. Or do I misunderstand your entry.
 
Ann K said:
Over the "18 years" span that he claims, he appears to be using the same source light with the same type of internal structure, including the darker line at ten o'clock. It makes me wonder if he has had the same home with the same kitchen light for that long. Maybe fitted with a dimmer switch for the 18-year video?

View attachment 75634View attachment 75635
Click to expand...
Wouldn't that more likely be a feature of the camera not the source, which is out of focus?
 
The same objects tend to give similar patterns when out of focus, colour is averaged a bit and similar flickering patterns might been seen from variable light sources.

Also object seen distantly through atmosphere give similar patterns due to atmospheric flickering.

This creates like a signature blur for specific objects often filmed out of focus: Sirius (and variation for other bright stars) Venus, Jupiter, Mars etc.

The other issue in these unusual camera scenarios things like auto white balance tend to give inaccurate results for colour across the same object for different sources.
 
Ravi said:
Holdup, these effects are not made by using band-pass filters. Or do I misunderstand your entry.
Click to expand...
Wah-wah is. That's pretty much all it is. I could have provided Cmdr-Data-like descriptions of the other effects too, but I thought that would be belabouring the point.
 
FatPhil said:
Wah-wah is. That's pretty much all it is. I could have provided Cmdr-Data-like descriptions of the other effects too, but I thought that would be belabouring the point.
Click to expand...
No prob, I understood what you wanted to convey.
 
Mick West said:
that's what bokeh does.
Click to expand...
Wow, that is counterintuitive (to my intuition, at least) raised to the power of the sguare root of -pi, quantity then divided by 0! I will now go read the posts between yours and this one, to see if anybody explains how on Earth (or elsewhere) this works, in terms I can understand -- good luck with that, y'all! ^_^

I powerful reminder that a million reasoned best guesses are not as good as one "try it and see what happens."
 
I'm sneaking into MB at work and they've blocked Reddit, so I can't see the contents of the OP, but for what it's worth, I was taking pictures of a very large bright "star" close to the moon a couple of nights ago, (probably Venus?), and the autofocus went pretty funky, and it looked exactly like the pics above. Unfortunately my camera is too smart to let me take pictures this badly focused, at least on that setting.
 
Wow that's an impressive camera :)

When Venus is defocused (around the 1:30 mark), are those undulating streaks a camera artefact, or atmospheric distortion, or something different?
 
It's the effect of moving different temperature and thus density air between the camera lens and Venus, some of it might be from relatively hotter air escaping my house some of it higher up.
 
It looks very much like Schlieren. Those form on film or a camera sensor when the light of a point source travels over a sharp edge. I wonder what in this case the sharp edge could be, the rim of the camera lens?
 
jarlrmai said:
I made this video showing me looking at Venus with my Canon R5 camera and a 500mm f/4 lens and then videoing it as I defocus the lens, to show a range of patterns depending on how out of focus it is.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh3b0e0lKqQ
Click to expand...

Does the shape and detail of the defocussed image depend on the f-number (i.e., aperture setting)? Perhaps that would be better investigated when looking at something without atmospheric turbulence, though, as in a point light across a dark room, like what Mick did with his candle. I wish I had the time to play around with this but I don't right now.
 
Ann K said:
Over the "18 years" span that he claims, he appears to be using the same source light with the same type of internal structure, including the darker line at ten o'clock. It makes me wonder if he has had the same home with the same kitchen light for that long. Maybe fitted with a dimmer switch for the 18-year video?

View attachment 75634View attachment 75635
Click to expand...
I'm also thinking that during those 18 years of seeing some objects in the distance from your house you might get curious and maybe try to get closer and better images? Or go on the other side of the trees at least?
 
Here's a fun, and slightly more controlled, example. Using my standard "flashlight in a box with a pinhole" point source, out of focus in the next room as I focus on the door jamb.



I'm just moving the camera. Here it is zoomed in and stabilized on the door.





