Lots of comments to make...
#1 - Dump the UV filter. That's making things worse, not better. A "UV" filter was helpful in the days of film cameras where films were sensitive to UV light but it focuses at a different distance than visible spectrum light. The result was that images could be slightly less sharp and the UV filter dumped the UV light and provided a tiny improvement to the image.
But with digital cameras, the sensor is natively sensitive to more than film and very image would look worse without filtering. SO... the manufacturers all include UV and IR filter built into the camera (they are located immediately in front of the sensor). Consequently an external UV filter is redundant.
But what could it hurt, right? It turns out that smooth & flat glass surface on the filter creates reflections. Light passes through, some light reflects off the curved front face of your lens, back onto the nice "flat" reflective surface of the filter, and back into the lens again. This results in ghosting, extra flare, etc.
A lens can produce flare all on it's own ... but a UV filter will make things worse.
You'll want to avoid letting direct bright sunlight hit the front element of your lens (that's what the hood is for). If the hood can't block the sun, you can use anything available (hold a sheet of cardboard just out of frame to block the direct sunlight from hitting the lens) to help.
#2 - Your letting the camera auto-select it's AF point. When you use the full 19 point AF, the camera "evaluates" all the points... but chooses just one as it's favorite. That point is typically whichiever point could lock focus at the nearest distance to the camera.
When you know what you want in focus... it's better to select the focus point yourself.
#3 - You're using "P" (Program) mode. In this mode the camera doesn't really know what sort of shot you're trying to get so it just picks what it thinks is a "safe" exposure... but it will not likely be the optimal exposure.
If you want everything from the front to back of the car to be nicely focused, then you probably want an increased "depth of field". There are three primary factors that control this (including lens focal length and focus distance) but the factor you can adjust the easiest is the aperture value (aka "f-stop" aka "focal ratio").
For this you'd probably select "Av" mode (Aperture value mode) and select a higher aperture value such as f/8 or f/11 ... or even f/16.
#4 - You can use a "Circular Polarizer" to deal with reflections. This is a glass filter (much like your UV filter) and it threads onto the front of the camera lens. You can twist/rotate the filter and as you do, look through the camera and you'll observe that the intensity of "blue" in the sky and "green" in the foliage will change. If you're loooking at anything with a reflective surface (e.g. the car windshield on your red mitsubishi would be a good example) you'll notice the reflections are tamed and you can easily see "through" the glass instead of the harsh reflections on the glass. You'll actually notice all reflections are reduced as you rotate the filter to "tune" it.
However, these filters work best if the source of bright light that is creating the reflection is coming from the sides or at least a decent angle. If the source of bright light is nearly in front of your (like it is in the shot with the blue VW) then the effect will be reduced. Polarizers don't work well if the source of light is nearly directly ahead of you... or directly behind you.
Also, it MUST (this is important) be a "circular polarizing" filter (sometimes abbreviated "CPL") rather than a "linear polarizer" or just "polarizer". The name "circular" is NOT meant to refer to the filter actually being round (all thread-on filters are round). The name "ciruclar" refers to the fact that the polarizer actually has two layers... the front layer is a linear polarizer, but the back layer has something called a "quarter wave plate" (if you stare at the filter you wont see anything special. Your eye can't detect it... but your camera can.)
The light hitting the filter is randomly polarized. When objects strike a reflective surface, the reflecting rays take on an angle of polarizing based on the angle of the surface that caused the reflection. In other words all the light that is part of the "reflection" is polarized in the same direction (or nearly the same). All the light from sources that are NOT part of the reflection are randomly polarized.
The "linear polarization" layer lets you tune the angle of polarization for light to pass. Since all the light caused by the reflection will be polarized in nearly the same way, you can rotate the filter (twist it) to "tune out" those reflections... but all the light NOT caused by the reflections will still pass through the filter. The reflections disappear like magic (you may see a tiny bit... but reflections are dramatically reduced.)
But this solves one problem and creates another. It turns out both the auto-focus sensors in the camera as well as the metering system in the camera require randomly polarized light. When you use a "linear polarizer" the filter only allows light to pass that matches the angle of the filter's polarizing pattern.
This means the auto-focus system and metering system will struggle to work correctly.
So for a "ciruclar polarizer" they add an extra layer in the glass which is called a "quarter wave plate". This twists the polarized light such that the metering and auto-focus sensors are happy again.
If you place both a "linear polarizer" and "circular polarizer" on a table in front of you and inspect them... they're going to look and work the same to your eye. You wont notice any obvious difference. But to the camera, the "circular polarizer's" extra step (the quarter-wave plate) alters the polarity of light (in a way your eye can't detect) but it allows the camera AF & metering to work correctly.
#5 - I see you also have a picture of what looks to be a moving train. By default the camera uses a focus mode in which the camera begins focus ... and locks focus at some subject distance. Once this happens ... it STOPS focusing. But if your object is still moving... it's focus distance will be changing even though the camera has stopped focusing. The result is an out-of-focus shot.
This is the default behavior if the camera is in "One Shot" focus mode. The other mode is called "AI Servo" mode. In THAT mode the camera believes the subject is constantly moving and it never stops focusing... it will just keep updating the focus as the focus distance changes.
This has two consequences which may not be obvious. First is that the camera wont "chirp" to tell you it has finished focusing because... it hasn't finished focusing. It's continously focusing. So no chirp noises... just take the shot when you think it looks good. Second, this mode is usually used for action shots & sports where the most critical part of the shot is getting it at the "decisive moment". If you're shooting a runner sliding into home plate in baseball... there is a "best" moment to get that shot. This is what is meant by the "decisive moment". It's the one moment in time when the shot would be more appealing than any shot taking a second earlier or a second later. To help with this, the camera takes a behavior called "release priority". This means when you FULLY press the shutter button... the camera WILL TAKE THE SHOT. It will do this whether the camera had time enough to focus or not. In the default "One Shot" mode (meant for non-moving subjects) the camera uses "focus priority" which means when you FULLY press the shutter button, the camera will take the shot AFTER it belives it has achieved focus (which is not what action photographers want).
There is a third mode called "AI Focus" - which is an auto-decide mode. The camera initially behaves like it is using "One Shot" AF behavior... but if the subject starts to move it will switch over to "AI Servo" behvior. This might sound ideal but since it takes a moment for the camera to decide, this delay could cost you a "decisive moment" shot.
For this reason, if you KNOW you have stationary subjects, use "One Shot" mode. If you KNOW you have moving/action subjects, use "AI Servo" mode. If you aren't sure what you are going to encounter... use "AI Focus"
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
