Should i remove the excitement?

It's fun, so enjoy it and when you're done enjoying it I'd lose it. But I REALLY like the idea of a thread with interesting-shaped flare photos... you could start it with this one. Sort of like the Grilled Cheesus sandwhich, but for flare.

+1 on doing a crop if you like the exclamation point, but for the broader picture it's distracting. not just the presence of a flare, the rainbow spectrum of colors doesn't fit the two-tone dominated look otherwise.

Resurrecting as this started out to be an interesting thread. Hopefully, we'll get additional contributions.

icopus wrote in post #18848013
Resurrecting as this started out to be an interesting thread. Hopefully, we'll get additional contributions.

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Well, I'm glad you revived it. . I don't think that any thread should ever be left dormant. . And yes, folks, we know that the OP hasn't visited the forum in over 4 years - so what? . This discussion isn't for him; it's for us.

Anyway, icopus, I agree with the gist of what you said in post #12.

There doesn't need to be this decision about "do I remove something or do I leave it in?" . Or, "do I crop it this way, or do I crop it that way?" or, "should I smooth out the skin, or should I leave it natural?"

Sheesh!

With digital photography, there is no reason to ask these questions, because the answer can always be "both".

We can have many versions of every image. . Completely nondestructive editing (automatically saving a copy of the original) allow us to do this easily.

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I'll bite on the general question.

While a bit of lens or filter flare can produce something good, for me digital diffraction artifacts like the OP encountered are generally just ugly. If we want distorted little rainbow segments we can get them in post.

Even good old fashioned lens flare tends to throw unfocused light around and at least slightly degrade other parts of the overall image.

I'm very much in the "get it right in camera and then molest in post processing" school so other opinions will vary.

I say keep it, just because everyone else is annoyed with it. makes your image look incredibly hard to forget since it’s so memorable only because of the imperfection !

AZGeorge wrote in post #18848161
While a bit of lens or filter flare can produce something good, for me digital diffraction artifacts like the OP encountered are generally just ugly.

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Digital diffraction? . Hmmmm, that is interesting. . I thought that rainbows and flares were created from optical issues, not by digital issues. . In fact, I am completely unfamiliar with the term "digital diffraction".

I didn't know that this kind of effect was, or could be, created by the digital process. . I thought it was created by the way the light passed through the lens - optical diffraction.

If you are right, and it really is somehow created by the camera's electronics, and not by the lens' optics, then I have a whole new thing to learn about!


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The design of our digital sensors makes them into diffraction gratings when light hits at the right (wrong?) angle. They become, in effect, an array of tiny prisms.

A Wikipedia entry has everything I know and more on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.o​rg/wiki/Diffraction_gr​ating It even gives us an excuse to tear into an old junk phone or camera, extract the sensor, and play with a laser pointer.

A tip for eliminating flare (though it does require compositing) is to shoot one frame using card to block the sunlight from directly entering the lens and a second without blocking the sun. The first will have no flare and can then be easily blended with the second.