lens flare

first time by the ocean with my D90. took some images last night right before sunset. tried to play with exposure comp to achieve a nice soft image into the sunset on the beach without losing detail and found a bit more flare than I expected. I tried several different fstops and shutter speeds. Can someone with some experience at the ocean please give me some ideas about camera settings to achieve some nice oceanfront sunset images. I have available = my kit lens 18-105, a 1.4 50, a 20. 60 macro. Thank you

i use a polarizer and cokin nd filtres to get the coloured effects and in your menu you can change the saturation and sharpness settings! i use the landscape setting and change the settings under it to get the desired effect

A CPL should check that flare

OMG! You want to stop flare???? ((((((

Unfortunately lens flare is something you just have to deal with regardless of the filters you use. I shoot sun sets and sun rises often and even using ND and CPL filters I can still get flaring. Flaring is mostly the result of unwanted light reflecting off the surface of the glass elements that make up the lens. A good lens hood does as much good at stoping lens fare as anything else except when shooting a sun set or sun rise. The lens hood does no good at all when shooting directly into the light source. Lens flare is a major reason the manufacturers put coatings on the lens elements. These coatings do a great job but obviously can't get rid of all the flare.

Sometimes to avoid flare I will use my hand (just out of the frame) to block it, it usually works.

jengajoh said:

Sometimes to avoid flare I will use my hand (just out of the frame) to block it, it usually works.

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I also do this, funny to see the little flare disappear, even more funny to catch a thumb in the image.

Yea, I unfortunately have a collection of shots of thumbs, fingers, finger nails, and an assortment of hat parts.

What do you do about flair created by using the uncoated graduated filters like Cokin?

but flare is so gorgeous! It adds to a picture