Issues with locomotive lights in my photos...

Hi all

I have been snapping digital photos of trains for about 6 years now (wow, how did THAT happen???). I have stuck with Canon the whole time, though I have tried Nikon, Olympus, and Panasonic cameras (only the Panasonic Lumix I kept). I currently have a Canon SX10IS Powershot.

My issue is with diesel locomotive lights. They never used to be problem, but now they are ruining some of my photos. They appear like big orange halos. I have to wait for the train to get to the right angle before the issue goes away. This makes sence, but I never had such a problem before, and certain shots just aren't coming out as well as they should.

Is it possible that the lens of the camera is different than my old ones, or could it be the electronics? Supposedly this Canon can't accept filters, but I am not sure as I don't have experience with SLRs and how such things work.

Any thoughts?

JD

Modern digital camera lenses are designed to perform well in typical consumer use, but shooting right into bright headlights is not a common use, and locomotive headlights are particularly intense. Generally the faster the lens and the more elements it has, the more likely it is to flare when pointed into a headlight. Lens flare is pretty common in pocket type digitals with long zoom range.

The lenses that have the highest flare resistance are usually single focal length with the fewest elements and the least glass. If you are using a digital SLR camera (I am not familiar with the various Canon models), many of them accept older manual focus lenses by the same manufacturer, and you might try a 35mm lens (which gives about the same view field as a 50mm on a film camera). I have an old 35mm f2 manual focus lens from my film camera days that is virtually impossible to flare on my digital SLR camera, even at night, and it still supports all the modern autoexposure functions. The optical performance of this particular lens actually seems BETTER on the digital camera than it was on the film camera. So if you have some older manual focus lenses that will fit your camera, try them out, you might be surprised how useful they still are.

MX

My Canon is not an SLR. It was at the time their second-best high-end "point and shoot". It won't fit in my pocket!! That is why I am not sure what to do about this. Perhaps this time around I will just have to live with it? Or can I rig a filter of some sort...

JD

If your camera does not have interchangeable lens capability you are pretty restricted in what you can do about this problem. Adding a filter will not help, it is just another piece of glass and could make the lens flare even worse. If you are really serious about railroad photography it would be best to budget a new camera that uses interchangeable lenses, and if you want to shoot difficult lighting situations look for one that can also take the older film camera lenses so you have a better assortment to choose from.

MX

Just curious at what angle you are shooting? If it is like your avatar, try stepping away from the tracks so you're not quite so head on with the head lights. I'm not failiar with your camera, but you did say that it is a "higher end" P&S, so I'm guessing it has the bigger diameter lense insead of the little pinhole like my old P&S. Maybe a good cleaning of the lense is due after 6 years with sensor cleaner. It may have aquired an oily film of some sort over time.

I have had this camera only a year or so. I am festidious about clean lenses. (Men seem to be the worst at keeping them clean, I notice...) So it isn't shmutz on the lens. I also realize angles play a big role. But it was never such an issue before.

For those who understand lenses more than me, here is what the camera says it has: 5.0-100.0mm 1:2.8-5.7 USM

In order to get the SLR-verzion of this zoom, I'd need something like a 400-500mm lens. And it would have to be more like 25-500mm. That = $$$

I tried messing with a setting called "i-contrast". Have not noticed any difference with it on or off, really. Though maybe that was playing a role...

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... =NellsChoo

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... =NellsChoo

This is just the nature of the beast. When you have a zoom lens that goes from wide angle to extreme telephoto, it is always going to have more problems with flare than a lens that has a more modest zoom range. That's simply one of the tradeoffs one must accept in exchange for the convenience of a lens with that much zoom range. :-\

I know that's not the answer you were looking for, and I wish there was an easy solution, but I'm afraid there isn't any (short of buying a DSLR and three or four different lenses).

If you are concerned about the quality of your images, you really need to consider moving up to a DSLR eventually. There are typically Nikon D40 and/or D60 kits available with both the 18-55mm and 55-200mm zoom lenses for a reasonable price, and I'm sure similar Canon DSLR kits are also offered. You could keep your current camera for the really long-range zoom photography until you have an opportunity to buy the appropriate lens. I think you'd see a significant difference in image quality.

