Shield the front of your lens

Block unwanted stray light to improve the contrast and colour of your city scenes

Shooting at night brings an added risk of lens flare. The light from street lamps, car headlights and other bright objects that strike the front element can introduce bright polygonal shapes, streaks and an overall haze that gives the image a washed-out look. The light source doesn’t even have to be in the shot: it’s often the stray light created by a street lamp just out of frame that’s the worst culprit.

You can take a couple of precautions to combat lens flare, though. First, avoid using a filter at the front of the lens where possible, as this can create internal reflections of the light source. Second, shield the front element.

A lens hood is just as useful at night as it is on a clear, sunny day. The shallow hoods that are often supplied with ultra-wide and wide-angle lenses aren’t as effective as the much deeper ones you get with telephoto lenses, so be prepared to hold your hand or an object such as a hat or phone above the front of the lens to block the indirect light.

Lamp light Even though the 24-70mm lens I was using was fitted with a hood, a street lamp out of shot on the right created the flare that’s visible in the image above. To fix this, I held a wallet to the side of the lens to create a shadow across the front element.