What causes glowing round a person in a photo?

[Robster970]

Explanation provided by PM

The glow is caused by the water in the air...like what you see sometimes with the moon on a damp night.

The difference in density of water in the air causes the light to slow down, twist/bend & scatter...hence the glow seen by your camera.

That makes sense.

The phenomena you refer to is known as Rayleigh backscatter. Same thing as why the sky is blue.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

That makes sense.

The phenomena you refer to is known as Rayleigh backscatter. Same thing as why the sky is blue.

Rayleigh backscatter eh? Far too technical and scientific for me to understand.

Right, who's got any Rayleigh backscatter pictures for me to look at then?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I have been doing photography many years and have never heard of Rayleigh backscatter. A Scroogle search did not make me much wiser.

My first thoughts on seeing the question was that it was Rim Lighting as suggested by several others. This occurs usually when the sun is directly behind the person you are photographing and the rays pass through the hair especially. The effect can be very attractive when the hair is blonde or ginger. I suppose if the waterfall was reflecting the sun so that it was behind the figure this would give a rim lighting effect.

There might be some special effect relating to reflection of water spray as suggested in the PM. I guess this works in a similar way to how some waterfalls have small rainbows.

The other possibility is that the lens is displaying Chromatic Aberration. This usually produces blue or purple fringing where very light and very dark edges meet in a photograph. It usually happens when the lens is at a very wide aperture. Stopping down to a smaller aperture should solve the problem. That is in a camera that allows manual settings.

Chromatic Aberration is just the result of the edge of the lens acting like a prism and splitting the light into its separate colours, especially the blue.

 

[Annierak]

Ready Brek

 

[Robster970]

Try looking for rayleigh scattering Hocus. The interesting thing here is that it's blue rather than any other colour. Then again I don't know how big a water molecule is in relation to wavelength. I don't know whether it's rayleigh effectseither tbh but I know it's not any prismatic effects by water vapour otherwise you'd get red through to blue.

who knows - get the ghost detector out.

 

[pogofish]

Ready Brek

Sod. Beat me to it!

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Try looking for rayleigh scattering Hocus. The interesting thing here is that it's blue rather than any other colour. Then again I don't know how big a water molecule is in relation to wavelength. I don't know whether it's rayleigh effectseither tbh but I know it's not any prismatic effects by water vapour otherwise you'd get red through to blue.

who knows - get the ghost detector out.

Thanks I just checked Rayleigh scattering and got the sky blue story straight off.

The fact that the light around the figures in Minnie's photographs is blue makes me suspect chromatic aberration in the lens itself. This is always blue or purple/blue. I have an old digital camera which gives just such chromatic aberration on edges of high contrast especially at the outer parts of the images. While all modern lenses are corrected for chromatic and other aberrations, it is difficult to get the correction correct for all focal lengths in zoom lenses.

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Chromatic aberration is always far more boring than drugs.

 

[geminisnake]

i though that you weren't supposed to go chasing waterfalls tho?

I think that's only in the great unknown

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

 

[_pH_]

there's something else wrong with that pic, but i can't quite put my finger on what it is

 

[Stanley Edwards]

Scarecrow people are always wrong.

You just outed one.



Chromatic aberration

 

[Robster970]

Chromatic aberration

yup.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Do you like the Mona Lisa enigmatic smile I put on. It took me years and years to paint that you know

 

[Robster970]

It's the eyes - they're following me around the room.

 

[Strumpet]

Ready Brek

She is going to need that ghost detector, IMO.

Who ya gonna call??!


*sniggers at "rim lighting"*

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

It's the eyes - they're following me around the room.

they took me months to paint. They're one of those optical illusions

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Minnie

Behave yourself.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Minnie

Behave yourself.

I suspect you don't like my artwork