Photography: Legacy Lenses, Filters, and Lens Flare
This sad looking girl seems to have blue hair!
In this image of Amazon there is a strange blue fog in the top left hand corner of the image. This is called lens flare and it occurs when shooting into a light source with an imperfect lens, either because of its design, or the materials from which it was manufactured.
In this instance, however it’s not the lens that’s the problem but a cheap UV filter that I used to protect the lens’ front element. The lens, an OM Zuiko 50mm 1.8 is actually quite good, although not as good as the 50mm Zuiko D 2.0 that is designed for digital photography and better resists flare.
In the past I’ve counseled that the quality of filters is probably over-rated when it comes to their differences in affecting final image quality. In the digital age that advice needs to be revised. Quality filters are, in my opinion, essential when used at all!
The blue is less pronounced in this shot because the UV filter, protecting the front element of the lens, was removed.
