Lens Flare

Beat lens flare

Techniques

24 October 2007 10:11

Lens flare is a common problem that normally occurs when a very bright source of light is pictured within the shot, or lies just outside the viewfinder. Normally it’s an undesirable side effect, but it can be used creatively, to make an image appear much brighter and hotter.

To deliberately exploit flare, simply include a bright light source in your composition. Zoom lenses tend to be more prone to lens flare than fixed (‘prime’) lenses, so choose a zoom if you can. You’ll need to position the light source towards the edge of the frame to get a good beam of ‘ghost’ flares as we have here.

If your pictures are coming out too dark, use exposure compensation and add a stop or two to the exposure – this will make the flare more prominent, too. You can also use the depth-of-field preview button on your camera to gauge how the flare will look at the selected aperture.