Learn How To Use Creative Studio Lens Flare

On this video tutorial photographer Gavin Hoey explore the idea of creatively using a lens flare in a studio shooting. Now normally you would like to avoid flare as much as possible in your photography but for more creative work this can actually be lots of fun.

Hoey starts with a pretty simple light setup – one light just above the model in the front and one light aimed at the background (with a red gel).

Now starts the fun part – using two light stands with boom arms holding flashes pointing to the camera (make sure they don’t cast a shadow on the background). In this case you will need to push the flashes to a high setting to get this washed out.

You can add some gels to the lights facing the camera to get some more interesting look (especially if you don’t have the light facing the background with a color (adding some smoke from a smoke machine can also be really cool as Hoey demonstrates but really not essential).

We have already looked at the subject of lens flare (mostly when it comes to post processing) on Colin Smith “Cool Trick for Adding a Realistic Lens Flare in Photoshop“, Bryan O’Neil Hughes’ video: “How to Add & Remove Lens Flare in Photoshop” as well as a two videos by Nace called simply: “How to Add Lens Flare to your Image in Photoshop“ and more recently “The Best Way to Use Lens Flares in Photoshop“ and “Making an Accurate and Adjustable Lens Flare in Photoshop“.

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid. You can also check out some of Gavin Hoey’s other videos here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.