product of lens haze? or lens signature?

[yelofngr]

hello everyone,

i got around to shooting with this 1952 summitar i just picked up and am happy with the results so far. there is some haze in the rear element and two small spots of separation in the front, all of which you dont see unless you look for it with a flashlight. with hood on, i didnt see any flare that i had problems with. with it stopped down around 5.6 or past, it was sharp to me as well.

however, this one particular picture i have questions about. i shot this wide open and i dont know the words for this effect, but i've circled them in red.

is this effect normal for the summitar wide open? what is this slight ghosting/glow? i'm brand new to this and i have never seen this on pictures before.

anyone with a summitar experienced this in their photos?

sorry for the crappy trackpad thin red outline. clearer picture on my flickr, link below, first picture.

 

[Steve M.]

Could be flare. Get a hood for it and it will probably clear right up.

 

[JoeV]

My initial guess is that it appears to be flare from something like haze on the lens, or perhaps in one of the inner elements. It appears to only affect the bright highlights, and only the parts that are OOF. You'll notice the figure in the center, just in front of the stone block, the sharply focused edge of his white shorts don't exhibit this affect, only on the OOF highlights do I see it.

Since the scene indicates it was exposed on an overcast day (from the shadows), I don't expect sun flare is the problem, hence a lens hood probably wouldn't help.

I'd try to repeat this kind of scene, maybe one or two stops smaller in aperture, and see the resulting affect. It may be an artifact of the lens design at wide-open apertures, combined with with age-induced haze spots and separation that you mentioned earlier. Probably a good lens to keep using at smaller-than-wide open apertures, however; just stay away from fully open with bright highlights in the scene.

~Joe