Strange blooming/ghost lines on A7Sii Stills

[bugboy]

Hey guys, 

 

Love my A7Sii for video but have been getting into using it for some still lately. I realize it's only 12mp and the A7R is the better stills camera. But I'm wondering if anyone knows why I'm getting the ugly blooming on the over-exposed parts (the streetlights and the strange lines behind the wires of the bridge. (Around the middle of the pic.) I'm assuming the lines are the streetlights reflecting off the wires but how could I avoid this?

 

It's the Sony FE 28mm f/2 Lens. f/18 15seconds and 320 iso.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

 

 

 

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[EvilTed]

Silent Shutter mode?

[bugboy]

Don't think so as I was shooting most of the night with silent shutter turned off. Thanks for the reminder though as I'm going to turn off silent shutter for good.

[Mathias]

Was the hood on?

Did you use a filter?

 

Anyway, looks strange.

Maybe try even without EFCS next time...

[bugboy]

Didn't use the hood or a filter. Glad to know it's strange though and not just a limitation of the camera. Actually I was just peeking through my settings and had streadyshot turned on so I wonder if that caused the problem as I was shooting on a tripod. 

[JonathanStewart]

That looks like diffraction on the lights, and ghosting/flaring on the lens with the streaks. 

Try shooting at f/9 to f/11.  You should get better stars around the lights, more defined with less diffraction. 

As for the streaks, unfortunately, that sort of thing is an inherent trait of the lens.  It's light reflecting between the elements.  Premium lenses have less of that, but it's hard to eliminate completely.  All I can recommend is trying to adjust your shooting angle, or shielding the lens from extraneous light sources if possible, so the ghosts/flares don't show up. 

[dandman3039]

Looks like the lens is causing the problem, with how the lens is flaring on highlights. Check out the MFT chart for that lens, and where things start getting distorted when you stop down to get an idea for what your ideal minimum aperture should be.

[bugboy]

Thanks for the responses guys. Love learning new things so I appreciate your knowledge! 

[Golem]

Despite all the theoretically correct worries about diffraction,

stopping down does reduce internal reflections. And it's NOT

just a matter of avoiding a fully wide open iris. Reflection are

reduced more and more the further you stop down ... cuz it

reduces the amount of glass area in use. Diffraction is just a

loss of resolution. Reflections are a pictorial problem, call it

"image pollution" whereas any loss of resolution is "image

degradation". Modern gear makes verrrry crisp images. So

even if slightly degraded, they're still quite crisp. But "image

pollution" is the presence of things that don't belong in the

image at all. Better to allow a bit of degradation if it reduces

pollution. IOW, stop down more for real world scenes with

light sources in the scene. But shoot at ideal aperture when

shooting resolution tests :-)  

[bugboy]

Thanks Golem. Appreciate the insight!