Source of the ghosts?

[WAn]

What is the cause of the ghost images on the attached photo?

Lens, filter, internal camera reflections?

Your opinions?

 

Thanks

 

Andrey

[WAn]

one more photo:

[WAn]

and another one.

My apologies for poor scan quality.

[brambor]

I would venture to guess it was moisture on the front element

[Rob F.]

I think you must have had a filter on the lens. This happens fairly often with shots of this type, in subdued light, with a bright light source in the frame.

[klaus_gerhard_vogel]

I will accept that this can be resultant of some bits of water on the frontal glass. Perhaps such on the filter or otherwise the elemental glass of the lens. However standing alone such would not be suspecting of a filter. In such cases where a poor filter has been used we may see the repetition or of the iris or of some distinguished motif.

[edmo]

Could be moisture on the filter but most likely it�s some sort of paranormal event.

[johnmarkpainter]

It is a combination of the FIlter and the Lens. If you had taken the Filter off, it wouldn't

have been so distinct.

 

jmp

[working camera]

Andrey

 

The first one is definitely saleable to UFO freaks. There could be a healthy business

for you here.

[max_fun]

Were you using multi-coated filters? I had similar ghosting shooting candles and it was

gone when I removed the filter (cheap, non-coated). I also managed to get water droplets

on my lens, and if you see such patterns in the same position in all your photos, then it

could be that. But if the ghosting changes depending on the position of the camera in

relation to the light source, then I think it's less likely the reason.

[mike_levitt]

It's just lens flare, basically reflections of the bright spots somwehere else in the lens or on

the filter.

 

I would try without a filter and see what happens. My guess is the filter did it.

 

Mike

[jorge]

First one are definitely UFO's. Mexican Air Force just released a video on them. It was on the TV today. :-)

[WAn]

Gentlemen

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm also inclined to think that the cause was the filter or filter+lens combo. The filter was multicoated (at least I hope the Leica UV filters are MC) and dry (I carried the camera in the bag where temperature equal to ambient winter cold).

 

 

Ok, I'll try the same sort of shots without the filter.

 

 

Craig, Jorge, the UFO version was my first impulse. Only a degree of technical cynicism saves the peace of domestic UFO freaks!

 

 

P.S. I wonder, why email notification doesn't work?....

[mark_scheuern]

It's almost certainly the filter. I've seen exactly the same sort of thing myself, including two days ago when I was shooting into lights at night and forgot that I had left a filter on. I realized it, took it off, and the flare was gone. That was with a good, clean, multi-coated filter, too.

[eliot_rosen]

As far as I am aware, current Leica filters are all monocoated, and none of them are multicoated. Whether that makes a real difference, I don't know. B & W offers multicoated filters at a higher price than monocoated, but Leica does not. Could be the lens at fault, what lens and what version of the lens were you using? Older Leica lenses, especially the monocoated lenses made in the early postwar period, are flare prone (of which ghosting is a type). The lens coatings have a major effect on flare suppression, as do the glass types. The current batch of Leica lenses are rather resistant to flare and ghosting, with the exception of the 50/1.4 Summilux-M, which is a much older design (from the 1960s).

[WAn]

Eliot: the lens is Noctilux (current version) at f/1.

 

 

The ghost lights are almost centrosymmetric to the real lights, thus it is very probable that there were reflections between back side of the filter and front lens.

[eliot_rosen]

You could be right. Incidently, Leica has long advised never to use the Noctilux F/1 with a filter. However, they never stated why. I always assumed that the filter would cause the lens to vignette even more than it normally does at wide aperatures (which is considerable). Maybe they recomment no filter because of the problem of ghosting that you found?

[working camera]

You mean to say that it is possible to make the N�lux vignette more!