Finding Flare

Leica CL + Summircon-C 40mm f2

In reviews of the Summicron-C 40mm lens, its propensity to flare gets mentioned quite often. Sadly, I was not able to observe this effect until today. Because in order to get flare, you need direct sunlight - and we did not have any since I got this lens more than 2 weeks ago.

Today, on the other hand, was a frigid but blindingly sunny day. So I took my camera along on the bike and stopped off at a spot where I know there is good flare to be had.

Shooting directly into the sun and at an angle flattering to the bike, the images were a bit soft and only mildly flarey. So I screwed up the aperture to f11, changed the angle a bit, and promptly got this rainbow-vomit effect.

I admit that I am almost entirely unfamiliar with lens-flare terminology, and am unsure whether this is what’s referred to as ‘ghosting,’ or whether that’s something else. It’s something in any case!

I am also not sure whether this counts as a ‘sun star’ if it’s a reflection in the water and not the actual sun?

There are also some rows of red circles on the bottom, some rainbow circles on top, and all manner of hazy flarey craziness all around.

Here I wanted to make the sun star look as if it were emerging from the front hub. But I had to angle the camera awkwardly to do this, and now it bothers me that the fork blades don’t line up and the proportions of the two wheels are distorted. But yeah, I mean eyes on the prize - the flare is there.

Perhaps naively, I am not sure why it is considered problematic though, as it only happens when you point the camera at the sun - which even without flare is problematic in all sorts of ways. If you’re going to have backlit photos, a bit of strategic flare would actually improve them I should think? But of course these things are subjective.