[KC0PET]

[pepperberry farm]

[Riggomatic]

Had to go get a flare shot.

[goatsNdonkey]

One of the things I like best about this thread is its opening up the notion that not only isn't flair a bad thing, but also that it can be controlled and used pictorially and expressively in different ways. So let me take a leap (I hope not to far), and assume then that this might be the place to discuss the flair capabilities of a particular lens, the way that a particular lens is sometimes discussed in the bokeh thread.

The lens I want to address is this one:

Cosina 19-35mm AF f3.5-4.5 Lens Reviews - Cosina Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database

This Cosina-made AF 19-35, appears under the Phoenix (like my copy), Promaster, and Vivitar labels, reviewers say, and perhaps others. The Cosina-made (in Japan) Phoenix-labeled AF lens should also be distinguished from the Samyang-made (in Korea) Phoenix labeled Manual Focus f/4-4.5 18-28mm lens. The Cosina-made AF 19-35 should further be distinguished from the Tokina-made AF 19-35 which has the clever feature of turning the front element during focusing while not turning the front filter ring; the Cosina-made version doesn't have this feature.

Close reading of the reviews finds this said of the Cosina AF version: "Flare is a weak point of this lens. When the lens is pointed to the sun, the picture starts looking washed out with huge flare artefacts present throughout the image." And despite some improvements over the Cosina-made model, more than one reviewer of the Tokina-made AF model calls it "a Flair Machine."

I've found, in the few days I've had my Phoenix/Cosina copy that it does flair, and not in the good way I can get out of some other lenses, rather mainly in a way that just washes out the definition and contrast of whatever else is in the picture. Here's an OOC Jpeg example, which despite being taken at a northeasterly angle was shot vertically enough to catch a good deal of midday sun across the front element:



A lens hood is recommended to help with flair on these lenses, but I, like most other owners, don't have the original hood. The hood for my Rokinon/Samyang f/2 16mm will fit on it (needing some masking tape to secure it), but that hood is a petal-shaped one, and my Cosina-made model has the moving front filter mount. I did happen to have another possible flair controller, a Tiffin Warm Low-light Polarizer (having a weak polarizing effect, but which only steal 1-stop of light). Here's a shot using it, actually pointing the lens directly at the sun peeking through leaves of a tree, again an OOC Jpeg:



As you can see, from the second example, the weak polarizer seems to have turned the flair machine down to idle speed. There are some patches of blown highlights, a bit of a star burst where the sun is, that can be brought out in pp though that actually makes it smaller, but not a great deal of flairing (and certainly not much in the way of interesting well defined flair artifacts). While the wash-out flaring was pretty much eliminated with the polarizer, apparently so was the option of using flare creatively. I've ordered a hood to try with the lens, hoping it will find a happy medium regarding flair. Using the lens with cropped sensor, I expect I can use quite a bit of hood extension. What length hood to use for FF film will be a different challenge with this lens.

Now, there is one other issue, to consider. I must admit that I am not nearly the lens flair artist that many who post in this thread are. Perhaps someone else has made some amazing flair shots with this lens without a hood or some other way. Do post examples if you have them!

[KC0PET]

One of the things I like best about this thread is its opening up the notion that not only isn't flair a bad thing, but also that it can be controlled and used pictorially and expressively in different ways. So let me take a leap (I hope not to far), and assume then that this might be the place to discuss the flair capabilities of a particular lens, the way that a particular lens is sometimes discussed in the bokeh thread.

The lens I want to address is this one:

Cosina 19-35mm AF f3.5-4.5 Lens Reviews - Cosina Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database

This Cosina-made AF 19-35, appears under the Phoenix (like my copy), Promaster, and Vivitar labels, reviewers say, and perhaps others. The Cosina-made (in Japan) Phoenix-labeled AF lens should also be distinguished from the Samyang-made (in Korea) Phoenix labeled Manual Focus f/4-4.5 18-28mm lens. The Cosina-made AF 19-35 should further be distinguished from the Tokina-made AF 19-35 which has the clever feature of turning the front element during focusing while not turning the front filter ring; the Cosina-made version doesn't have this feature.

Close reading of the reviews finds this said of the Cosina AF version: "Flare is a weak point of this lens. When the lens is pointed to the sun, the picture starts looking washed out with huge flare artefacts present throughout the image." And despite some improvements over the Cosina-made model, more than one reviewer of the Tokina-made AF model calls it "a Flair Machine."

I've found, in the few days I've had my Phoenix/Cosina copy that it does flair, and not in the good way I can get out of some other lenses, rather mainly in a way that just washes out the definition and contrast of whatever else is in the picture. Here's an OOC Jpeg example, which despite being taken at a northeasterly angle was shot vertically enough to catch a good deal of midday sun across the front element:



A lens hood is recommended to help with flair on these lenses, but I, like most other owners, don't have the original hood. The hood for my Rokinon/Samyang f/2 16mm will fit on it (needing some masking tape to secure it), but that hood is a petal-shaped one, and my Cosina-made model has the moving front filter mount. I did happen to have another possible flair controller, a Tiffin Warm Low-light Polarizer (having a weak polarizing effect, but which only steal 1-stop of light). Here's a shot using it, actually pointing the lens directly at the sun peeking through leaves of a tree, again an OOC Jpeg:



As you can see, from the second example, the weak polarizer seems to have turned the flair machine down to idle speed. There are some patches of blown highlights, a bit of a star burst where the sun is, that can be brought out in pp though that actually makes it smaller, but not a great deal of flairing (and certainly not much in the way of interesting well defined flair artifacts). While the wash-out flaring was pretty much eliminated with the polarizer, apparently so was the option of using flare creatively. I've ordered a hood to try with the lens, hoping it will find a happy medium regarding flair. Using the lens with cropped sensor, I expect I can use quite a bit of hood extension. What length hood to use for FF film will be a different challenge with this lens.

