How can I avoid or remove green lens flare when photographing a sunrise?
Asked 12/31/2014
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When I photograph a sunrise and the sun rises above the horizon, a bright green flare appears elsewhere in the frame and gets stronger as the sun gets brighter. How can I prevent this kind of flare, or deal with it afterward?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
12
tl; dr. Blend a "panorama" from only slightly rotated exposures and make sure no flare is included in the final result.
It's not possible to optically remove this type of flare when shooting into the sun (though different lenses have different levels of flare resistance). However, there are other effective ways to get rid of it.
What you can do is take multiple exposures, with the camera slightly rotated between them. When you rotate the camera just a bit, the flare usually moves to an entirely different part of the picture. Then you can align the exposures on a computer and blend them together, as if you were making a panorama. Finally, make sure that only flare-free parts of each image are being used for the final result.
This technique can be very effective in creating a flare-free image, but there are caveats. It works well only if there are no objects in the picture close to the camera. Otherwise you'll get relative displacements in the image due to parallax. To minimize this, find the no-parallax point of your lens and try to rotate around it. If the subjects of your photo are not too close, this can work relatively well, even if taking photos handheld.
Example:
(I mixed up the top and bottom--the flare is on the bottom one--but I don't want to recreate the figure now.)
Originally by user10147. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user10147
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
That green spot is lens flare/internal reflection, which is common when shooting directly toward the sun. You usually can’t completely eliminate this optically in-camera, but you can reduce or work around it:
- Remove any front filter if you’re using one; filters can increase reflections.
- Make sure the front element is clean.
- Use a lens hood, or shade the lens with your hand/paper if the offending light is coming from outside the frame.
- Recompose so the flare becomes less objectionable, or place the sun farther to the edge and crop later.
- Different lenses handle flare differently, so some lenses may perform better than others.
A very effective fix is to take several shots with the camera rotated slightly between exposures. The flare usually moves to a different location each time. Then align the images later and blend only the flare-free parts, similar to a stitched panorama. If the sun is in the frame, flare may be unavoidable, so blending multiple exposures is often the cleanest solution.
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