IR Lens flare warning – Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L Mk11
August 12th, 2008
Lenses are designed and optimised to correct for flare and aberrations in visible light alone and I was completely caught out by these shortcomings when I started shooting colour infrared. My personal style is to always shoot into the light where possible and I found that my ‘top shelf’ Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L mk2 lens really suffered with flare in the infrared part of the spectrum.
The flare sits like a big splodge in the middle of the frame. This might be caused by the non regular front element. If you run your finger across the front element of this lens, having washed it in vodka first and licked off the residue:) you will notice that it is not of uniform curvature. It has a near flat spot in the centre. I am convinced that this plays some part in the central flare splodge. I have yet to try out any other wide lens with my infrared camera but I do intend to do so in the coming months.
I've left the flare in the sky on this picture in place to show you the kind of issue that can arise when shooting infrared pictures using wide angle lenses.
2 day shooting
5 Comments Add your own
1. oney | September 4th, 2009 at 6:20 am
nice pict…….what is it just use lens??…….it is so beautiful pict……..
2. oney | September 4th, 2009 at 6:22 am
if not use lens IR….we can pict like that…..how with editing???……
3. Joseph Adams | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Thanks for posting this.
I’ve noticed the same on my 16-35 and thought it was me at first until I remembered reading this.
It doesn’t seem limited to shooting into the light however.
4. Jack | November 18th, 2010 at 1:12 am
I’ve seen the same flare issue using a 70-200 L lens photographing a subject not directly into the sun. Mind you I forgot to mount the sunshade.
5. Jack | May 16th, 2011 at 11:00 am
As I said the 70-200 f4 L IS has flare issues, the 24-105L does not, neither does my f. 2.8 100mm macro (non USM), the 17-40L shows no flare and I haven’t found any flare in the f 2,5 50mm macro.
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