Weird reflection in M246 file

[Morry]

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Hi, please take a look at my attached picture taken by M246 with cron 35mm ASPH.
 
At the point where I added red circle in order to highlight, you can see weird reflections of the cafe's signboards.
 
Does anybody have any idea what this is ?
 
 
I can only presume this may occur at the limited occasion where very strong light is captured with dark background, at certain angle.
 
However what interesting is that there are other strong lights in this picture, but only those "New York Cafe" signboards are creating the reflection.
 
 
 
It was very dark so I pressed shutter number of times just to make sure, but all of them have exactly the same issue.
 
(By the way this was taken rather underexposed in DNG, and then lifted up +4.0 by Lightroom to make it easier to see this reflection. Not really meant to be a bright picture like this of course.)

 

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Edited November 15, 2015 by MDSP

[matlep]

Take the UV filter of you lens.

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[EoinC]

I think Matlep is correct - The refection is reversed and displaced, suggesting that it is light bouncing off the front of the lens, and again off the internal face of a filter.

[lucerne]

I think that there is a canopy made from clear plastic at the shop front and the light from the fluorescent signs may be being reflected off the plastic surfaces. Fluorescent signs often create confusing effects.   More importantly, there is glass in the windows of the shop. These act as lenses.   If filters caused so many reflections, no one would ever use them and no one would be able to use spectacles!  Was your filter a very cheap "film" between glass version. No offense meant!  They can delaminate but I don't think this is the cause.

I notice that the shop is called "prism".  Surely something that would cause strange effects although not in this case I think.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with your camera or lens. The camera has recorded what it saw. . Your image is very low in contrast and presented in an over exposed state. I know that was deliberate post processing.  (I've just noticed that you did raise the exposure to show the reflection.). The content and the reflections might be better shown in a colour rendition developed from the original raw file.  However, they are part of the scene, so they belong there. Imagine if you had noticed these when taking the picture, only to find that Leica had engineered it's camera to remove all reflections from the DNG file!

i find that my Leica captures so much detail that I'm often amazed at what the scene contains on closer examination.  I love reflections.  Hong Kong was great for me.  Lots of glass and illuminated signs which were great for nighttime shooting.

 

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Edited November 15, 2015 by lucerne

[matlep]

I think that there is a canopy made from clear plastic at the shop front and the light from the fluorescent signs may be being reflected off the plastic surfaces. Fluorescent signs often create confusing effects.   More importantly, there is glass in the windows of the shop. These act as lenses.   If filters caused so many reflections, no one would ever use them and no one would be able to use spectacles!  Was your filter a very cheap "film" between glass version. No offense meant!  They can delaminate but I don't think this is the cause.

I notice that the shop is called "prism".  Surely something that would cause strange effects although not in this case I think.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with your camera or lens. The camera has recorded what it saw. . Your image is very low in contrast and presented in an over exposed state. Maybe that was deliberate.   (I've just noticed that you did raise the exposure to show the reflection.). The content and the reflections might be better shown in a colour rendition developed from the original raw file.  However, they are part of the scene, so they belong there. Imagine if you had noticed these when taking the picture, only to find that Leica had engineered it's camera to remove all reflections!

 

image.jpeg

Just remove the UV-filter and problem is solved. 100%  

[lucerne]

Don't frighten MDSP.

 

Is it important to avoid using filters?  I don't think so!

 

nighttime shots in confined areas will always include interesting, image enhancing, unexpected or unwanted reflections.  That's why I go to countries with such streets.   All glass in shops reflects. The glass in shop windows may be thin, thick, laminated, tinted, uneven, strengthened, and each type can cause a variety of reflections including double.  Specialist Lenses and filters that we use are optical quality designed not to introduce these effects.  Quality optical equipment has antireflective coating.  Leica lenses have threads to accept  filters. If Leica didn't want to risk introducing artefacts into images, they would avoid providing threads at the front of the lens, and wouldn't sell filters.  Leica goes to great lengths to avoid any unwanted artefacts appearing in images taken with their lenses and which are caused by the lens assembly.  I've just ordered a clear B+W filter for my Q. I'm off to shoot Mumbai.  

Edited November 15, 2015 by lucerne

[matlep]

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Lucerne, seriously... It is pretty common knowledge that filters degrade image quality.

 

But does it matter in 99% of the cases? No probably not.

 

But if you shoot in dark streets with bright lights and don't want reflections, just remove the filter.

 

What happens when you add a filter is that you move the front element a couple of millimetres forward with makes light bounce of the sensorglass and then bouncing of the back of the filter causing the reflection to be visible. It does not matter if you use a B+W filter or a 1€ filter of Ebay. The outcome is the same.

 

The threads on the lenses are useful to other use than just clear glass filter. But I'm guessing you probably know that. And stating that the filter thread is just for using protective filters is just plain ignorant. If you ask Leica or Canon or whatever manufacturer their answer to to the question of "when to use a protective filter" is: Never! 

[Morry]

matlep, EoinC, lucerne,

 

Thank you so much for your comments and I am already pretty much convinced !

 

Having experienced to put scratches onto lens surface(luckily not on Leica lens but on cheaper ones), I do use filter now for protection.

 

After a while this may be the first obvious side effect.

 

Anyway thank you once again.

[pgk]

I'm not so sure that this is a filter induced artefact. If you put a line through opposite corners you will see that the reflection is on this line and to me this indicates that it might well be an internal flare reflection of a extremely bright highlight. Whether this is reflected off the filter or an internal element is IMO hard to say but I'm tempted to say that it might be an internal element and its the sort of problem which can happen with a grossly overexposed highlight in an otherwise relatively dark scene.

 

If it was off the filter then I'd expect to see artefacts like it off the other image highlights, and because I can't and its produced on the opposing side of the image where a 'flare' image would occur, I'm suspecting that its a single artefact from a lens element surface. ALL lenses can cause odd effects with grossly overexposed highlights and I wouldn't worry about it too much. You may find though that a filter can cause some reflections and even perhaps a degree of veiling flare under such conditions so as 'good practice' it might be worth removing the filter for such shots (and replacing as protection after the shot has been taken).

[Morry]

Pgk, thank you.

 

One important additional info is that I also took few similar shots, placing the illuminating signboards more at the center of the photograph.

 

They had no such reflection.

 

This has started after I have begun to place the signboards at the side of the photograph as shown, so definitely the angle matters to make the light bounce within the UV filter, or as you suspect within the lens it self (possibly with less chance though).

 

I am usually a day light shooter so the chance to face this type of issue is minimal, but hopefully this post may be a little help for others to enhance their knowledge too.