I don’t understand how to control lens flare. Google doesn’t seem to have much information either. At least nothing more advanced than “have the sun be just behind your subject.” Uhh, ok, I like my retinas, and my expensive CCD, so that wasn’t exactly a shocking revelation. I had two main questions, how to control the shape of the flare (at least at the point where the sun is) and how do you meter properly when there’s just SO much light?!
I’ll start with the results of my testing. As usual, my daughter was the subject.
1/125, f/14, iso800
1/125, f/5, iso100
And some non-Phoebe tests.
1/6400, f/2.8, iso200
1/160, f/14, iso200
1/90, f/20, iso200
1/30, f/32, iso200
The thing I noticed was how the sun’s shape changed with the aperture (go ahead, scroll back up and look again). At 2.8, it was a big golden mess of light. At f/32 it had well defined streaks and the flare was sharper around the edges. As far as metering, I shot manually, and just metered on something the shade, then moved into the sun.
I’ve got some more experimentation to do, but I was pleased with this initial run and thought maybe some other people could find it useful. Or maybe someone who knows more than me can post a link in the comments to something they’ve written.
