Green Flare Orbs Common in Digital Photos

Green lens flare orb. Photo: Faith Frederick

We receive many photos that look something like these two sent in from Big Springs, Kentucky, by Faith Frederick in June, 2019. (Thank you for letting us show them here, Faith.) We've found that the camera lens design of later-model cellphones makes them particularly prone to this type of lens flare, when the sun or other bright, intense light shines directly into the lens. The same effect occurs in other types of digital cameras, too, in both still photos and videos. It makes little or no difference if the flash fires, except that sometimes direct flash reflections can cause flare.

The green colour of these flare orbs, somewhat ironically, comes from the microscopically-thin anti-flare coating on the camera lens. (But if this coating were absent, flare would wash out almost the entire image.) Also, the light source doesn't have to be visible in the photo to cause flare, but the flare tends to be more dramatic when it is.

If you don't want lens flare in your photos, try shielding the camera lens from the sun or other bright light with your hand, casting a shadow over the front of the camera. If the sun is visible right in your shot, like in these examples, you won't be able to cut out the flare. If you're shooting with a DSLR camera and you have a lens hood (lens shade) then use it! But do not look at the sun through the optical viewfinder as it may permanently damage your eyesight.

Green lens flare orb. Photo: Faith Frederick

In both photos above we've reduced the overall size of the original photo, but the insets that show a close-ups of the flare orbs are at 100% scale). Flare orbs are nothing more than a secondary image of the sun, filtered by the lens coating and reflected from internal lens surfaces before forming part of the captured image. Other flare effects can be seen here but they're over a broader area and are less defined. There is nothing paranormal about these orbs - they are purely optical effects.

Another distinguishing feature of  flare orbs is that you can draw a line through the centre of the photo (if it is not cropped in) that connects the flare to the light source. This is not always exact but is still a good indicator that you're looking at lens flare rather than something paranormal in origin.

Besides lens flare, the main cause of orbs in photos is backscatter, sometimes called near-camera reflection. This is when a flash or LED light positioned close to the lens strikes dust, raindrops or other small particles floating close to the lens, causing bright highlights that reflect back into the lens are are captured out-of-focus (because they're so close-up to the lens). These show as translucent globe-shapes that some still believe are early-stage spiritual manifestations.

Green lens flare orb, with yellow line through centre of photo connecting the flare with its source. Photo: Faith Frederick

Most but not all orbs in photos can be recognised as either lens flare or near-camera reflections. Still, when we are analysing photos we take care to look closely at each individual image. We don't want to write off possibly paranormal photos by applying broad assumptions without fully checking at a case-by-case level. This would be armchair-skepticism, a lazy practice we make an effort to avoid in photo analysis as well as all other aspects of paranormal investigation.

Links on this site:

• Orb Update (scroll down for lens flare examples)
• Submitting your photos for analysis
• More info about orbs in photos
• Lens flare - main page.