LENS FLARES. The bad and the beautiful. Why do lenses flare and what lenses are 'best' at flaring?

[@herrreinsch]

this was probably my favorite youtube video all year. :) really beautiful shots.👌 Lens flares where literally the only reason why I bought and fell in love with vintage lenses. I still remember when I bought my first few vintage takumar lenses and a modern sony zoom lens. after doing tons of test and side by side comparisons over many weeks I came to the conclusion: "Idk why I ever want to use modern lenses anymore." and then I sold my sony lens. :P I still don't regret that decision. there is just nothing better than to go out on a sunny morning and shot with vintage glass, magical moments are waiting everywhere for you to discover. :)

[@Simonsutak]

Thank you so much - really enjoyed reading this!

[@waggawaggaful]

I absolutely love lens flare. I've noticed that newer cinematography embraces flare instead of editing it out, and I love it.

[@tompanoname3579]

Lens Flare make great abstract photography. It's all painting with the Light.

[@Simonsutak]

Perfectly described!

[@tompanoname3579]

@@Simonsutak Thank you. Keep up the good work! Greets from Croatia.

[@cortanathelawless1848]

I love flares for the fact that they make the view more human. I dislike too perfect lenses because my vision is far from perfect, like I see mostly sharp but yes I see a bunch of leaks and other flare effects all the time. In a way we have surpassed human vision with modern cameras

[@Needacreate]

Seriously, yours must have been one of the most instructive and enjoyable photography-related videos I've watched in months, Simon. Absolutely loved it, and it made me want to grab some of my own more flare-prone lenses to play with them. Also, a great lesson on the beauty of imperfection.

[@Simonsutak]

Thank you so much for you kind words. I appreciated your comment when you posted it, and it's taken too long to thank you.

[@arcanics1971]

I don't have any Tomioka, but I do have several Takumar lenses (and of course, a Helios 44-2) and they have produced some amazing lens flare. It's very nice actually just to know that there are people who do appreciate these "flaws" for their inherent beauty.

[@paranormaltv2478]

We have an Auto Vivitar Wide-Angle 28mm f2.5 that has a tone of character across the board and some pretty funky flares, ghosting, veiling, some rainbow effects and LOTS of coma. Shooting anything with fire produces some crazy effects. Not a perfect lens by any means but a lot of fun if your a flare fan! The Minolta Rokkor Si 24mm f 2.8, adopted by Leitz for their 24mm, is probably our most flare sensitive lens. Our copy seems to flare at any given opportunity and produces some interesting geometric shapes although its effects are less varied than the Vivitar mentioned before. Great video!

[@rachelrunner8948]

This is so useful! I am not a photographer, but a technical artist and am currently working on a "spiritual" lens flare effect for a game. This provides such excellent reference and explanations, thank you!

[@KyleClements]

I've recently gotten into infrared photography, and something I've noticed is how older lenses handle IR very well, but modern lenses that resist visible light flares become flarey monsters in IR.

[@TastyPrism]

I waited for this exciting and interesting video.😊😍

[@MattSchulze]

My Pentacon 50mm f1.8 can produce interesting, streak-like flares when pointed at almost 90 degrees to the sun so that the light just grazes the front element. I haven't even begun to explore all it can do since I only had it for a short time.

[@skazhenyj]

That "globe" flare from Mamiya is actually a sensor reflection. It's not only lenses that can flare around, so can sensors. :) Not that I like sensor reflections... First Sony A7 is especially prone to this.

[@cvijax]

I like your passion for imperfection. The flares being excellent example. For me all Yashinon lenses I ever used (probably Tomioka made) were like synonym for flare. They all did it easily, readily and beautifully. I remember having Yashica Electro 35 rangefinder as a teen. I would take the pictures, developed the film and than be amazed with all kinds of unexpected juicy artefacts in most of my low key photos. My experiences with Jupiter 9 confirm you findings, Jupiter 3 and Jupiter 8 flare the same way. MOG Primotar 135mm f3.5 produces some of the most sunning flares I saw.

[@photoklarno]

I used to get that “green globe” effect when I had an 8 element super takumar 50 f/1.4, I think it’s a product of light reflecting off the sensor, bouncing off the curved rear element, and landing back on the sensor and showing as a magnified image of the Bayer grid. A flare effect that lens gave me which frustrated me was a predictable blue orb in the dead center of the image which got smaller and more defined on stopping down.

[@maxsluiter5132]

Great video, you are a master of those flare effects. The green globe must be the reflection of the sensor's Bayer filter array onto the back element of the lens. It's fun to think that you've taken an old film era lens and found something that photographers couldn't have gotten from the lens back when it was new (since film cameras didn't have the Bayer filter). I do worry about looking into the sun too much with my DSLR so I will probably not be exploring these flares much anytime soon (or I'll need to remember to use live view more often), so it's great to see your work.

