[mst]

As a follow-up to the earlier discussion about flare tests:

 

This is a selection of shots I made while field-testing the Tamron.

 

First scene, shooting into the sun, partly covered by the building in the shot.

 

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As you can see, there are some flare blobs both on the building (near the sun) as well as in the foreground.

 

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Plus a few tiny spots near the image center.

 

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Now let's turn the setup by 90 degrees:

 

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Gives us very similar flare results, a reddish shape on the building plus a huge green blob in the foreground. Both roughly in the center of the image.

 

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Now let's move the light source a little to the left:

 

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More or less same results, but now quite a bit apart, the red spot moving with the light source, the green blob moving in the opposite direction:

 

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Same lens, different location, but roughly similar light setup: shooting directly into the sun, more or less centered.

 

Portrait mode:

 

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Surprise: no huge blobs, just some tiny, but colourful spots in the image center:

 

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Let's switch to landscape mode:

 

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Flares in this one? Nope.

 

(Well, ok, maybe there are, but might have ended up in places where there is no dark structure, so they're just not visible)

 

So, to summarize: you can see with these shots how different flare can be with the same lens (and at the same settings in all of the above shots, which is 15mm f/8), even with a roughly similar lightsource. I can't imagine any way to set up a test scenario that first of all offers the same and reproducible lighting conditions (outdoor??) and in addition gives meaningful results that can be compared between several tested lenses.

 

-- Markus