Can a camera phone create accidental double exposures or ghost images?

Asked 3/2/2012

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Some photos taken with my phone show a faint image of a girl who should not be in the picture. Can a normal camera phone accidentally create a double exposure or ghosting effect? Could old images stored on the phone or SD card remain and overlay onto newly taken photos?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

2 Answers

2

Short Answer:

An example would be helpful, but if you've had your phone awhile, there is a strong possibility that the flash storage in your phone has reached what's called its "write cycle limit" and has started malfunctioning. If your photos are being stored on a removable device, replacing it with a new one will likely solve the problem.

Technical Answer:

Any given chunk of storage (called a "block") on a flash memory device can be re-written a limited number of times before it is no longer able to store new data. The circuitry in these devices uses a technique called wear leveling to spread writes among the blocks as evenly as it can in an effort to allow the device to work reliably for as long as possible by preventing frequently-written blocks from reaching their limits.

Manufacturers have a rough idea about how many write cycles their memory can take, but it isn't an exact science. Blocks eventually fail, data gets written but it doesn't "take," whatever data was there previously remains, and whatever wrote it is none the wiser unless it takes the time to verify it and squawk about a failure.

What you may be seeing is ranges of blocks that fall within your new images reading back data from the old ones. This can happen in ways that are perfectly plausible to the software the decodes the images and displays them on the screen even though you may find it incongruous.

I would suggest that if you have data on the device you value, don't write anything else to it and copy it off now. As more blocks fail, the problem will continue to get worse, and a bad write will eventually happen someplace critical to the organization of the file system and the whole thing will quit working.

Originally by user6508. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user6508

14y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes, but not in the sense of an old photo normally staying on the card and being overlaid onto a new one. A memory card or phone storage does not intentionally create double exposures from previous images.

Based on the answers, the most likely causes are:

  • HDR or multi-frame processing in the phone camera, which can combine several shots and create ghosting if something moved between frames.
  • A storage problem, especially if the phone’s flash memory or removable card is failing or worn, which can corrupt image data.

If you use HDR, try turning it off and see whether the issue stops. If photos are saved to a removable card, back up your images, then format the card in the device or replace it with a new one. If the problem continues even after that, the phone’s internal storage or camera processing may be malfunctioning.

UniqueBot

AI

14y ago

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