Does your camera have full manual control? If so, you could try stopping down to F8 or so (assuming there is enough light). This helps keep headlights in my shots from "exploding" into the rest of the frame or otherwise looking hazy like that.

YES, it does have full manual. I have messed with that a little, but I STILL can't get apature (arpature??) and f-stops straight in my head. It's like math... my brain shuts off... You can choose ISO, too, which is the easiest to understand from my film days. 400+ means GRAINY! It is all so much to think about in such a short time. The train would be long gone!

My boyfriend finally bought an Olympus DSLR when Circuit City closed. He got the body and two lenses for what the camera alone usually cost. Maybe I should borrow it... But he is always complaining about not having the right lens on when something happens he didn't expect.

Another issue I have is the speed at which I can manually zoom into/out-from something, like a bird, or moving train. With my camera, it is just a finger-flick. I tried an Olympus that was set up like an SLR, you had to do the zoom yourself. It was awful, I missed so many shots I put it on Ebay in no time.

ANYHOO, what does "F8" do that is helpful?

Aperture, F-stop, same thing. A HIGHER F-stop number is a SMALLER aperture, meaning it lets LESS light in for a given shutter speed. So F3.2 or something will let more light in that F8. It also changes how the camera focuses, so the "depth of field" will be different. If you're zoomed in on something at F3.2 you may notice that one area of the photo is in focus but elsewhere in the photo (background or foreground) things are out of focus. Now if you took the same shot at F8 you might notice that pretty much all areas of the shot are in focus (it's a deeper depth of field).

Anyways, for reasons I don't fully understand, if you have two properly-exposed photos, one with a fast shutter speed and large aperture and the other with a slow shutter speed and smaller aperture, they don't actually look exactly the same. Not in terms of locomotive headlights at least. Even if your other settings are right, a large aperture (lower F-stop numerically) can produce less-than-ideal headlights. If you have an "aperture priority" mode on your camera, you can set it to a certain aperture and the camera will choose the proper shutter speed. Then you don't have to think as much. My camera's smallest aperture is F8, so that's what I use if it's bright enough outside. I use F7.2 or F6.4 in a pinch, but I can't open things up any more than that without the headlights getting out of control.

ISO basically makes the camera more or less sensitive to light in general, regardless of other settings. A higher ISO will be more sensitive to light so you'd have to adjust shutter speed and/or aperture accordingly. Or the camera does it automatically for you if you're not on full manual. You get grain at higher ISO in the form of digital noise on the sensor, basically. That's why I set my ISO as low as I can. I only bump it higher in low-light situations. This allows me to use a fast shutter speed to stop the motion of a speeding train, while still having a bright enough photo.

Definitely check out your boyfriend's DSLR. I don't have a DSLR but if I had one available for me to play around with, I'd do it!

The aperture range of f5.6 to f11 offers the best results for the typical SLR camera lens, with many photographers considering f8 to be the 'sweet spot' to photograph at. I use my Nikon D40 in aperture priority mode in this range, with the 'Auto ISO' feature engaged to bump up the ISO if the selected shutter speed drops below 1/125th of a second.

There was some well-known photographer whose motto was "F8 and be there." Gotta love it!

One thing you notice in night shots is that using too high an f-stop can result in a "projection flare" that is caused by light that goes through the aperture and projects a ghost of the brightest lights into an area of the film emulsion or CCD image 180 degrees opposite the source.

In any really difficult lighting situation you are usually best advised to use a camera that accepts interchangeable lenses, put away the zoom lens (too many elements, too much flare) and get out a good quality single focal length lens.

MX

mxdata wrote:One thing you notice in night shots is that using too high an f-stop can result in a "projection flare" that is caused by light that goes through the aperture and projects a ghost of the brightest lights into an area of the film emulsion or CCD image 180 degrees opposite the source.

In any really difficult lighting situation you are usually best advised to use a camera that accepts interchangeable lenses, put away the zoom lens (too many elements, too much flare) and get out a good quality single focal length lens.

MX

I think I have noticed this in my photos because some of my night shots are long exposures at a relatively high f-stop. Maybe I'll try opening up the aperture more and cutting the shutter speed to see what that does.