On Thu, 15 Apr 1999 14:56:53 -0800, AudioMitch wrote:
>John P. Beale wrote:

>> The usual solution to lens flare is to use a hood, most/all professionals
>> use these on their lenses. With a hood of adequate size, this will not just
>> reduce, but eliminate flare, unless the source of light is actually *in*
>> the frame, and in that case the direct light will normally wash out the
>> flare anyway.

> And if the souce of light in your shot is the sun, you'll end up burning
>pixels in your CCDs, which would be an expensive shot. Also, artificial light
>tends to smear when shot directly. Of course, I think the most important hood
>is the courtesy flag for the cameraman...

I can't resist shooting into the sun, and do it often with
my Sony mini-DV camcorders, with and without .5X and fisheye
converters on... - BUT, the shots are hand-held, with much
movement (I don't recomment holding one position with the
sun in the frame!). So far, no burns, and lotsa neat,
often unflared (ghosts are another matter...!;-) footage.
BTW, I've written a lot on the photo newsgroups about
filters, and the common misconceptions... Briefly, a
good, single-coated UV filter (Hoya metal-rimmed filters
are good, and reasonably-priced...) will not degrade the
image except under the very worst conditions if kept clean
and shaded - and it will NOT "cut haze" (it will protect
the lens from accidents and cleaning efforts/effects...).
Warming filters are only useful if the auto white balance
is locked out. A polarizer can be useful (and troublesome
with wide views - skies can become uneven in tone). With
a good auto-white, or manual-white balance system, color
correction filters are generally not necessary (they can
be useful otherwise...;-). In answer to the original
question: a UV, and *maybe* a polarizer (circular-type)...