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Hi,

I'm hoping that one of you learned photographers can share some tips about what can be done about ghosting, besides buying a better lens.

When I do night-shots with either my Nikon 18-55 kit-lens or my 55-200 VR, I often suffer from ghosting.

I wonder if there is a filter I can use or if using a hood might help? Or if tehre is another good remedy before post-processing as I'd rather not have to clone everything out.

Your input and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Cheers

UV?

How come you get ghosting with the 18-55 and i dont? Could you show me some example of this ghosting? I would be rather more interested in seeing that, something worthwhile to mention in a review for example...

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Hi Alex,

here's two examples:

Up and to the left of the street lamp, center.


Above the far shore lamps, there's a whole row of small light-specks


I'm not sure if it's technically "ghosting" or "flares" or what the real difference is between these two concepts. However, they don't look like typical flares to me.

These are long exposure - several seconds. In this particular case, it would be not too hard to clone out, but I'm curious to know if there are filters or techniques to avoid them without having to resort to post processing.

I do have UV filters on both lenses. These shots were taken with the 18-55.

Cheers

That is really weird mate, yeah i do see that and i think its called ghosting!

Well i m curious because i haven't experienced that with my 18-55mm and i have shot it from everything from 30sec to 5min bulb mode (buffer time on that image is crazy long) and haven't experienced any ghosting at all, could it be just your lens? Or maybe i just have a sloppy eye, i will go back and check my night shots out again!

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Definitely ghosting, caused by internal light refraction.

2 approaches, of which you haven't given sufficient information for at the moment.

A) Stop the lens down further to reduce ghosting. There's no EXIF data, so from my suspicions I think you had the aperture moderately stopped down already from the star bursts from the street lighting, let's say something like f7.1-11.

B) Get a multicoated UV filter and that may (only may) reduce some ghosting. Particular emphasis here is that this method doesn't alway work.

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Hi Alex and Photoj,

thank you very much for your help in this matter. I had no idea that stopping down might reduce ghosting - this is a very helpful tip that I will certainly try!

Photoj, I think I can even see the effect of stopping down, given that the first one is F4 and the second one is F10. When I check the other shots I took form the same spot but with F16 and below, I see no ghosting. I'm sure the angle to the light has something to say as well, but probably not a parameter I can "manage" per se, I would guess.

I might have to overcome my stubbornness and allow my camera to use ISO800 and not limit it to ISO400 as I do now for night-shots.

If it keeps bugging me, I will have to give it a try to invest in better multi-coated UV filters as well. The ones I have are pretty "pedestrian" to say the least..lol.

Of course the issue of the much longer exposures and/or higher ISO comes in, but aren't those the eternal dynamics we deal with ?

Thank you very much for the insights and the tips, I really appreciate it

Cheers!

Those are ISO 400? Damn the D40 sure can deliver!

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Hi Alex,

yeah for the price, I can't complain. NR is off in the camera and no NR i post processing either.

Cheers

Are you using any filters at the moment. They could be the source of your problem, especially if they are not multi-coated.

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