What is causing the bright flare on all of my images?

Question

My new camera Canon 6D show this lensflare (raw or jpeg) in all the photos with this lens (Canon 50mm 1.8) or with the Samyang 16mm 2.8 (which I returned for judging what was defective). The lensflare is visible on the right side and less visible over to the center. Samyang 16mm had various circles, a true rainbow of color totally ruining the picture. In this landscape position my canon 600D took thousands of photos at night, no experiencing the problem. I wonder if you could help me, considering that the camera is in warranty and represented a major investment for me. So: - It is a problem of canon 6D? (sensor) - It's a problem of the lens (my aps-c sigma lens 10/20mm it works in 6D, shows no lensflare in 6D) - It will be a problem of focal length? (canon 1.8/samyang 2.8 / sigma 4.0) - It will be some kind of interference with the sensor from Canon 6D? (I read that the top of the camera is made of plastic to protect the gps and wifi). I appreciate any help thanks.

Answer 1

Are you shooting through glass, like a window? That could be the cause of both the streak in the top right in the first two images, and the flare in the third.

I may not be looking hard enough, but I can't make out the flare you're referring to in the top two images, but I do see a dirty streak in the top right - if you are shooting through a window this could be on the window, perhaps.

The third image does show obvious flare.

One important thing about flare is that any time you put glass in front of the camera lens, particularly glass that doesn't have multiple anti-reflective coatings on both sides, you introduce significant flare. Light reflects off the front of the camera or its lens, hits the glass, and reflects back towards the lens. The reason this doesn't happen with all the glass in the lens itself is that every glass to air surface of this glass is multi-coated: it has multi-layered anti-reflective coatings that cut reflections from, say, 3% down to, say, 0.2%. The cumulative effect of cutting reflections by this much all but elinimates the visible effect of flare in all but the most extreme lighting conditions.

However, add just a single pane of glass in front, and you go right back to up to a significant amount of flare.

That said, even if you don't have glass in front of the camera, it's still a situation that is relatively likely to result in flare, where you are pointing the camera at a very strong light that is much stronger than the rest of the scene, and due to the exposure you're using, the sheer brightness of light relative to the exposure chosen is magnifying what would normally be undetectable levels of flare to become visible.

Answer 2

If you have a problem with several lenses, and the camera is still under warranty, I'd get the sample pictures on an SD card (also adding pics of a neutral grey/whitish wall at varying apertures for reference) to take with you to the shop, and get it serviced there.

Answer 3

I recognized it right away.....take off that cheap lens filter the cameras store sold you(they're useless rip-offs) and replace it with a lens hood(will reduce lens flare AND protect lens). Hoods for pros, filters for amateurs.

Bad lens filters tend to be flare prone. Since you went from full frame, my guess is the cheap lens filter effect is much more visible since your using the entire lens versus a small cropped section.

Get a lens hood, remove the filter, and see if problem still exist.

It's maybe possible you got over zealous cleaning both and destroyed the lens coatings...unlikely unless you scrub the lens very HARD and use some weird, dissolving cleaning solution. Got any scratches on the lens? Usually harmless but can induce flaring.

Could also be a light leak problem on the body....rare but it happens.