Attempted Star Projector Double Exposures

Ever wanted mysterious floating orbs in your photos? Me neither! Not quite like this, anyway. Here’s how I got them.

First, I turned off the lights, and turned on a cheap star projector I found at a thrift store. I shot the reflections against the ceiling and a black bedsheet, as well as a few close-ups of the projector itself. I alternated between in-focus and out of focus shots. I shot everything at f/4.0 and 1/60 second, figuring surely that would be enough exposure for bright lights.

It was not.

These look suspiciously normal, don’t they? Nothing to see here, just Kodak Gold minding its own business.

A few shots had what I thought might be hints of Orb in the lower right hand area, but in hindsight I’m pretty sure those were just light leaks.

The majority of the roll was light leaked to varying degrees, but that has less to do with this technique and more to do with the dubious structural integrity of the mass of gaffer tape holding the back of my camera shut.

And then there’s the Orbs…

About a third of the roll had these distinct multicolored circles of light. These are the “successful” shots, but they definitely weren’t what I was expecting.

For reference, here’re some phone camera photos of the projector in use.

I was pretty perplexed at first. It’s a bunch of little lights, not several large clusters of them! If only I’d written down what I did on a per-frame basis so I’d know what was different about those frames. I’m a disgrace as a scientist.

And then it hit me.

Take a closer look at the projector:

See those three brighter areas? There are three bulbs inside the projector. There are three orbs in each of those shots.

The only lights bright enough to actually expose the film at the settings I was using were the actual light sources inside the projector.

So, mystery solved! It would’ve been solved a bit faster if I’d taken better notes, though. At least next time I know I need more exposure to make the reflections actually show up. Maybe next time I’ll get the galaxy-print photos I was craving!