Of rainbows and UFOs ... :)

[dmr]

Here's a goodie for you. I've seen lens flare and reflections before, but never something this bizarre ...

Last Friday I decided to put the QL17 GIII thru its paces just to see what it would do. I got the thing mainly for low-light stuff, so I drove around a bit, shot such things as street scenes, parking lots, skylines, and disobeyed all the rules. In particular I tried to use low speeds and wide f stops, or both.

I got a rather strange flare-reflection-whatever image in the attachment on the left. Looks almost like a monochrome rainbow and a UFO to its upper left. I've never seen such a thing this clearly defined.

The one on the right is the same scene stopped down. Yeah, the UFO is in there but a bit more subtle.

Anybody seen artifacts like this?

I'm just in the process of learning what this thing will and won't do, and it seems to get more interesting each day.

 

[phototone]

Yep, that thar is an internal lens reflection. I get those with much more expensive lenses when I include bright point light sources in the photo in low available light situations. It could be from a light source just outside the field of view, and you might improve it by using a very good lens shade that restricts the view to just what the film needs.....Or, you could retouch it out in Photoshop.

Phototone

 

[dmr]

It could be from a light source just outside the field of view,

I'm very sure that's what caused it. I was shooting into the brightly-lit parking lot and yes, there were some more lights off to the right of the scene.

and you might improve it by using a very good lens shade that restricts the view to just what the film needs

Good idea. I really haven't used a lens hood except for the one that came with the 135mm for the old Spotmatic years ago.

.....Or, you could retouch it out in Photoshop.

Never! Although this one is really a throw-away test shot, I often like the intrinsic beauty of the artifacts caused by lens flare and reflections and even things like motion blur and such. I was doing things like shooting into the lights intentionally to see what I would get.

As I look at this one more I can even detect true hues in the "rainbow" and in the UFO as well. That UFO thing is very fascinating to look at on the laptop in the dark as many of the subtle details are visible that are not on the regular monitor in a lit room.