Beginner How do I avoid light distortions at night?

Trekmeister said:
Took a few photos only to discover this nasty colour distortion surrounding the light source, what causes it and how do I avoid it in the future (shot taken with Canon 16-35 mm f/4 EF L IS USM @ f5.6, 16mm for 15 secs at iso 100)
Thanks
Paul
Click to expand...

When you say 'nasty colour distortion' I presume you are referring to the flare created by looking directly at the source of the light? That is light bouncing around inside the lens and the best way to eliminate it is to try as far as possible avoiding getting such lighting being picked up by your lens. Wider angle lenses are to some extent more likely to pick up many such sources. For night shots, I generally don't go wider than my nifty 50mm. (which opens out to a max of f1.4)

As lighting has improved in general this phenomenon has become a greater problem for night time photographers and the only practical way to deal with it is to eliminate it in the first place. Or do a proper HDR stack merge.
 
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Yup, pretty much.

If you want the 'star' effects, then you will need to stop the lens right down, or use a star filter.
 
Perfectly clean front element and a lens hood help, and you can, up to a point, control how it appears on your image by the choice of aperture.
Other then that it's a consequence of having a bright light source in your image.
 
The problem with night shooting scenes like this is that the dynamic range far exceeds what the camera is capable of recording, due to the extreme contrast.
What you need to do is decide which part of the scene you want to expose for, the highlights or the shadows.
It looks like you (or the camera) have chosen the latter, and this has resulted in the highlights being completely "blown" and overexposed.
In fact the whole thing looks somewhat overexposed, since I don't see any pure black areas in the overall image.
The situation has not been improved by what appears to be lens flare around the brightest highlight nearest the camera.

What you need to do is decide which part of the scene is your priority, shadow detail or highlights.
If you go with shadow detail then you need to accept that the highlights will be clipped, and once the highlights are clipped you will never be able to retrieve any detail in them.
Personally, when taking a night scene like this, I always dial in at least -1 stop of exposure compensation to try and stop over exposure of the highlights.
This will result in darker shadow areas, which need to be pulled up with the "shadows" slider, which can result in shadow noise, although with modern cameras noise is less of a problem, and in any case can be dealt with by using locally applied noise reduction.
If you want full detail everywhere in the scene then you will need to take a series of bracketed exposures and blend them for an "HDR" result.
I dislike HDR on most things, and particularly on night shots since it results in a highly unrealistic result.

Finally, GET RID OF THE FILTER!
It's undoubtedly contributing to the worst of the flare around the highlight around the street lamp.
The main thing a "Digital Protector Filter" is protecting is the creation of a good image.
IF you MUST use one, then this is a situation where it should be removed.
 
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The other thing.....probably because I have been shooting these so long, is that I would never contemplate using anything other than manual mode and manual focus for such shots.

Fiddling around with compensation is still letting the camera do the thinking on other things. Keep the ISO as low as possible, ideally at the cameras' native level, (ISO 100/200) and then experiment (bracket) with differing apertures and exposures.

It used to be the only way and on MF was an expensive way to learn. With digi....just reshoot.

Time exposures are normally repeatable and you gain a lifetimes worth of experience relatively quickly, although at night there is always an element of guesswork, which for me puts the fun back into photography.
 
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shreds said:
The other thing.....probably because I have been shooting these so long, is that I would never contemplate using anything other than manual mode and manual focus for such shots.

Fiddling around with compensation is still letting the camera do the thinking on other things. Keep the ISO as low as possible, ideally at the cameras' native level, (ISO 100/200) and then experiment (bracket) with differing apertures and exposures.

It used to be the only way and on MF was an expensive way to learn. With digi....just reshoot.

Time exposures are normally repeatable and you gain a lifetimes worth of experience relatively quickly, although at night there is always an element of guesswork, which for me puts the fun back into photography.
Click to expand...

I did use manual mode and MF always do on night shots with an ISO of 100. I wonder if the filter played some part? Next time I go back I will pay closer attention in regards to flare
 
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Any additional glass will potentially cause problems, but in the shot in question, it is simply a case of avoiding direct contact with the light source. Even a hood in this case may not have been enough to prevent it. Those two accessories at the lower end of your legs are great for such experimenting with though. ;)
 
Almost certainly the filter..
A few years a go I gave a DSLR newbie a practical and we failed to get critically sharp images from his gear.
Very baffling at the time.
After a bite to eat it was dark and I suggested a go at photographing the pub, his images had horrendous flare which we couldn't account for.
Out of desperation, I suggested removing the protection filter - bingo!
Crystal clear images with no flare. I'd never appreciated protection filters can make so much difference.
However, he decided to carry on using the filter as protecting the lens was important to him. I still can't work that one out!

Worth noting that I've tried the same test with other people using protection filters and it has had a far less dramatic result.
The quality of the protection filter makes a huge difference, but there is no substitute for getting rid of it.
There are a few situations where a protection filter is a good idea (e.g. stones flying in motorsport or when the camera gets covered in mud), but other than that they are not needed.
The lens hood is the best way to prevent accidental damage and further reduces flare; definitely my recommendation.
Despite the ridiculous situations I take my cameras into (mountaineering and caving) I've never scratched a lens.

Love to hear how you get on when you go back and try again.
 
For years I was obsessive about having some sort of filter in front of the lens for protection. Until I got the bulbous Nikon 14-24mm. After using that for half a dozen years I am far less obsessive about protection filters.
 
A filter, unless you have the very best quality is going to be the weakest link in the optical chain...and it's the first thing the light is going to hit (And bounce off.)
Also the surface of the filter is going to be perfectly flat, as apposed to the curved surface of your lens's front element and so is more likely to flare ( I would have thought.)
 
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