Now, there is one other issue, to consider. I must admit that I am not nearly the lens flair artist that many who post in this thread are. Perhaps someone else has made some amazing flair shots with this lens without a hood or some other way. Do post examples if you have them!

I like it I have never put much effort into being intentional about flare, most are just chance and certain lenses have predictable interesting flare results (i.e. Rokinon 8mm fisheye and 10m). Keep working at it and I am sure you will be able to produce great flare shots with some predictability. I believe all so called lens flaws have potential for artistic results with effort, experimenting, trial and error and the occasional dumb luck (my best friend ).

[wtlwdwgn]

K-1 II and A 20mm f/2.8 at f/22.

[paulh]

backlit bougainvillea - Samsung S6:

[goatsNdonkey]

Continuing flare related tests with the Phoenix/Cosina AF f/3.5-4.5 19-35mm, I've removed the Tiffen Warm Low-light Polarizer, and added an HMC coated Hoya UV filter and a big rubber hood, extended as far as it can go without giving me vignetting at the 19mm zoom setting.

Colors are a bit blander than with the polarizer, leading me to bump saturation in pp which I am usually reluctant to do. Also the lens seems to have the most trouble with bright clouds in the background, sometime seeming to steal IQ from foreground objects, than with actually aiming the lens at the brightest part of the sky, which gave me a great flareless cloud shot! Still flare seemed to be less of a problem than using the lens with no front-end accessories. It was possible to have well-defined foreground or mid-ground subject matter, in a picture in which much of the background was affected by that generalized flare. This was my favorite of those, from this morning tests. Again this doesn't exhibit the kind of well defined flare artifacts that so often are the stars in this thread, but flare certainly is involved:



And also a cropped version:



You will have noticed a bit of purple fringing in the flare-softened details. Somehow it doesn't seem nearly as irksome as it often does.

One of the things I like best about this thread is its opening up the notion that not only isn't flair a bad thing, but also that it can be controlled and used pictorially and expressively in different ways. So let me take a leap (I hope not to far), and assume then that this might be the place to discuss the flair capabilities of a particular lens, the way that a particular lens is sometimes discussed in the bokeh thread.

The lens I want to address is this one:

Cosina 19-35mm AF f3.5-4.5 Lens Reviews - Cosina Lenses - Pentax Lens Review Database

This Cosina-made AF 19-35, appears under the Phoenix (like my copy), Promaster, and Vivitar labels, reviewers say, and perhaps others. The Cosina-made (in Japan) Phoenix-labeled AF lens should also be distinguished from the Samyang-made (in Korea) Phoenix labeled Manual Focus f/4-4.5 18-28mm lens. The Cosina-made AF 19-35 should further be distinguished from the Tokina-made AF 19-35 which has the clever feature of turning the front element during focusing while not turning the front filter ring; the Cosina-made version doesn't have this feature.

Close reading of the reviews finds this said of the Cosina AF version: "Flare is a weak point of this lens. When the lens is pointed to the sun, the picture starts looking washed out with huge flare artefacts present throughout the image." And despite some improvements over the Cosina-made model, more than one reviewer of the Tokina-made AF model calls it "a Flair Machine."

I've found, in the few days I've had my Phoenix/Cosina copy that it does flair, and not in the good way I can get out of some other lenses, rather mainly in a way that just washes out the definition and contrast of whatever else is in the picture. Here's an OOC Jpeg example, which despite being taken at a northeasterly angle was shot vertically enough to catch a good deal of midday sun across the front element:



A lens hood is recommended to help with flair on these lenses, but I, like most other owners, don't have the original hood. The hood for my Rokinon/Samyang f/2 16mm will fit on it (needing some masking tape to secure it), but that hood is a petal-shaped one, and my Cosina-made model has the moving front filter mount. I did happen to have another possible flair controller, a Tiffin Warm Low-light Polarizer (having a weak polarizing effect, but which only steal 1-stop of light). Here's a shot using it, actually pointing the lens directly at the sun peeking through leaves of a tree, again an OOC Jpeg:



As you can see, from the second example, the weak polarizer seems to have turned the flair machine down to idle speed. There are some patches of blown highlights, a bit of a star burst where the sun is, that can be brought out in pp though that actually makes it smaller, but not a great deal of flairing (and certainly not much in the way of interesting well defined flair artifacts). While the wash-out flaring was pretty much eliminated with the polarizer, apparently so was the option of using flare creatively. I've ordered a hood to try with the lens, hoping it will find a happy medium regarding flair. Using the lens with cropped sensor, I expect I can use quite a bit of hood extension. What length hood to use for FF film will be a different challenge with this lens.

Now, there is one other issue, to consider. I must admit that I am not nearly the lens flair artist that many who post in this thread are. Perhaps someone else has made some amazing flair shots with this lens without a hood or some other way. Do post examples if you have them!

[mattb123]

My D FA 24-70 has some scratches on the front element that produce some flare when the light hits them.

[goatsNdonkey]

Soviet gear flare...



Use of flash and angle of light and small aperture produced flare in one of my gear shots today. Tamron Adaptall2 09A f/3.5-4.5 35-70mm + Pentax K-R + BW conversion.

[Jan178]

Infrared flare

Converted *ist DL, 850nm IR, 18-55 kit lens

[IMG][/IMG]

x-posted

[KC0PET]

[KC0PET]

DA 35 f/2.8 Macro

[Jorgario]

DA 12-24:

[WPRESTO]

Many, in fact most images taken in this palace had flare if there were any bright light sources within the frame. The lens must have had some haze or fogging (it was near drizzling outside).