Is there a way to reduce flare around street lamps when shooting at night?
- Thread starter kurt1111
- Start date
RyanT
Veteran
Nope, no need to look at the monitor. Flaring occurs because light is hitting the lens, so you just have to position the flag in such a way that it shades the lens from the light in the scene.
So, if you bring the flag very close to the light source, it'll make a very soft shadow on the camera. The reason why this happens is because the light source compared to the flag is quite big, and it's easier for the light to wrap around the flag, creating that soft undefined shadow. If you bring the flag very close the camera though, it'll give you a nice hard cut, because of how small the light source is now relative to the flag. This way your sure that none of the light is wrapping around the flag and still hitting the lens and you're getting rid of all the flare. Sometimes in order to get the flag out of the shot you'll have to compromise a little bit and walk it out, or you'll have to use a bigger flag further back.
You might also have a hard time figuring out where the flare is coming from or if you got rid of it. An easy way to figure it out though is by putting your head right in front of the lens, if you can see any light coming your way, you know that you've got some flare.
People also use matte boxes, french flags, side brows, eyes brows, and hard mattes to get rid of flare. Hard mattes are pretty much the easiest way to get rid of flare, but you should be careful with them, especially when shooting with long lenses wide open, as you run the risk of the hard matte actually becoming the iris, giving you strange bokeh, and ultimately underexposing your image.
Here's another forum talking about this problem.
http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pages/MATTES.HTM
Hope that helped.
So, if you bring the flag very close to the light source, it'll make a very soft shadow on the camera. The reason why this happens is because the light source compared to the flag is quite big, and it's easier for the light to wrap around the flag, creating that soft undefined shadow. If you bring the flag very close the camera though, it'll give you a nice hard cut, because of how small the light source is now relative to the flag. This way your sure that none of the light is wrapping around the flag and still hitting the lens and you're getting rid of all the flare. Sometimes in order to get the flag out of the shot you'll have to compromise a little bit and walk it out, or you'll have to use a bigger flag further back.
You might also have a hard time figuring out where the flare is coming from or if you got rid of it. An easy way to figure it out though is by putting your head right in front of the lens, if you can see any light coming your way, you know that you've got some flare.
People also use matte boxes, french flags, side brows, eyes brows, and hard mattes to get rid of flare. Hard mattes are pretty much the easiest way to get rid of flare, but you should be careful with them, especially when shooting with long lenses wide open, as you run the risk of the hard matte actually becoming the iris, giving you strange bokeh, and ultimately underexposing your image.
Here's another forum talking about this problem.
http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pages/MATTES.HTM
Hope that helped.