[@sirfranski9176]

Another excellent video. The topics you discuss and they way you discuss them makes this my absolute favorite photography related channel on this platform. I never tire of listening to you talk about cameras, lenses, and photography in general. Thank you for all the hard work you do to produce such incredible content. In regards to a favorite lens with beautiful flare, I never tire of the Pentax SMC DA 15mm Limited with the green ring. The first of two iterations of the lens. It has quite a following due primarily to the sunburst effect. The newer HD version has the extra HD coatings as well as rounded aperture blades. These do not provide the same effect as the earlier SMC version. I know you are familiar with them. Just wanted to answer your query about suggesting lenses with unique "flare" effects. Thanks!

[@Simonsutak]

Many thanks for your kind words. And good point about the Pentax HD DA versions! Amusingly, I had a short section in the video on the impact of Pentax's decision to change the blades when they introduced the HD DAs, but it wasn't very kind to Pentax and I cut it out at the last moment! So thank you for mentioning this.

[@cortanathelawless1848]

Thank you! This is what I was looking for. I don't wanna add flare in post, I wanna see what I can do with my tool in the wild.

[@edwardjenner1968]

Thank you for this tremendously insightful but also entertaining video. It’s an absolute pleasure to listen to.

[@ferretace]

I'm so glad I got this video in my subscription feed.! Thanks for making it!

[@Windsurfingaddict]

I decided to look up lens flare and its cause after people complaining about iPhone 12 and latest iPhone 15 pro max, Apple have added lens coatings to try to mitigate but they are still there at night time depending on lens settings, So having you explain the benefits in photography is fascinating and love your level of detail, so I wonder if you used a cone ( toilet roll cardboard ) example and put in front of iPhone lenses, it would partly remove some of the lens flares 🤔🤔🤔 , new subscriber 😎😎 Ps. I will no longer ever look at lens flares in a negative way and try to embrace the beauty that you can get, also looking to get back into photography I’m trying to choose a nice camera in the department As I realised, the smartphone world are good, but limited due to their lens and sensor sizes but cannot beat them for convenience. And I love the reference, Lens with flare for flare 😎

[@kmcsmart]

Love it all. I just added another lens to my “Simon Recommends List”. Thanks

[@cokebottles6919]

Love the channel! You've introduced me to a bunch of lenses I had never considered. I have a set of Mamiya Sekor SX (28,35, 50 so far) lenses that I got in large part because I love the flares they produce. The silver/white rainbow light streaks are beautiful and work great for video. They're also very sharp and contrasty, even wide open. Definitely a hidden gem, in large part because you have to modify them and the adapter to get them to fit on modern cameras. I'm still searching for the 85mm and the 21mm is more expensive than I'm comfortable spending right now... but I believe the Rolleinar are the same lenses in a different housing. The Takumar 35mm 2.3 is also magical and possibly my favorite, just not very sharp wide open and the lens streaks are removed at 3.5 and above.

[@razbiton173]

Hey! Finally someone who understands my love to flares. Did you notice helios 44’s always have different coatings for some reasons and almost always flare in different color? I have old silver one that flares purple and a bit newer one that flares yellow. But! There are really rare and early ones that flare blue! It flares amazing to me, that color looks like the flare color of an Arri lens. Btw, helios 44-3 lens flare is blueish green which is also amazing to me. What do you think?

[@razbiton173]

And I have an explanation to the phenomenon in 20:35 ! I think thats the blue I was mentioning earlier But the explanation is that the light source in that specific photo is somewhat covered by leaves and branches and so it comes into the lens not as a whole, and thus creating a “broken” flare. Try it out with your phones flashlight in a dark room you’ll see that it creates a beautiful blue flare

[@Simonsutak]

Many thanks. This makes sense! I've noticed the different coloured flares from my Helios 44s - but I've never systematically tested them all with the torch-light. I'll do this soon!

[@razbiton173]

@@Simonsutaksounds good! I’ll wait for that video!

[@jimschmidt7303]

Another great video. Thank you for sharing. I have 2 newer Tamron lenses that are prone to flare. Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 for apsc Pentax version and the Tamron SP AF 20-40mm f/2.7-3.5 full frame I use on my Nikon D610.

[@musiqueetmontagne]

Great, interesting video. Thanks for all your work and uploading this. 😊

[@MysterDaftGame]

Nice to see youare getting into Minolta lenses ! They are great !

[@Simonsutak]

Yes, I'm enjoying the 55mm f1.7 so far. I'm also impatiently waiting for a 58mm f1.4. Since I've got an adapter I thought I may as well try this lens as well.

