Jay: You're gonna wanna know these great ways to add flare to your photographs when you're
out shooting.
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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan.
Today on The Slanted Lens, we're gonna take a look at lens flare.
Now, I know there's a million ways to put lens flare in your images in Photoshop.
But we're gonna show you how to do lens flare in the camera, out on a location.
So what is a lens flare?
It's very simple.
When a light or the sun hits the camera lens, it gives you streaks of light across the image
and looks really interesting or can look really bad.
It's interesting, a little bit of flare is really annoying, and you wanna get rid of
it.
But a lot of flare can become a creative call and can look very interesting.
Let's talk about how we can make creative decisions to create really interesting looking
lens flare.
First off, we gotta get rid of this.
It's a lens hood.
It's meant to take the lens flare away from the lens, but we don't want that to happen.
Like I say, a little bit of lens flare is not a good thing, but a lot can be really
creative and interesting.
So first off, remove that lens shade so you can let the sun or some other light hit the
camera lens.
Low tech ways, you just simply get a flashlight right next to the camera and shine that flashlight
into the lens.
It gets more interesting if you shine it through a bottle, anything that'll create different
shapes, put that object next to your lens and shine the flashlight through it and it
creates a flare onto the lens.
Another great way to create a flare is to actually use the person you're photographing
or doing video of.
Put the sun or the light directly behind them, just little lean out from behind them and
that light creates a great looking flare.
The camera can float behind them and the flare just keeps peeking out and creating this great
look on the image.
That's done all the time.
So don't try to hide the light, or if the sun's getting low, don't try to avoid it.
Just put it behind the person and just kinda go behind it when you're doing video.
Or if you're doing still just get till the edge of it so it starts to flare out and take
your pictures there.
It looks fabulous.
So I've got Sommer Hughes here and she's gonna help me illustrate some of the ways you can
create lens flares.
Let's get out there and take some lens flare.
So I'm just trying to catch that sun coming around that building so I just wanna corner
the sun because it's so bright right now.
I'm trying to minimize the value of it by getting a lot of it behind that building,
but then just getting it kinda peeking out from behind her hair.
It looks fabulous actually.
I'm at f/16, so I'm getting this great star.
Now it's important to understand that your aperture controls the look of the flare to
a certain extent.
A 2.8 is gonna make a very large, blobby kind of flare.
It's gonna just kinda streak across to your image.
But as you stop down, the flare becomes more of a star look because it starts to show the
blades of the aperture.
So I'm really using three principles there: I'm at f/16, which is giving me a great star
off the sun, but I'm also using the building to cut half the sun down, so it's not so bright,
and I'm putting it behind her head.
So I've got her with a strobe in the background and she's just barely getting to the edge
of the frame, but you add that little bit of flare in the background and it really feels
more like the sun's there, just feels a lot warmer and more inviting.
It's kinds very interesting.
So we're using a Baja B4 back there.
I've got it on 2.5, s it's dialed almost all the way down.
So sometimes I see the round reflector of the strobe, but if I get in the right spot
in that highlight back there, it just kinda flares in the foreground, gives me a nice
rim on her hair.
It looks fabulous.
Alright, Judy so just slide that right in.
Right about there.
That's perfect.
Hold it right there.
Sommer, come back just a little bit to your left.
There you go, right there.
Come back a little more to your left, the other way, right there.
So you can see when you create a flare into the lens, it desaturates the image.
It takes a lot of the blacks away.
You can see that in these two images.
In the one, it's very contrasty.
There's a lot of black.
When you flare that into the lens, it opens up all those shadows and the blacks kinda
melt away, so it really desaturates the image.
That's part of what gives it that summery kind of feel.
Just a beautiful kind of open light feel.
So if you're in a dark situation, you got a lot of contrast, a flare will open up a
lot of the shadows.
So here's another way to achieve flare.
I basically got the sun coming through the tree because it's so bright right now.
I'm trying to minimize a little bit.
The tree gives me a little bit of background and it falls way out of focus, and I just
kinda lean out and let that flare kinda come around her shoulder.
I'll shoot a series of images.
But it's just a nice way to create a flare using the tree to break it up and to kinda
soften it a little bit.
So there you have a look at lens flares.
I hope you learned some ways how to create them and kinda what they are, apply them to
the images that you're doing.
You'll see it creates really interesting images.
You can create 'em yourself, or you can get out and use the sun, or other items to be
able to create lens flares in the camera.
So create some of yours.
Put 'em up on our Facebook group.
Go to our affiliate links.
If you need a lens that has extra lens flare on it, go to The Slanted Lens's affiliate
links so you can buy 'em through those.
It's just a fabulous wonderful thing.
So we want you to keep those cameras rolling.
Sommer: And keep on clicking.
Jay: Tamron's giving away an 85mm 1.8 lens over at theslantedlens.com.
Get over there, sign up, and win it.
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