fixing and avoiding lens flare

I bought the Sigma 10-20 on ebay and it didn't have the lens hood. The seller refunded me £20 for a hood but I have not had a chance to get one yet. I believe the flare in the picture below is due to the lack of a hood. Is my assumption correct?

I plan to buy a hood anyway but if anyone has the Sigma 10-20 with a hood, how do you rotate the polariser when the hood is one? Has it got a panel like then one on the kit lens? Also, anyone know where I can buy a hood online?

And finally, does anyone have any tips for removing the lens flare in photoshop?

With a lens that wide hoods are really only vestigial, and given the angle of the light source, would have offered no protection at all. There was a time when flare was fashionable... and there is a way in PS of adding it but I'm not so sure about removing it.

Thanks gartmore. Do you think it is just best to maneuver oneself so the flare is not present or somehow obstruct the light with a hand maybe?

photoshop givith and photoshop taketh away.

start by cloning out the colored flare spots.

create two layers, get your top layer corrected and balanced for the areas with no flare, then take the area where there is flare in the bottom layer fix it and adjust it seperately. now use your history brush or your eraser to erase the flare from the top layer.

now try using your hand or a peice of cardboard as a lens shade next time at the shooting phase and see what works easier... (i find lens hoods cumbersome, and seldom use..... except in situations (like dogs or kids) where my lens might get licked, or scratched.

Yes, absolutely, but then again you might lose the picture you want completely. So flare might have to be accentuated in PS to carry it off. Unfortunately in this case I cant see any way of dodging it with your hand. We use a thing called a 'French Flag' which is basically a bit of A4ish thin black aluminium on a flexible arm which can be positioned anywhere on the edge of frame. Brilliant Idea tonight I'll patent one which fits the hot shoe.http://www.filmtools.com/clamfrenflag.html Not a very good picture but a useful and cheap piece of kit.

Of course not of any use at all to SMC Pentax lens owners

Use a finger tip on the edge of the filter at one of the corners of the hood, but it's better not to bother with the hood when using a polaraiser.

I think a polariser could cause vignetting towards 10mm. I've not tested properly, though.

I kind of like the flare in this shot, but flare issues aside, look at how blue the sky on the right is, and how blue they sky isn't on the left side...

On a lens this wide, the effect of polarizing at any particular rotation of the filter will only cover a portion of your field of view because of the angle of reflection that the light hitting the filter has gone through...

Actually this website explains it so much better...
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/polarizers.shtml
scroll down just a bit and you'll see...

(That said, I still use one occasionally on my 10-20... I just remove the hood, as my fat finger can't seem to turn the polarizer without smudging the lens...)

photoshop removal - just select areas with marquee, copy+paste, erase edges with soft brush to smooth out.[/list]



[edit]
oh i missed the circle in the shadow
thats even easier, just use the clone tool
i prefer the marquee+copy paste for structured cloning, its easier for some things, but theres nothing large to paste over that shadow.