Lens flare is a common problem for photographers. It can ruin the mood of your photograph by making it look washed out or blurry, and even create odd looking shapes in the image. Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take to reduce lens flare when shooting photographs with your digital camera!
Table of Contents
What Is Lens Flare?
What is lens flare, you might ask? Lens flare happens when the light being reflected by your camera’s lens hits its surface. This can happen if your subject is too bright or there are lots of lights around in the scene that you’re photographing.
You can also end up with lens flare when shooting into the sun, but that’s not something you want to do (unless it’s how you’re choosing to create your photograph).
Tips To Reduce Lens Flare
Luckily, reducing lens flare is fairly simple, and we’ll cover a few tips below on some tips you can follow when shooting your photos.
Use A Lens Hood
One of the easiest ways to reduce lens flare is by using a lens hood. The most popular type of these are round, but there are also petal-shaped ones that can help cut down on how much light reflects off your camera’s lenses into your photograph.
Bokeh and Flare Filters
There are also some other types of filters you can use to reduce lens flare, such as bokeh and flare filters. These will work by reducing how much light gets into your camera’s lenses when taking a photograph, but they’re not quite as popular because the effects aren’t always that great (and often require post-processing).
Another easy way to reduce lens flare is by using a cheap and simple solution: add a UV filter. This will usually help cut down on how much light shines directly into your lenses, but it’s not so dark that you can’t continue taking pictures when there’s too much sunlight outside. Plus, some people like the effect of having more contrast in their photographs than what they get with just an added lens hood alone! You can find these for under $20 at most major camera stores or online . Just make sure the size matches up with your specific digital camera model before buying one.
Open Up Your Aperture
If you’re struggling to reduce lens flare when taking photographs, try opening up your aperture. This is how much of a hole your camera’s lenses have for light to pass through them and into the sensor where your photograph will be taken from.
By making this more open, it’ll let in a lot more light than if they were closed all the way down (which is how photographers usually shoot their images). You can do this by either setting your digital camera on Aperture Priority mode or manually adjusting the settings yourself according to what looks good with how sunny it outside currently is. Just remember that doing so might cause blurriness around any objects that are moving at high speeds.
Cover The Sun
Another great way to reduce lens flare is by covering up the sun with your hand. Simply place your open palm over the front of your camera’s lenses, block out any light that might cause problems in how you want it to look, and shoot away!
If there’s no sunlight around or if this just isn’t an option for how you’re choosing to take photographs with your digital camera, try using a small object instead (such as pieces of paper). Just make sure not to move too much when doing so because any movement can ruin how sharp all aspects of what you’re photographing are.
Change The Angle You’re Shooting
Another way to reduce lens flare is by adjusting how you’re shooting your photographs. Move around a bit and try different angles to how things are being taken, so that the light isn’t hitting your camera’s lenses in such an obvious spot (like directly from behind).
Changing how much of what’s around you gets into your digital camera can make it look like there was less sunlight present during the actual moment where these photos were taken. This will also help take away some of how contrasty or hazy everything looks as well! You might even find one angle works better than another depending on how bright outside currently is and if someone else has turned any lights near whatever it is you’re photographing on/off.
Use A Better Quality Lens
Another helpful tip for how to reduce lens flare is by getting a better quality lens. Some lenses are simply made with higher-quality glass than others, so they won’t allow as much sunlight in when taking photos (which will result in how it looks like there was less light around).
This usually isn’t the type of fix people recommend first because it can be really costly to upgrade your entire digital camera setup just because one part doesn’t work correctly now that you’ve started shooting outside into brighter lighting conditions more frequently. Plus, some photographers don’t even notice how bad their lens flares look until they view them after shooting. If you’re looking to go this route, check out our camera lens comparison tool to find the right lens for your needs.
Reduce Lens Flare In Post Production
If you still can’t seem to fix how bad your lens flares look even after trying all of these steps, try reducing them in post production. There are a lot of ways how this can be done depending on which editing software you’re using (or if any at all).
We won’t go into how each program handles this as there’s just too many variations right now . You’ll have to figure that part out on your own! Just know that what works great for one kind of photo might not work so well with another. So keep some time open and mess around with each setting until it looks good enough for whatever needs fixing the most…like how bright sunlight is or isn’t being represented in how it looks like in your photographs.
Clean Your Camera Lens
If lens flare is still a problem for you, then it might be time to clean your digital camera’s lenses. Dust and other particles can quickly build up on how much light reaches the sensor in your camera when taking photographs. This will usually only add more problems than solutions but if there are stubborn fingerprints or spots on how how they’re reflecting off of sunlight, this’ll remove them from being an issue while also giving your lenses some needed TLC.
