Odd reflections in night photo...

[calarrick]

Hi... I was stumped as to why I had the reflections toward the center of this

picture. It was taken out an opened window, for 30 seconds at f22. The lights

were all off behind me. I'm quite certain the camera was not moved or jostled

on the tripod (such that bright areas might have created a secondary image).

It looks to me like there were reflections inside the lens, or perhaps the

camera (do reflections off of sensors look like this?). But, basically, I'm

stumped and looking for even speculative diagnostic attempts.

 

Many thanks!

[calarrick]

...it can be seen bigger here:

 

[tonybeach]

Was there a filter on your lens? It's lens flare and you can clearly see the spectral highlights that are triggering it. Nice shot.

[keith_b1]

They seem to be related to the two bright sodium vapor lamps opposite them in the frame...I

vote lens interals, but the image on my computer is too small to confirm...

[gdw]

Sorry, Andrew, I posted the reply to the Flickr page. If you are talking about the two large multipointed shapes in the center of the photograph, those are very common glare patterns from point light sources. Adtually you have several smaller ones that show the same multipointed flare. They almost always happen on long exosures that include point light sources and are more pronounced at smaller lens openings.

 

A lot of people pay good money for star filters to achieve that effect.

[charles_miller]

It looks like lens flare, but I don't see a likely-looking source within the image. If you are using a 35mm lens on a DX-sized sensor, extraneous light outside the subject area can enter the lens and cause flare.

 

On the other hand, lightning is a totally crazy thing. It is possible, but unlikely, that you have captured a rare but real phenomenon of nature.

[calarrick]

Thanks everyone so far... I should have mentioned the lens was the 24mm f2.8 AF. There was no filter on the lens.

 

Of the largest of the reflections (there are many small ones), the two white reflections are to the upper left of the point-light-sources to which they seem to be related (the two sodium-vapor lights) but the 'bar' of the scrolling red sign by the highway is reflected above and to the right of the sign... in both cases, a line from the reflection/flare/ghost to the light that seems to be responsible for it would cross close to the center point of the image.

[randmcnatt]

C. Andrew, you're seeing a classic internal reflection. The light comes into the lens, bounces off the front of an internal lens surface, bounces again off the back of another element, then makes it's way to the film/sensor. They can be upright or, as in this case, upside-down and backwards. The interesting thing here is the patterning of the reflections: did the sodium-vapor lights have four lamps/tubes, or is it an artifact of multi-coating or lens spacing? Anyway, you can see the aberations - chromatic aberation in particular, and coma in the smaller point-source ghosts - that occur when the photons don't go through the lens the way they're supposed to.

[randmcnatt]

Oops, forgot to say: there's an entire upside-down and backward image there, superimposed on the main image, just so dim most of it doesn't get recorded.

[alex_lofquist]

The interior surface of the large front element of the 24mm f/2,8 Nikkor is almost flat and just might be the source of the several ghost images that you see. I would be willing to bet that you shot this photo at, or near maximum aperture. This increases the intensity of ghosts proportionally compared to the highlights generating them. For this reason it is better to use small apertures, if possible, when in this type of situation.

[bjørn rørslett]

The coloured spots in the centre are reflections off the CCD in the camera. Or rather, from the microlens array on top of the sensor itself. I've seen this with various DSLRs (D1x, D70, D200, D2x), but it is not a common phenomenon and I suspect there must be a rare constellation of factors leading to this happening. A strong light source and small lens openings are always involved, though.

[calarrick]

Thanks all... useful thoughts and info. Also, I find it reassuring that there wasn't something obvious I missed in terms of technique, beyond those drawbacks of a small aperture of which I was well aware.