Is this lens flare??

[flyin-lowe]

I sent my wife off to a Tball game this morning and she wanted take my camera. Having no idea what the conditions would be like I set the shutter speed to 1/800 and put it in shutter priority. I new if I left it in auto she would get a lot of blurry pics. I was surprised that a few of them were blurry but most weren't I am not sure why. Anyway a few of the pics had a weird look to them that I have never experienced. I am assuming it is flare but not sure. What caused them to look this way? The pics were taken in the evening and from the position of the runner she would have been facing west (toward the sun) I have a lens hood on my 18-55 but not this lens. There were only a couple out of about 100 pics that had this look to them.
Thanks

 

[clanthar]

Flare is typically lighter not darker -- the spot is in the same place both photos. I'd say something was there in front of the lens.

Joe

 

[Overread36]

Its the fencing between the camera and the subject, and this fence (by its darkness) is a little ways infront of the lens itself. The result is it casts this kind of desaturated and affected blurry block in front of the subject. If you get the camera right up close and can shoot between the lines of the wire that helps a lot to hide it - and in that situation you'll often only get a light contrast reduction so a contrast boost will selectively restore it.

In this case it a little more dominant, and the wire might well have been a dark shade, giving you that blurry smudged ink effect. I don't think it would be removable in this situation (without a lot of clone work going on).

 

[flyin-lowe]

It might be I will have to check. I know she was out on the field shooting pics. Maybe she shot some from outside the fence before she went onto the field. But I know most of the pics were taken from the field, not behind the fence. I am guessing you are correct.

 

[photocist]

looks like ghosts to me

 

[480sparky67 66]

I vote for the 'piece of the fence' as well. They were shot at f/7.1, so looking through the viewfinder with a 135mm lens probably wouldn't show it with the lens wide open. But when shooting, the lens stopped down and the fence showed up closer to being in-focus.

 

[KmH]

Yep, +1 it's a piece of fence or some similar long skinny thing in front of the camera, and fairly close to the lens too.