Year 2007 Optical Illusion

I still don’t get these new kind of illusions, how do they do that? I’m not much of a photographer, but I heard it has something to do with “slow exposure“. If you are visiting us for over a month, then you probably already saw Laser Cup illusion, that was the first of this kind I saw! This kind of art is really popular nowdays. Check Laser Lady for evidence ;) Many, many, many thanks Eric Gibbs for this submission (like captain Lassard used to say in Police Academy). Here’s Erics description: “Similar to the time lapse images done before, but a new one. Taken by AP in Manila. It’s a girl writing 2007 with a sparkler.”

If you didn’t notice it by now, I added some kind of “Optical Illusions Store” below comments inside every post. You can check it if you jump inside any article. I would like to hear your opinion, do you like the graphics and style? Do you think it can be useful to my readers? I didn’t want it to be intrusive, but wanted to give you opportunity where you can buy some optical illusions merchandise. You can get some really quality posters and books, as well as some “non illusion” PC games and Mac games. Remember that when you buy some of these products, you directly support us – it’s much better option than donating, right? :) I also bought one framed poster for myself, the one called “Illusion Chess Board”. It looks pretty nice hanging there above my bed. I’ll post photo of it soon!


41 Replies to “Year 2007 Optical Illusion”

  1. it can’t be the slow-exposure method; her arm would be a blur behind the whole illusion, not just the seven.

  2. It is the slow-exposure method. Her arm and the rest of her is a blur! Look at the left, there she is (ghostly image). All she had to do was stand still at the end of the shot for the last part of the exposure to get a solid image of her. If you look carefully, you can see six pairs of feet and the blur of her shirt as she moves through the shot.

    Clever picture though.

  3. Cameras have a setting for up to 7 exposures on a frame of film. You can also make the exposures delay. This was probably just a double exposure because you only see her twice on the film. It’s a nice feature that can give you some really cool or creepy pictures. :D

  4. To make this kind of picture, you hold the camera shutter open and do the sparkler or laser stuff. Then at the end, you use your regular camera flash to illuminate the scene. You just manually pop the flash once and then all the background shows up on the film, too. Then you close the shutter.

    If you didn’t pop a flash, the guys standing in the background wouldn’t be seen very well at all, since the only light in that case would be the sparkler.

    You can also make cool pictures of you fighting yourself if you have a manually controlled shutter, a flashbulb, and a dark area. Just stand in one position, fists raised like you’re fighting, and have a friend pop the flash. Then go around to another position and aim like you’re fighting yourself, and pop the flash again. Then close the shutter. Both images of you will be on the film, and the background would be illuminated twice (usually turns out okay – depends on what kind of background you have).

  5. As above but the flash is set to fire at the end of the exposure illuminating clearly the girl behind the ‘7’ and the rest of the background. I think its called slow sync or rear curtain flash sync.
    Alternatively the flash could have been set to fire at the start of the exposure in which case we would have seen her behind the ‘2’.

  6. More than likely it’s a slow exposure followed by a flash at the end, it’s a commonly used technique to capture pictures like this.

  7. It’s probably slow exposure followed by a flash at the end, which is a fairly common technique used to capture these kind of pictures.

  8. It is a time exposure. Camera is set up on a tripod to keep it still. The f-stop is set to have a small aperture, then the picture is taken in darkness or low light. The sparkler is then waved around to form the numbers while the shutter is held open, finally a flash is used during the exposure to make the sharp image of the children

  9. I’m an amateur photographer, and I believe the reason the girl (and the other children) are illuminated without much blurring is because the photographer used a flash while taking the picture. This technique allows the photographer to make a picture with a sense of movement by making an exposure for the ambient light (several seconds), which gave enough time to write out “2007”, and “freezing” an image of the girl by having the flash go off at the end of the exposure. It is an interesting technique and fun to experiment with. I photograph mostly nature and wildlife subjects, and I have seen captivating photographs using this technique, where an animal is moving and the photograph captures both blur from movement and a frozen image of the animal from the flash. On some cameras (and standalone flashes) you can decide whether the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure (right after the shutter curtain opens) or at the end of the exposure (right before the curtain closes). On Canon equipment the latter option is called “second-curtain sync.”

  10. Ya its an exposure trick, but don’t ever think someone could ever be that good with a camera. This is pure photo shop! I have done the same trick myself. The artist also re did the sparkler and enhanced the lighting. I like the picture though, I am not opposed to Photoshoping pictures to make things fun :)

  11. The technique is this

    Set camera to leave shutter open
    Turn out all lights
    open camera shutter
    get girl to do the “2007”
    set flash off at end of 7 to capture her and other kids
    close camera shutter

    the reason you can see blured images of her is due to the light from the sparkler.

    I used to love playing with this feature :) but not to the same quality.

  12. I’d say another possibility is that she did it all in the dark, with the shutter open, and as she was finishing the “7” , they flashed so it could get the whole background, hence, it has a little blur, as the sparkler provided some light, but the background, particularly the people don’t get blurred, they are only flashed for a fraction at the end.
    That’s how i see it

  13. clever little procedure. My guess at it is a tripod with camera and shutter speed (how long the film is exposed for) at about 30 seconds. With the room totally dark draw the ‘2007’ and when finished a quick flash of light to expose the background and person doing it, before the 30 seconds is up. voila.

  14. This is an optical illusion how?

    Also – if this is considered an optical illusion, how do I go about submitting the picture I took me shaking my own (using a slow shutter).

  15. It is a slow exposure – the sparkler was lit, 2007 was traced mout and, at the end of the exposure, the camera’s flash went off, forming the solid image her at the end. My friends and I did a similar thing once with a glowing stick from a campfire.

  16. As a professional photographer I have used this effect a number of times. The method is called rear curtion flash, the girl writes the 2007 with the sparkler and when completed the photographer fires the flash gun to freeze the background image. The ghost images of the girl, etc etc are as a result of the ambient light exposing the image during the long exposure required to capture the 2007, simple eh !

  17. This is done by opening the shutter with the sparkler ready to write the numbers. The numbers are then written in the air. When the end of the 7 is reached, the flash is fired to light the writer and background. The hardest part of this must surely be writing 2007 backwards.

  18. It is slow exposure, but what happens is that you do it in a low light and then in the end when the person doing the image finishes you just light up the flash, from which you get a clear image of the person. The most famous photo like this one is the one that Xhon Mili (Albanian photographer) did with picasso doing this kind of drawing in it.

  19. NOT slow exposure method….. this is done with those spark sticks!!! ( people use them on holidays ) THEY ARE SOOOOO FUN!!!!!

  20. It’s called BULB exposure. They did use a flash for the first part, the girl in the first zero is the same girl by the seven. That’s just when the flash off the first time and then it when off again when she finished. You can actually control the flash when it goes off. It takes a bit of practice before you can actually do it right though.

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