First Try Intentional Lens Flare

[smoke665]

I've been studying and experimenting with creating lens flare in studio. I've discovered it's not as easy as it looks, especially when your glass is noted for the coating to eliminate flare. I'm not real happy, with the setup, I think I'll try switching the background to black, using two lights on axis toward the camera with gels, and introduce a little smoke in the equation. At this point I don't know if I'm far enough along in the process to even ask an intelligent question, but if there are others who've done this, perhaps you'd share some tips, suggestion, as I'm flying by the seat of the pants here.

 

[480sparky31]

Add a clear filter.... or two.....

 

[Jeff1539]

I don't like this smoke..............

 

[smoke665]

I don't like this smoke..............

Don't mince words Jeff. LOL it's not really a finished print it's a learning exercise (for me) to use lens flare creatively in a repeatable manner in studio. I've captured lens flare sometimes on purpose, most times accidentally. Done correctly it is quite dramatic.

 

[Jeff1539]

No offence meant smoke...........

 

[480sparky31]

Smoke?

 

[smoke665]

No offence meant smoke...........

None taken, image was mainly for illustration. I posted in this section in hopes others might have tried similar things and had suggestions.

 

[smoke665]

Smoke?

That's on my list to try.

 

[Derrel]

A couple of years ago I bought an
inexpensive 70 to 210 mm f/4~5.6 Tokina. It gives me lens flare galore! It is super-easy to produce gorgeous lens flare whenever the lens
is pointed toward the sun,or any bright light source for that matter. I paid 29 bucks for this lens at a pawnshop. Like other Tokinszooms that I have owned this one is a real flaremeister,which was my nickname for My Tokina28 to 70 F2.8, which I nicknamed Der Flare Meister, which I bought brand new in 2001.

The Tokina 70-210 has some red accents on the barrel,and I assume that it was made in the 1990s, or perhaps in the early 2000's. Either way it creates a lot of lens flare that looks pretty good to me, and actually it is nice to have a lens that flares in a good way.

 

[Derrel]

When you find a lens that flares the way you want, you should keep it. You are correct when you say that most modern lenses are coated so well that lens flare is difficult to produce. When I was a kid I had a Russian-made Zenit with a 58 mm F2 Auto-Cosmogon lens, which flared in a very beautiful and soft way. Very soft flair, over large areas of the frame, wherever it was shot toward the sky.

My first-ever Nikon lens was a 35
f/2.8 model which had been cleaned badly so many times that it basically had no remaining lens coating on either the front or the rear lens elements and it flared ver, very badly, even in relatively normal situations, and against the light it was basically unusable. I got this lens with my first Nikon in 1981 or so, and I suspect the lens was of a vintage around the early 1960s, and like I said it had been cleaned very,very badly many times:upon close inspection one could see a multitude of very tiny scratches in the Front element.

 

[paigew]

You need the light higher, and almost out of the frame...I’ll find an example for you!


Well shoot, of course I can't find the example I'm thinking of :/ But yes try raising your light and shooting so the light barely comes into your lens!


I found this quick shot at a wedding (not my best photo ever, but you get the idea). You can see my light source behind. Its right in the corner of the frame with the light moving across the lens, not directly into it....and you get two types of flare, the soft hazy light from the flash, and the flare.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[smoke665]

@Derrel You jogged my memory. I have an old Profoto lens in a junk drawer somewhere I need to try. Also in further reading I had a lens hood on, didn't even think about it, because I leave them on. Duh!

@paigew I initially started with the light hogh in the corner, but wasnt happy with the effect. It would probably help if I had a better idea what i was looking for on effect.

 

[Derrel]

Speaking of lens hoods… The Tokina lens that I snapped a photo of last night has a fairly large and well-exposed front element. I do not have a lens shade for it, and the front element is really far out and exposed to the sun's rays from almost any angle.

I would expect that if I used it really good lens shade like a compendium shade, that the lens would flare almost not at all.

 

[Derrel]

Many times if a strong studio flash is aimed right at the lens front element or at least steep angle to different element, it will generate either flare or ghosting.

Ghosting is a image of the shape of the lens diaphragm Opening.It has been used to good effect by many cinematographers where we are treated too many concurrent diaphragm ghosts commonly used in establishing helicopter shots, and at the start or end of many film productions.

 

[smoke665]

Ghosting is a image of the shape of the lens diaphragm Opening.

Speaking of Ghosting, did you ever try "Beam Splitting"? It's kind of a lost art in the digital age of Photoshop, but back in the film days it was a cool way to get multiple images in one frame, with one shot. Been many years since I did one, but it involves placing a large piece of glass on camera axis at a 45 degree angle, between you and the subject. Then you set up the second subject/scene off to the side with its' own flash, so the glass will catch the reflection. The glass acts like a semitransparent screen, allowing the camera to catch the reflection superimposed on the subject behind.