Polarized sun picture taken ..need expertise

[CaptnNemo]

Good day to you all,

I know this might not be the right sub forum to post this but since I see a lot of different subjects in the general discussion one, I figured I would do so too for more visibility...

Mods, you can change or move it to the appropriate one if you would like too. Or just close it if it's nothing really...

So there it is, my best friend sent me a picture of the sun he took with his Galaxy S3 in polarize mode while on vacation..Now I don't really know anything specific or really technical about photographs...

http://imageshack.us/a/img827/2474/zh21.jpg

Im sorry for the big size..I didn't really want to touch it and keep it the way I got it.

Basically I just need opinions from you people who are more qualified to analyse it, weather it's a lens flare or anything camera related does not really matter. All I can say is that I can assure you that there was no modification to it whatsoever. It's shown to you the way I received it.

Thank you very much to you all.

Respect as always :)

[RMorgan]

Hey there,

The cell phone camera tried to compensate the sun´s extreme brightness, so, whatever was captured as pure white, was converted to pure black, including the sun and that small dot which is a lens flare...The polarizing effect, which is basically useless when its software based, ended up amplifying this effect because such intense brightness is simply impossible to calibrate without special lenses.

This happens commonly when using digital cameras:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3110/3147227521_396e16bcfc.jpg

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/021/7/b/The_Black_Dot_Sun_by_Lilszamora.jpg

http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1147/526244225_8036d3ffe2_z.jpg?zz=1

http://cdn.teenink.com/artwork/Jun11/regular/f153627_1308568734.jpg

Tell your friend to avoid taking direct pictures of the sun without proper equipment, or he might even damage his cellphone camera´s sensor.

Search for "black sun effect" on google to learn more about this phenomena...Here´s a discussion about it on a digital photography forum:

http://www.arridigital.com/forum/index.php?topic=2413.0

Raf.

[CaptnNemo]

Well thank you very much for an appropriate answer :) I will tell my friend to be careful taking pictures of the sun as you mentioned..Wouldn't want to damage that amazing phone ..lol..:D

Anyways, I'm pretty sure there's still something hiding behind or around our sun..lol..

Cheers :)

[Sidney]

Not all spots that show up like that are artifacts/lens flares. It would be helpful on order to determine the authenticity of the object, if the photographer were to take many more shots, from different angles and in different camera modes. If your friend has access to welders glass/helmet or goggles, that is useful for protecting the eyes, and lens while capturing what is or is not up there near the sun. There are lots of videos on YT, that explain the various ways that these anomalies can be properly debunked, and ones that cannot be debunked.

As you can see the examples posted by Raf can be debunked, however none of them is in the polarized mode, and all of them, the black spot is in the center of the sun itself, so as you really cannot even compare the two. My opinion of course.

[Vitalux]

The interesting thing that I have learned about any image that might potentially show space craft looming around in the yellow haze of the sun is this argument.

An unidentified object is still an unknown object.

Until the object can clearly be identified quantifiably, it would tend to just be a distraction.

Generally my thoughts are that Extraterrestrial alien beings :alien:, being a multitude of millions of years more advanced than we the human ape, if they do not wish for us to see their space craft :ufo:, than we won't be able to do so, even with our just above stone age devices we call technology. :ohwell:

[Tesseract]

A polarized filter should allow for 50 % of incident light to transfer, and would not turn the sun black - you would need 2 filters at 90 degrees to each other to do that. I'm sure Raf is right about the camera over-compensating for the bright light source. I'm not exactly sure what causes the beam type effects, although I heard that stars lose their twinkle when photographed from space.

[ghostrider]

there is a planet closer to the sun than mercury, it could be that planet ... I think Raf is spot on with his information ...