Prophotonut

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.