Lense Flare?

[Chris G]

I was reading some reviews on lenses and they talk about lense flares. I understand that at some point a lense will flare depending where the light is hitting it. But is there some point that some lenses handle flare better than others? And, if possible, what is that point?

This picture I'm pointing into the sun. Would every lense flare or do I have a bad copy?

http://img300.echo.cx/img300/9024/carissa20d245a6wl.jpg

I hope I make sense.

Thanks.

[tim]

Some lenses flare worse than others - for example the kit lens is terrible, the Tamron 28-75 is a lot better. Do you use lens hoods? They're your best defense against lens flare.

[Chris G]

Some lenses flare worse than others - for example the kit lens is terrible, the Tamron 28-75 is a lot better. Do you use lens hoods? They're your best defense against lens flare.


I did use my lense hood. Maybe I'm at just the right angle where there is nothing I can do but reframe to get rid of the flare.

[Tom W]

Every lens has its flare characteristics - some moreso than others.

Cheap, poorly coated filters add to the flare effect. Hoods help prevent it by shielding the front of the lens from bright light sources such as the sun. Sometimes, you can add some shielding to the lens with a cupped hand.

[ron chappel]

A lenshood is the normal way of lessening/avoiding flare .
Using a hand to shade the lens can also be very good,sometimes better than a hood.
In the case of the example photo you show,it would have been so easy to simply hold your hand to the front/side of the lens to block the light that was hitting the front lens element (asuming of course one can concentrate on doing that while trying to capture the right moment to take the picture-not allways possible!).

By the way-technically there are two different effects happening in that photo.The strong circles of light (with six edges?) are called ghosting i think,while the lack of contrast ,such as in the whole top right corner,is called veiling flare
Being aware of the flare seems to be the first step as it's not allways obvious in the viewfinder

[Chris G]

Thanks for the replys. ;-)

[Hellashot]

Depends on the lens, what hood you have on, and how far the glass is set back from the end of the lens - like the 50mm f1.4 is setback.

[Tom W]

Depends on the lens, what hood you have on, and how far the glass is set back from the end of the lens - like the 50mm f1.4 is setback.


Yes, and zooms have to be able to allow enough opening for its widest-angle setting, so often don't have adequate hood coverage for the longer end of the zoom range. The 24-70 is the exception to this rule, since the lens length changes within the hood and is actually longer at wide angle settings than it is at its telephoto setting.

[raylks]

In some situation I found that even with a cupped hand or lens hood attached, large flare still exists, depending on what recording media are in use. I use 70-200mm F/4L which is heavily subject to flare (with a big central spot on the image) when shooting with slides but less prone to flare with 350D. This makes me feel very odd. How could a slide produce more flare in the same situation and same angle of light!