If you are anything like me when I first picked up an older 35mm camera, you probably thought lens flares were mistakes. I used to spend an embarrassing amount of time contorting my body in weird angles just to shield my lens from the sun, desperate to get that ultra-crisp, high-contrast look I saw in magazines. I treated stray light like the absolute enemy.

Then, J.J. Abrams made them famous in the late 2000s, and suddenly, they were everywhere. But beyond the cinematic sci-fi look, I started noticing how many of my favorite film photographers used lens flares in this gorgeous, subtle way. A little streak of amber light cutting across a portrait, or a warm, hazy wash over a landscape at sunset. When I finally got a roll of film back where I had accidentally let the sun hit my front glass element, the result wasn't a ruined photo. It was the best shot on the whole roll. It had feeling. It had atmosphere.

Since then, I have been officially obsessed. Let's break down exactly what lens flares are, why your choice of camera gear matters, and how you can actually start using them on purpose rather than by accident.

The Science (Simplified) Behind the Glow

At its core, a lens flare is just non-image-forming light scattering around inside your lens. Your camera lens isn't just one solid chunk of glass. It is made up of multiple curved pieces of glass, called elements, arranged in specific groups. When you point your camera toward a bright light source—typically the sun, but streetlights and concert lasers do it too—that light enters the lens barrel.

Ideally, light passes straight through all those glass elements and hits your film plane or digital sensor perfectly. But sometimes, when light hits at a sharp angle, it bounces off the edges of the glass elements, reflects off the internal metal barrel, and scatters. This scattering causes the beautiful, chaotic artifacts we call lens flares.

Veiling Flare vs. Ghosting

Before we go out and shoot, it helps to know that there are two main types of flare, and they look completely different.

Veiling Flare: This happens when the stray light scatters wildly across the entire image. It essentially washes out your shadows and lowers the overall contrast of your photo. If you have ever taken a photo against a bright window and noticed your subject looks a bit faded, hazy, or bathed in a milky glow, that is veiling flare. It is incredible for creating a soft, romantic, or nostalgic vibe.

Ghosting: These are the distinct, geometric shapes you see trailing across an image in a line. Those little glowing orbs, pentagons, or hexagons? They are actually reflections of your lens's aperture blades! If your lens has six straight aperture blades, your ghosts will look like glowing little hexagons. Ghosting gives photos a very dynamic, raw, and physical feel.

Why Vintage Lenses Do It Better

Here is a fun fact: modern camera manufacturers spend millions of dollars in research and development trying to eliminate lens flares. Today's high-end digital lenses are covered in advanced, multi-layer nano-coatings specifically designed to stop internal reflections. They are incredibly sharp and clinically perfect, but honestly? It makes them a little boring.

This is exactly why so many digital and analog shooters are mounting vintage glass onto their cameras. Back in the 1960s, 70s, and even into the 80s, lens coatings were much simpler. Many older lenses are single-coated or completely uncoated. Without those heavy chemical layers fighting off the light, vintage lenses flare with almost zero effort. Soviet lenses like the legendary Helios 44-2, or classic Japanese glass like the early Pentax Takumars and Canon FDs, produce absolutely wild, colorful, and unpredictable flares. The glass literally reacts to the light in ways a modern, surgically perfect lens refuses to.

How to Harness the Light

Alright, so you know what it is, and you know old glass is the secret ingredient. How do you actually get good results without just blinding yourself through the viewfinder?

• Shoot into the light (Backlighting): The most basic rule of fetching a flare is placing your light source in front of the camera, not behind it. Position your subject between you and the sun. This gives them a beautiful rim light on their hair and shoulders, while encouraging stray rays to hit the front of your lens.
• Play the hide-and-seek game: The best flares rarely happen when the sun is dead center in your frame. Try placing the sun just outside the edge of your composition, or let it peak through the leaves of a tree, or even partially block it with your subject's head. As the light wraps around an object, you'll see the flare dance across your viewfinder. Moving your camera a fraction of an inch can completely change the shape and color of the light streak.
• Control it with your aperture: Your f-stop completely changes the personality of a flare. If you shoot wide open (like f/1.8 or f/2), you are going to get massive, soft washes of light and a heavy veiling flare. It is very dreamy. But if you stop your lens down to f/8 or f/11, that scattered light gets focused. Veiling flare disappears, and instead, you get sharp, defined geometric ghosts and brilliant, starburst-like rays coming directly off the sun.
• Wait for the Golden Hour: Capturing flares at high noon is tough because the sun is directly overhead, meaning you'd have to shoot straight up into the sky to get it. When the sun is naturally low on the horizon—during sunrise or sunset—the light naturally streams straight into your lens barrel. Plus, the light is warmer, giving your flares a beautiful amber or pink hue instead of harsh white.

When a Flare Ruins the Vibe

Look, as much as I love a good stray light ray, there are times when it absolutely ruins a photo. If you are shooting a detailed landscape or a documentary-style street shot, a massive drop in contrast from a veiling flare can make your photo look muddy and poorly exposed instead of artistic.

The easiest way to kill an unwanted flare in the moment is just to use your hand. Hold your non-shooting hand above or to the side of the lens, casting a shadow over the front glass element. Watch through your viewfinder, and you will instantly see the contrast snap back into the image. Just be careful not to get your knuckles in the frame.

If you prefer a less hands-on approach, you can actually seek out vintage gear that fits your style. If you want to start experimenting with gorgeous, unpredictable light leaks and hazy ghosting, you can look for some incredible manual focus lenses over at Old Cams by Jens to find a quirky vintage piece with older coatings. On the flip side, if you are shooting with vintage gear but want to tame those stray rays and keep your contrast high, you can always pick up a lens hood to mechanically block the sun.

Ultimately, learning to use lens flares is about embracing imperfections. In an era where phone cameras automatically HDR away every lighting flaw to give us identical, flat images, letting the light spill raw and unedited across your film or sensor feels a bit rebellious. So next time the sun is getting low, don't pack your camera away. Point it straight into the light, shift your angle, and see what kind of magic the glass gives back to you.