Lens flares everywhere

I love using the 17mm tilt shift lens but it really can create a lot of lens flares. And with no way to shield it, it something one really has to take into account while taking photos. And it’s even works with a situation like todays photos, where one has lights all around. So as you can see from the comparison on the side, this one had quite a few of them. So how did I get rid of them?

Simple! That is if you know how to do it :) I describe the technique in the How to remove lens flares article. You take another photo with the hand in front of the light source, and then blend it with the original exposure. But what to do if there are so many lights? You do the same, but multiple times. First check the normal photo, to see all the flares. Shade one light, and take the photo again. Check which flares are not visible anymore. Continue with the next light, until you have a photo for every flare you need to remove.

They may be issues with some flares. In this photo, the leftmost light created a flare that was also over itself. So even when I shaded the light, I did not get a good enough exposure to blend with, as it missed the light rays coming from it. So in the end I did a bit of brushing. I took the background sky color, and painted in the areas around the light I wanted darker. When done, I blurred them, to soften the transition, and so hide where I painted.

And thats it.

A cold and windy evening view

It can be so cold when one stands on a bridge. And when it’s windy, it’s even worse. But it also has a positive side. The bridge was almost completely empty. But even so, I took only few photos, and went to a more warmer place (not that I did not catch a cold the day after and am now trying to get healthy for my next trip :)).

This is a two shot vertorama, with another 4 shots used to remove all the lens flares. Combined in Lightroom and edited in Photoshop. This is the evening view from the Bir-Hakeim bridge towards the Eiffel tower in Paris.