[@melody3741]

The fact that you took the Sun airplane picture with the Helios is so funny to me

[@mathiaskarlgontard]

great work thank you !! amazing watch, very insightful x

[@stephenreynolds6414]

I love the Mamiya Sekor 55mm f1.4 lens flares. I will need to see what other lenses I own that have interesting flares.

[@nelsonm.5044]

A very excellent video, I knew what flare is but I did not know the extent and the many forms of flaring. I do have a Rokkor 55mm f/1.4, I definitely will need to make some test on its flaring capabilities.... something I would have never thought doing before watching this video

[@dingothps]

if someone is really into hexabokeh highlights, i love the early version pentacon 50mm f1.8 (red MC with serial number on the front). it makes very sharp soap hexagons that are often make the image unique (even its just a little blurry) and it also can produces nice starbursts at the same time, if you get the composition right. it goes from subtile to very dramatic and in my opinion a real eyecatcher even with just a little hexahighlights in them. wide open it makes for really huge bokeh balls, none of my other lenses can blow them up so big. sometimes i only shoot the hexagons because they look amazing. overall an amazing lens i put on par with the super takumar 55mm f1.8. two of my favorite vintage lenses in my collection. unlucky me, my version has resinous oil and the focus ring is really hard to turn, especially when its cold, so i bought a newer version. sadly the manufactures made an effort to reduce the hexabokeh highlights and rounded up the blades, making it look very boring compared to the older version. but besides that its still a great lens that is amazingly sharp, even wide open. with great coating producing almost oversaturated colors, good contrast and it can swirl good in the right conditions. on a especially sunny day i have to desaturate it a little bit in post because the colors are just so great. one might think i oversaturated them on purpose. the super takumar 55mm f1.8 makes lovely rainbow circle flares, almost as good as the takumar 58mm f2.2. sometimes even faint funnel and stripes, that are just beautiful and and fun to play with.

[@daniel635biturbo]

Photographing the effects of photography 😊 Interesting video topic, it's almost as if the flare is like a fingerprint of a lens, all are very unique. My Konica AR 28 f3,5 produces very blue purplish hexagons and rays across the image, when hit with sunlight. Whereas my Konica 57mm f1,4 is more of an orange rainbow type of flare maker.

[@Simonsutak]

Yes - great way of putting it - like a fingerprint of a lens!

[@hotjazzbaby]

Great presentation, thank you 😊

[@anamorphicalan]

Flares are nice. Especially anamorphic. Can be distracting use often. Enjoy flares but less is more. Regarding anamorphic flares

[@qoxob9664]

Hi Simon, great channel - I have been flying by your radar for a while now and have never been disappointed. Quick question: which wide-angle lenses would you recommend for interesting flares or 'best worst' behaviour. I have the Mir 1-B 37mm, Takumar 17mm FE is on its way - I also have canon fd 17-28-35. Anything else for under the xmas tree? Mamiya sekors 28-38 - Minolta rokkor? thx mucho, cheers, phb

[@Simonsutak]

Hi, Many thanks for your kind words. I don't have any wide angle Mamiya Sekors or Minolta Rokkor lenses but the fast fifty lenses from these brands all flare a lot. Have a look at the Meyer-Optik Gorlitz Lydith 30mm f3.5. My old copy certainly flares, and the new version is supposed to have strong rainbow flares. All the best, Simon

[@qoxob9664]

@@Simonsutak thx Simon !

[@johndoane7200]

Anamorphic adapters, lenses are another interesting “rabbit hole” to fall into?

[@anamorphicalan]

Worse because you will use two or three lenses. Have experienced but worth it.

[@malbichob1489]

In the first video, how come you couldn't see the dust from the beginning, where is there light or areas where it should be seen?

[@sarahcalcagno7853]

Have you looked at the sun lately? Here in Madison, Wisconsin, and in other places around the United States the sun flare has been an octagon except it’s like a honeycomb? there’s been a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories about it and why the sun is so bright white and why there is always a constant haze and all of the storms in the Midwest. I just wanted to know if you have seen any honeycomb flares. They can easily be picked up by phones.

[@zacharyantle7940]

I've always loved the look of the semi-curcular rainbow like flares you get off lenses like Helios and Cooke phericals. I'd kill for a DIY solution to recreate that affect in the Moment lenses I have for my phone, but so far I haven't found any... If anyone knows A way of doing that I'll love you forever lmao

[@jarihuikari8921]

I have M43 camera and My Samyang 12mm f2.0 is one lens which often produces interesting flare effects.

[@jawasakilee]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ good job!!

[@lukayz1363]

Thank you for this!

[@gschweiger]

The Super Takumar 28mm f/3.5 is a reliable flare producer.

