Problems with backlight flare on HX-9

[clarkde]

I have just started to use the HX-9V and am generally pleased with the backlight facility but have noticed occasionally a over-exposed spot.  See the example below

Has anyone else experienced this.  Each time the camera automatically selected backlight.

[blaireau_photo]

Hello clarkde - welcome to the Sony Forums

Could you please describe the shooting mode that you are using for this shot - in particular the mode you have selected on the dial i.e. intelligent auto / superior auto (the shooting modes are explained further here). Are there any other modes that you have selected in addition to this?

Thanks,

Simon

[clarkde]

Hi Simon

The camera was set at superior auto and with flash set to "no flash".  In the other picture that showed this "flare" the position is identical.  As I said though other photos taken with the same setting come out perfectly without this artifact.

Do we think that this is a software problem when superimposing the three shots or might it be a hardware problem.

Many thanks

[blaireau_photo]

Hello again - thanks for the extra info

I am going to get a second opinion about this to see if there are any known instances of the processing causing this 'flare' to occur - I will let you know as soon as I have any further information for you.

Regards,

Simon

[clarkde]

Hi Simon

Any luck with this yet. 

Has anyone else withan HX-9 experienced this

[blaireau_photo]

Hello again clarkde

I have been discussing this with some others users - apologies for not getting in touch sooner as I am trying to come up with something conclusive. Can I just double check with you that the flare is only occuring / only occured under a particular setting whilst it wasn't as pronounced in others.

Thanks,

Simon

[Mick2011 · Accepted solution]

It looks like the sort of flare you'd expect with the sun shining into the lens, made more visible by the Backlight setting.

It might well be present if you took the same shot using manual settings, but as Backlight blends much brighter exposures (to lighten dark foregrounds) with darker ones (to help keep backgrounds from 'burning out') you will occasionally get this ghosted flare somewhere in the frame when the sun's in the 'wrong' place.

Avoiding it takes a little preparation. Obviously keeping the sun to one side is always preferable to having it shine into the lens, but this isn't always possible.

It will be much less likely to happen with the lens zoomed in; wide-angle shots will exacerbate the effect, so step back (if you can) and re-frame.

Also if the flare 'spot' ends up being on a bright part of the image, it won't be anywhere near as noticeable as it is in your example above, where the darker shaded parts of the window show it up. You might be able to see this on the screen as you're taking the shot and perhaps move a little to one side, which will affect the placement of the spot.

One thing I would say is that it can happen with any camera/lens/mode combination; I don't think this is a problem with the HX9 as such.

Hope that's of some help

Mick

[clarkde]

Mick

Many thanks for your suggestions.  Looking at the properties in Picassa of the 2 photos that showed this, the common factor seems to be an an f stop of  3.5 and 3.3.  The one photo that I took with two zoom positions changed the aperture to f/8 and no flare the one with flare was f/3.5.

I think with a camera such as this is we can get seduced by the power of the software and forget the fundamentals that we use with our SLRs.

So I will pay better attention to the f stop being proposed in auto mode and switch to manual or another program.

Thanks

Derek

[Mick2011]

Hi Derek

Yes, aperture will certainly play a part; even a modest stop or two down from wide open will help.

Glad you sussed it out

Mick