Good Lens for Night Photography

[vijayb]

Dear everyone,

I am a big fan of night photography specifically the city scape shots with street lights and lighted buildings. Lens flare seems to be public enemy number 1 in this arena. I am currently using the 18-55 kit lens and have produced some good shots but they tend to suffer from lens flare when the lamps are in the shot.

Through research, I found that the 17-55mm f4 L by Canon does a good job at eliminating the lens flare and was prepared to purchase but found the focal length on the tele side to dissapointing.

Further research showed that primes lenses do an excellent job of killing flares and helping produce excellent tack sharp images. Therefore, I am now thinking about getting a wide prime lens (< 24mm). Any recommendations?

Also note that I tend to carry tripod and have no qualms about reducing the aperture to get sharpness. Sharpness and quality is paramount. Finance is also a requirement though (Isn't it always?). Something under 500USD will be great.

[Sime]

lens flare mainly comes from a light source (street lights) shining right into the lens and bouncing around a bit... Why not try (rather than blowing dollars first) sheilding the lens from the direct light while you're shooting at night.. get a lens hood or use a bit of cardboard and some tape? If you can't work out where the lens flare light source is coming from, stand in front of your camera when it's on its tripod and look into the lens (stand back a little bit) and the light you see reflecting back is most likely the source of your flare... Try it, let us know how you go.

Sime

[Sime]

Oh, and welcome to dPS :-)

[vijayb]

Thanks for the quick reply Simon!

Good tip about getting the lens flare under control. I like the tip on pinpointing the source of flare. Never tried that one. I will check it out.

However, I wanted to get more flexibility when shooting into a light source esp for things like street lamps. Quite nice to line them up and change the mood of the shot. Currently, I do move the cam+tripod around a bit to sidestep the flares. Its getting a bit old. I was thinking how great it will be if I can stop doing that and have the luxury of just concetrating on getting a great composition. That was the reason for the lens upgrade.

Thanks for the welcome. Its good to be here.

[Sime]

Sure thing, and I hear what you're saying... I get lens flare with my Canon 24-70L series lens.. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don't... Especially when it's not as easy to correct (concert photography, don't always have the ability to move around a light source) I don't think there's any lens that totally gets rid of flare. S

[vijayb]

Ah... Even the 24-70L gets it huh. You were right about the light bouncing inside the lens bit. Thats why apparently primes do a better job of it. Less construction material or something to that effect.

I heard rave reviews about the 17-40L. It seems like a great lens for flare control. I might just have to settle with that. True about all lenses setting off flares but seems like my kit gets it quite a bit. Love the focal range but hate the flares. Just wish Canon added another 10mm to the 17-40L and it would have been the perfect kit replacement lens.

They came out with a 17-55 2.8F which is awesome but has even more issues with flares... Go figure.

[Sime]

My 50mm f1.4 too, I can pull great lens flares with her!... :-)