What is causing this glare? Last night, I took several shots of this bridge using various shutter speeds- 2,5,10 seconds. The shot posted here is 5 seconds. Any ideas? All I can think...

MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

Last night, I took several shots of this bridge using various shutter speeds- 2,5,10 seconds. The shot posted here is 5 seconds. Any ideas? All I can think of is that I did not have the lens hood on.

Thanks

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PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

MWojton wrote:

Last night, I took several shots of this bridge using various shutter speeds- 2,5,10 seconds. The shot posted here is 5 seconds. Any ideas? All I can think of is that I did not have the lens hood on.

Thanks

Did you have a UV filter on? If so that will cause the glare.

MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

PixelStan77 wrote:

Did you have a UV filter on? If so that will cause the glare.

Yes,I do

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

You mean glare in the illuminated sign? Lower your ISO or shutter speed.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Causes? Perhaps moisture in the air and pixel smear [sensor overlap because the individual sensor cuts are so small vs the spread of light from lens.]
This smear effect was one of the problems going from 3mp camera to more cuts on the same size sensor. There was a similar effect in film photography in which the light hitting a grain reflected to an adjacent grain of light sensitive material. Lots of very tech info on photography by Dr. Clark check his series of articles http://www.clarkvision.com
http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/does.pixel.size.matter/

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

This scene has an extremely high dynamic range and you will need to determine what part of the scene you want properly exposed at the expense of other parts. A single shot can't capture the entire range. What you have captured is a good compromise but does, as you see, have it's limitations and a man's got to know his limitations... oh wait, wrong movie. This would be an excellent opportunity to try HDR processing but you will need 3 photos at differing exposures such as -2, 0, +2.

MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

PixelStan77 wrote:

Did you have a UV filter on? If so that will cause the glare.

Thanks to everyone. I took PixelStan's advice and went back last night and took off the UV filter- perfect! Now, it makes me wonder what effect the filter is having on the thousands of other photos I have taken. What do you think?

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

MWojton wrote:

Thanks to everyone. I took PixelStan's advice and went back last night and took off the UV filter- perfect! Now, it makes me wonder what effect the filter is having on the thousands of other photos I have taken. What do you think?

My pleasure. I use the UV filter when I am near a hostile environment like sand, dusty, water to protect the front element

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

A (clean) filter really has no effect except in situations such as what you have with the bridge--very bright lights. The problem seems to be the fact that the bright lights reflect from the front element onto the rear of the filter, which acts in that case a bit like a transparent mirror. Of course it is possible that a cheap filter would have some other optical effect. To check put your camera on a tripod and shoot two identical shots of a normal scene--one with and one without a filter. Go into a image editor and compare at 100%. Every time I have done this during daytime, I have failed to find any discernible effect of using a filter even at 100%.

MWojton Loc: Yardley, PA

kymarto wrote:

A (clean) filter really has no effect except in si... (show quote)

Good idea. I think an experiment is in order

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

MWojton wrote:

Last night, I took several shots of this bridge using various shutter speeds- 2,5,10 seconds. The shot posted here is 5 seconds. Any ideas? All I can think of is that I did not have the lens hood on.

Thanks

What aperture? Do the test recommended by Kymarto, shooting wide open, mid-range (f/5.6-f/8), and then stopped all the way down. View at 100% and report back