Counteracting flare

[walwyn]

From time to time I get the flaring problems as seen in this example. The lens hood that came with the camera doesn't fix it and invariable you are unable to shift viewpoint. In some cases I've been able to block off the light source, but its fairly rare that one can adopt that technique. For one side of this font I was able to place a heavy coat on top of it and just out of shot, which reduced some of the problem but not all. For this example nothing worked.

Is there something I'm missing?

[miketoll]

Looks like there is nothing else you could do really. Go back for a re shoot when the lighting is different? That's all I can think of.

[nobby]

I had this happen once many years ago it was caused by a smear on the inside of a protective filter, once cleaned no more flare, just a thought

[Derekb]

I'm not sure if you were using a tripod here, but if so then a piece of card (I've even used my hand) out of shot just above the camera field of view will work. With a bit of practice you can even do it while hand holding. You may need to bracket though as you're (usually) not letting enough light in using this technique.

[walwyn]

Thanks all. I'll doubly make sure that the uv filter is smear free, currently I need to get a new one as it took a direct hit and cracked the other week.

The hand/card trick doesn't seem to work unfortunately.

The main problem seems to be with light coming from the side, or above and top.

[Craftysnapper]

Personely I would remove the filter to take the pic as it is another piece of glass that was not includede in the lens design for reducing flare.