Tips for Capturing Ghosts with Your Camera

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Kory Cook
7 years ago
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1 Tips for Capturing Ghosts with Your Camera Ghost photos can happen anywhere and at anytime. Do not assume notorious haunted places like asylums or former funeral homes have activity just because they are supposed to. Ghosts have no timeframe. Ghosts register on a frequency lower than what the human eye can see and a digital camera, which can pick up lower frequencies, can capture them. You can test your digital camera s sensitivity to infrared by aiming a remote at your camera and holding down a button while clicking a picture. You should be able to see the IR light in your viewfinder. You will not be able to see the IR light with your naked eyes. Digital cameras can pick up a range of light well beyond that of the human eye. Shoot photos near mirrors, although not directly into them. Many times you will capture ghostly body parts such as faces.

2 If you see a person in your picture and that person is not supposed to be there and you have eliminated any other possibility, it could be a ghost. You are more likely to capture the body of a residual haunting than an intelligent one. Smoke from a fire or cigarette is dirtier looking than paranormal smoke, which is almost immaculate. It also wafts in long streaks, as opposed to smoke or fog that clumps and travels as a whole. The spirit kind extends out from a middle source. Many people describe a darker form of paranormal smoke during hauntings that is compared to black smoke but with more substance. This lies somewhere between smoke and shadows. This generally accompanies a more intense and scary haunting. Paranormal smoke is caused when a spirit does not have enough energy to go from energy into visible human form. Fog has less mass and order so it comes first. The smoke or fog is what happens before energy can become a full-bodies apparition. Anything leaving your body can be upwards of 96 degrees. Just about any night will have a drop in temperature between the moisture in the breath coming out and the air near you. It might not be cold enough to become fog, but you would be surprised how high the temperature can be and still see your breath. Gases that are released from dead bodies (corpse gas) can cause paranormal smoke that is seen in graveyards.

3 Ectoplasm has the look of orbs and streaks, but functions more like smoke in pictures. It shows up on the image like smoke, but more solid and with different colors. If it is at the top corner of the image, it s paranormal smoke. If it seems to be coming out of someone s head, it s ectoplasm. Orbs can be about any primary color, but most often they are whitish or yellow. Orbs are thought to be spirits on the move. A vortex has a funnel shape or comes to a straight point at the bottom. This includes an orb photo where the tail has a defined point and does not just dissolve. A vortex is thought to be a gateway to another dimension. A vortex is not a spirit, but marks where spirits come and go. Some vortexes are caused naturally by overlapping images due to the shutter speed and f/stop on your camera. Rods appear on images as a glowing stick of any length. They are often bent, although only at the top or the bottom. Rods are most always seen standing straight up, vertically. Only rarely are they seen horizontally. The majority of them are orange or yellow. Unlike orbs that can meander and switch directions, rods dart, moving through the image with some speed.

4 Rods may be energy that has taken on mass. Rods can be caused naturally by the reflection of light off a reflective surface or by flying insects. Glowing lights may be angles and shadows may be demons. A bright glow is thought to be a ghost gathering energy or releasing it. Glowing lights can be caused naturally as the result of too much flash or light in the room. Many faulty photos are caused by a slower shutter speed on the camera. Dark situations may require a longer shutter speed. This allows more light to be exposed into the film. It is very important to not move the camera while the shutter is open. Your handholding of the camera may make very small and subtle movements during the time the shutter is open, and the resulting image will be blurry or streaked. Many of these streaks are points of light. Use a tripod when using a camera that is set to a slower shutter speed. The ISO or film speed determines how sensitive the film or camera is to light.

5 For bright sunny day photos, use an ISO in the range of Indoors or in darker situations, use an ISO in the range of 800 or higher. The f/stop of the camera opens or closes to allow in more or less light depending of the situation. A smaller number f/stop means the aperture is more open. A larger number f/stop means the aperture in less open. When taking photos in a low light situation, like ghost hunting, you want to be able to allow in the most light you can so you will want to use a lower f/stop and the exact opposite in high light situations. Always shoot with the highest resolution and the largest picture size. Zoom is useless in a paranormal investigation. Shoot BIG and reduce later if you need to. If you zoom in too tight on a subject, you lose the context the subject is in. Time and again, paranormal investigators have reported having their batteries drained when ghosts are nearby. The flash on a camera is the enemy of the paranormal investigator. It reflects off of different surfaces to create false ghostly images. Going Dark has become very popular, but has more to do with ambiance than actual paranormal science. More

6 light in the room means less of a need for a flash. Less flash means there is a smaller chance of having the flash bounce off anything from dust to a mirror on the wall. Take an establishing shot to show the entire environment of the area being investigated. This gives context that might be lost when you zoom in on an object in later pictures. As a practice, always tell people when you take a photo. Use a simple buzzword like flash of picture. If you enter a room and feel something, go with it and snap a few shots. Make note of why you did so. Do not look for your evidence head on. In a majority of paranormal photos, you will see the paranormal hiding in the corners of the photo. Shoot doorways and rooms at angles. Snap some shots without focusing by holding your camera to the side and not looking at what you are shooting at. Shoot behind you. If you continue to get a dark blur in the same spot, it s probably something occurring in the camera and not paranormal. Negativity might allow or attract negative spirits to where you are. Stay positive.

7 When you decide to leave, make sure to tell the spirits you are going. This closure will help make sure they do not come home with you. Dust is the usual suspect whenever you find orbs on photos or video. Digital cameras are sensitive to UV and IR spectrums of light. Dust Orbs have a nucleus and a diffraction ring pattern. If you see diffraction rings, the orb is definitely dust. Geometric shapes, such as diamonds and octagons are cause by a camera lens curvature error known as coma. Orbs caused by water have a solid middle with a less solid, semi-transparent halo. Often there will also be a tail, especially if the camera is capturing a moving source of water such as rain or snow. Orbs caused by insects appear like a blobby circle. If the orb has signs of movement, such as a blurred trail behind it, you may have a true orb. True orbs are colored in the cool end of the spectrum, such as white, blue or green. Orbs in the warm end of the spectrum, such as red, orange or yellow are typical of dust or light refraction.

8 A true orb can be partially hidden behind an object. A dust orb will show up as a complete circle and not obstructed by another object. Don t take photographs in dusty locations. Don t photograph in rain, snow or fog. Don t use a flash. Use the highest resolution setting on your camera.

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