How can this be possible?

[Diana]

Hello all,

Hope you can help me with this question, I guess there is a technical answer but since I'm newby on photography I can't figure out why this happened

About a month ago I took a couple of photos of a project I'm working on the iphone. As you can see on the first photo there is a wall behind the iphone and there is nothing wrong. However, on the other one you can see, on the right side, my reflexion on the wall!!!!

Needless to say it was the same wall behind and there was no mirror.

The photo was taken with no flash light.

Thanks in advanve for your help

 

[Battou]

Please resize your images, I can't make heads or tails of them

 

[Diana]

Sorry, I resized the images and edited the brightness so my reflexion can be seen easily

 

[Stranger]

i have no idea what this is about... are you complaining because your images are really out of focus or because you can see yourself?

 

[nicfargo]

no idea. There would have to be some sort of reflective material for that to happen...either that or you're just messing with us and you did it on purpose.

 

[The_Traveler]

My guess is this:

Virtually every surface is reflective to some degree.
In the first shot, your exposure was such that the reflection from the wall was too weak to register on the sensor.

The second shot was much more exposed and thus even the weak reflection actually registered.

What color was the wall behind your hand?

 

[Diana]

It is light yellow, almost white. "The_traveller": my reasoning for what happened is similar to yours, but what really shocked me is the detail of the reflexion on the wall... you can see the ring in my hand!!!

Is this phenomenon usual in photography?

Thanks for your responses

 

[The_Traveler]

It is light yellow, almost white. "The_traveller": my reasoning for what happened is similar to yours, but what really shocked me is the detail of the reflexion on the wall... you can see the ring in my hand!!!

Is this phenomenon usual in photography?

Thanks for your responses

I don't know that it is common because this is a pretty unique situation in that:

• you were close enough to the wall that the reflection actually was bright enough to register. (light diminishes in a ratio of the square of the distance)
• the shot was dramatically overexposed
• the object was close enough to the wall and the lens was close enough to the wall that the reflected image hadn't yet become obviously defocussed.
• people generally dump very overexposed images and rarely post them

If the wall was glossy, rather than matte flat, that would increase the chances of it occurring.

 

[Fiendish Astronaut]

I cannot believe that a wall can create a reflection so detailed. But there might be something you've overlooked or not mentioned Diana. There is no answer given the information you've given. Could it be a glass door that was open which normally stays closed?


In these sorts of situations you've got to get out Occam's razor... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

 

[Hertz van Rental]

To get a reflection you must have a reflective surface.
The better the reflection the more reflective the surface.
The reflection is quite detailed as you can even see the front of the camera taking the picture.
I suspect that the reflection in the second shot is glass - either a door or a window - and you just didn't notice it when you took the pictures.
If you look at the bottom red line on the 'phone screen you can see that the angle is different in the two images. This means that the PoV is different in the two images (by quite a bit) and the second image has a different background to the first.
Part of the problem is that the crop is so tight there is very little information from which to draw conclusions. So Occam's razor is the way to go.

 

[passerby]

About a month ago I took a couple of photos of a project I'm working on the iphone. As you can see on the first photo there is a wall behind the iphone and there is nothing wrong. However, on the other one you can see, on the right side, my reflexion on the wall!!!!

So what actually were you photographing on that wall? Was it something there that need to be captured on your phone?

It would be beneficial if you can re capture the same wall from different angle with enough lighting to reveal the dark area so we can see the wall itself instead of guessing of what's in there. Request make sense?

 

[MarcusM]

I think from what she said she was photographing her phone, not the wall.

 

[bhop]

It's obviously a ghost.

 

[ghpham]

If you look closely at the thumb, you will see no reflection there. There is clearly textures on the wall, so there is no way, it will give you reflection. If you look at the other fingers where the reflection occur, there clearly is no wall (no textures I can see). There must be some glass surface to the left, judging from the angle of the reflection.

 

[julie32]

Isn't there a mirror behind your iphone? How come the shots are so fuzzy?