Is my lenses having problem?

[snaplover]

Hi all,

I tried to take photo of sunrise this morning.
But i don't know why is the a sun reflection in my photo.
Can someone enlighten me pls.
Izit something wrong with my lenses?

Setting used:
Exposure Program: Aperture Priority
ISO Speed: ISO 200
Exposure Time 1/125
F-Number: F/11
Focal Length : 32mm

 

[gooseberry]

You have a filter on the front of your lens ? That'll be the cause of the flare/ghosting.

 

[ziploc]

Hi snaplover,

Nothing wrong with your lens, that is a lens flare. Some lenses are more prone to flares when shooting directly into very bright objects, due to light being reflected from glass elements & inner barrels.

 

[snaplover]

ya.. im using a skylight filter.
does tat means i should remove the filter before taking the sunrise?

 

[ziploc]

ya.. im using a skylight filter.
does tat means i should remove the filter before taking the sunrise?

You can certainly try. As gooseberry mentioned filters will also create flare/ghosting, especially the lower grade ones.

Sometimes flare/ghosting will occur even when not shooting directly into the sun. In that case a lens hood will help.

 

[snaplover]

oh.. ic.
Im using Kenko skylight filter. Is tat lower grade filter?
i bought it for $68 from a shop in chinatown..

 

[ziploc]

Please don't get me wrong, not saying your filter is low grade. Just saying lower grade filters will cause such problem. :sweat:

Have not used Kenko filters before, most of my filters are Hoya and B+W so can't comment on that. But if using Hoya as an example, they have 'standard', 'HMC' (Hoya Multi Coated) and 'super HMC'. The multi coatings are there to reduce flare & ghosting by the filter. So the HMC/super HMC filters are less prone to such problem then the standard ones.

 

[gooseberry]

ya.. im using a skylight filter.
does tat means i should remove the filter before taking the sunrise?

Yeah, it's generally recommended to remove your filter if you are shooting directly into bright light sources - especially with digital.

Because the sensor in digital cameras is a lot more reflective than film, when you have a totally flat piece of glass in front of your lens (the filter) the light reflected off the sensor will reflect back off that flat piece of glass and create a 'ghost' image of the bright light source (more expensive filters may reduce this amount of reflection because of their special coatings).

Removing the filter, you may still get some flare/ghosting (depends on the lens), but generally not to the extent we see in your photo (most modern lenses with multi-coated lens elements won't have such a bright ghost spot like that)

 

[ziploc]

Btw, you can have a look at this page that describes the different Hoya coatings:

http://www.thkphoto.com/products/hoya/coatings.html