[@karl-marxschweinsteiger1828]

I have the kalimar 19-35mm 3.5 I love the wide angle lens flare product😂😂 and I have Soligor 35-70mm 2.5 a nice lens beautiful bokhe and flare.. texture. My Aetna rokunar 28mm 2.8 50mm yashica yashinon ML wooowww.. I use my set on the BMPC 45 to shooting movie. I have a lot of characteristic and cosmetics. Halation, chromatic aberration. With the BMPC for a nice Organic image texture and colo science render.

[@devroombagchus7460]

Beautiful! Thanks!

[@yesanton]

fundamental! love it

[@JHurrenPhotography]

Great video. I watched your one on bokeh bubbles many times, and went tested many of my lenses in Christmas lights. My neighbors were frightened. This one got me curious about the Takumar 58mm f/2.4, which appears to be an M37 mount? Any idea how that can be adapted to a Fuji X? All the best

[@JHurrenPhotography]

It shall be fun testing the same lenses I did in December, now for their capacity to flair. Your channel inspires me to photograph in different ways than I normally tend to.

[@Simonsutak]

Hi, ha! Hope the images looked good. I've got to know some of my neighbours simply through meeting them while taking photos of flowers in their front gardens by the public pavement! I've never tried adapting a M37 mount, only a M39 mount, and I did that by adding a M39 to M42 ring to the lens and then a M42 to whatever adapter. My version of the Takumar 58mm f2.4 has a native M42 mount. Unfortunately it's a rare lens. It too me a long time to find one, but they do come up for sale occasionally, if you're willing to pay!

[@Simonsutak]

Thank you! So good to hear you're enjoying my videos.

[@kmcsmart]

@@JHurrenPhotography RafCamera sells an m37 adapter. On their site search for Asahiflex. Their products are top notch and they sell some very unique adapters. It’s my go to place when I have a difficult adapting problem.

[@qoxob9664]

Hi Simon, after seeing this video, I bought a mamiya sekor sx 55 1.4 and 1.8 - not aware that these lenses do not fit a standard m42 to sony nex adapter. Seems there have been some modified adapters, but I couldn't find any of these anywhere. Any thoughts? Lenses haven't arrived, just found out by coincidence. Thx cheers Philip

[@Simonsutak]

Hi Philip, I don't have any SX versions, but it looks like you may have to file off/down a pin on the lens to fit on a standard M42 to NEX adapter. I've had to do this with my Fuji M42 lenses, as I've never found a modified adapter. It was very easy with a small hacksaw. Here's a link to a discussion of the sx's adapter, you've probably already seen: www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/246687-experience-mamyia-sekor-sx-cs-m42-mount.html All the best, Simon

[@Lucas-vj8rr]

Try the new ttartisan 35mm 1.8 af nice flare

[@d1m18]

Voigtlander Color Ultron 50/1.8, have you tried the flares on this one? I think it is know as the Fire Eye for the flares. I have this lense and have managed to get a few nice shots but not fully tested it in many scenarios like you have. Love this cont, thank you

[@Simonsutak]

Many thanks! No I've never tried the Color Ultron, but it is on my radar!

[@Duskbleu]

​@@Simonsutakcolor Ultron's predecessor, the Zeiss Ikon Ultron 50 1.8 has a native M42 version. It's likely the best 50mm native m42 mount lens, and one of the most expensive one as well.

[@Simonsutak]

@@Duskbleu I've had the chance to try the M42 Carl Zeiss Ultron 50mm f1.8. But not for flares. Stopped down, it's a very good lens. Personally, I'm not so keen on the results wide open, but that is a rather subjective subject!

[@volkanbadem6489]

I like a little flare when it shows the direction of the light source. But i don’t like colorful, artificial looking flare.

[@MrBrentknoll]

Bravo!!!

[@AustinCurtis]

Thumbnail straight from the Chiswick Sainsbury's

[@Simonsutak]

LOL. Oh yes!!

[@thegroove2000]

Flares are groovy.

[@gearhead-quarters30]

I have been unable to find any information on how exactly to reassemble the front element when reversed on the Auto Takumar 35mm f2.3. It doesn't seem to fit when revered. I can't get the threads by the element to secure it. I feel like I'm missing something.

[@Simonsutak]

I can't help I'm afraid; I've never come across this problem - I hope someone reading this can give you some good advice.

[@gearhead-quarters30]

@@Simonsutak dang. I've seen it discussed several times and asked several people. Others simply do not recall, and I have been unable to find any instructions on the matter. I don't need help getting stupid, but man, this lens has me stumped.

[@bransoncarlton4939]

I believe you just remove it for close up shots- never heard that you can reverse it!

[@polarbear666666]

senpai simon

[@halloweenville1]

Lens flares are all over the place in modern movies, and they are really annoying.

[@cortanathelawless1848]

I think it's partly because of overuse but also because it's always the same flare. I feel like stylistically movies became so fucking samey in general.

[@halloweenville1]

@@cortanathelawless1848 I know right.