Interesting in that it as first seems to be sinking into the door, as the left part is cut off, but not all the wat

2025-01-09_09-28-47.jpg


Half way, there's less overlap.
2025-01-09_09-29-53.jpg


Nearly gone:
2025-01-09_09-30-33.jpg


I agree it seems counterintuitive that when the center is obscured, then the shape is little changed. If you think of the bokeh circle as in-camera glare, then it would indeed vanish (if in focus). But an out-of-focus point source is not a laser. It takes multiple paths to get the to sensor. The crisp shape is determined by the aperture. The door here is, I think, kind of acting like an aperture.
 
AmberRobot said:
Does the shape and detail of the defocussed image depend on the f-number (i.e., aperture setting)?
Click to expand...
I think the optical design drives this, not only the f/#. Different designs have different "behaviour", when defocussing. I am not too familiar with the designs used in phones though, as they are quite special and hard to find online.
 
Mick West said:
Here's a fun, and slightly more controlled, example. Using my standard "flashlight in a box with a pinhole" point source, out of focus in the next room as I focus on the door jamb.

I agree it seems counterintuitive that when the center is obscured, then the shape is little changed. If you think of the bokeh circle as in-camera glare, then it would indeed vanish (if in focus). But an out-of-focus point source is not a laser. It takes multiple paths to get the to sensor. The crisp shape is determined by the aperture. The door here is, I think, kind of acting like an aperture.
Click to expand...
Correct, as you get closer to the cam, the obstruction will be closer to the cam's pupil and act as such. You will see that if you have the obstruction further away than you have now, that the "cutting" will be better.
 
Since your spot looks all white could the overlap simply be a saturation effect? Can you turn down the exposure time to ensure no saturation on your spot ?
 
AmberRobot said:
Wouldn't that more likely be a feature of the camera not the source, which is out of focus?
Click to expand...
It could be, but that would assume he used the same camera for eighteen years. I like that fade-out on the older one toward the end of the video, which I think could be done with a dimmer switch on a lamp.
 
I vaguely recall that he had changed cameras or got another one at least

It's a very interesting observation though, it does point to some consistent element
 
Ann K said:
It could be, but that would assume he used the same camera for eighteen years. I like that fade-out on the older one toward the end of the video, which I think could be done with a dimmer switch on a lamp.
Click to expand...
I'm hoping to get some time to do some experiments with my camera and different lenses and different sources at different aperture settings, but until then I can only speak to intuition here. When a source is way out of focus the image should be nearing that of the pupil. In that case, the shape and characteristics of the source become unimportant just the illumination distribution of the pupil and associated diffraction. So, if there are persistent features in his out of focus images that leads me at least to believe that shows a consistency of the optics not the sources. An easy way to tell, and something I hope to include in my investigations, is rotating the camera. If the effect is related to the camera it should rotate with the camera, if it's related to the source it should not.
 
Ann K said:
Over the "18 years" span that he claims, he appears to be using the same source light with the same type of internal structure, including the darker line at ten o'clock. It makes me wonder if he has had the same home with the same kitchen light for that long. Maybe fitted with a dimmer switch for the 18-year video?

View attachment 75634View attachment 75635
Click to expand...
This really intrigues me, what light property or optical path property would cause such an effect.

Can we duplicate it and then see if that tells anything about the nature of the light source..
 
It seems Bledsoe has changed Twitter accounts recently, I went back and grabbed screenshots from any videos that seems to share the same artifact on the current twitter.

And one (double orange, clearly of a OOF plane) that might be a comparison.

In the 4 videos that show the artifact the line seems to always be at that 10 o'clock position and a center bright area and generally darker towards the upper left.

There's not any rotation I could find.

1736453331754.png
 
Fascinating. Here I took OOF video of a small light, with my 500 mm lens on a Sony A6400, you get typical concentric rings, and some details (ringed dots).

2025-01-09_12-49-28.jpg


I took video of it as I rotated it 90° clockwise. Nothing rotated, but the dots moved around.



It's clear that there are multiple planes of dots, which are presumably dust specks on the lens elements (there's no lens cover).

It's a heavy lens, so rotating it by hand was a bit shaky, meaning the bokeh circle moved around, and the light path would be different, so that's why the dust specks moved.

Here's the dust on my lense. Illuminated by a single light, so the multiple reflections might correspond to the planes of dust.

2025-01-09_12-56-59.jpg


Back to Bledsoe - a consistent non-rotating pattern would indicate the same camera being used for OOF shots.
 
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