Every experienced photographer knows and fears lens flare. Most often, we associate it with those horribly distracting 'stars' of light we see through our viewfinder and in our images when shooting into the sun. But not everyone knows that lens flare doesn't only affect those shots—it is part of every image we capture. So knowing how to reduce its effect is a valuable tool in many shooting situations.

This week in the news: Apple tests a new 8-inch iPad; lots of new accessories came out for gamers; and Lensbaby announced a brand new creative optic designed for portrait photographers. Plus, the internet got a sneak peek at Adobe Photoshop CS6's latest tweaks to the very-popular Content-Aware Fill feature.

This is your B&H Pulse news fix for February 17, 2012.

One of the most valuable lessons that I apply to photography on a daily basis was actually taught to me by a theater professor in college, well before I had a passion for taking pictures. “The most interesting characters are the ones that struggle between good and bad. Show me this conflict,” Dr Edwards said, “because it is this conflict that we are drawn to.”

People go scuba diving for many reasons. Some divers are interested in the natural beauty of coral reefs, and the animals that call this environment home. Wreck divers are interested in man-made objects that have ended up underwater by disaster. Ships and airplanes sink because of bad maintenance, fire, weather, collisions and war. Once sunk, the wreck becomes a time capsule. When diving to explore wrecks, the experience is enhanced if you know its history. When swimming through one of these underwater museums, one can't help but imagine what happened during the sinking. If your objective is to create images, knowing the wrecks history will help.

Tastes vary, but I've never seen an image with a watermark that wouldn't have been better without it.

The disadvantage of using a watermark is obvious. It introduces a distracting visual element that doesn't belong in an image. The effect of a watermark on an image ranges from mildly distracting at best, to ruinous at worst. When I see a photograph with a watermark, the watermark is almost invariably the first thing I look at. If it's large and obtrusive, it's also usually the last.

One of the main reasons why photographers lug their cameras around when the sun goes down, is to capture the night sky. For a lot of us, this means leaving the bright lights of the city in search of where the stars shine the brightest. Until recently, the only way a photographer could successfully capture the night sky was with long exposures that resulted in star trails. If you wanted to capture star points, or a more celestial night, exposures needed to be less than 30 seconds. Otherwise, the earth’s rotation turned the points into trails. But with DSLRs now capable of capturing cleaner ISO output at 1600 and 3200, we are entering a new celestial era that would make Van Gogh proud! 

So whether you choose the drama of the longer star trails or the subtler star points, here are some tips to follow.

Recently, we published Part I of a full interview with Wedding and Portrait Photographer David Ziser. Today we feature Part II, where we talk to him about touring, his blog, and business.