This is the only photo of the sunrise on Mount Kinabalu that includes the sun in the shot!
As you can see, that morning there was a cloud bank to the east and the peaks on the eastern side of Low's Gully actually obscure the horizon so from the summit you can't actually see the sun breaking over the horizon.
There's a lot of flare in this image. I could have brushed most of it out but I think it actually adds something to this image – a leading diagonal line for one and a visual artifact on the lower left quadrant that would otherwise be a black hole.
The flare below the sun is primarily due to a dirty filter. For many years I placed a skylight or UV filter on the front of my lenses to ‘protect' them. Having since traded up to Canon's ‘L' series lenses I not longer do that (most of the time).
I put ‘most of the time' in brackets because there are occasions where the protection factor does come into play. In most situations, the lens hood provides protection against minor bumps and knocks so a filter is not necessary. Situations where a filter can come in hand is when photographing rallying on a gravel surface or other occasions when pieces of rock or other debris might be hurtling towards you. There, the investment in a filter might protect the front element if a rock crashes into your lens, but if it has enough force to penetrate the filter then it'll likely damage the front element anyway.
I'm not talking here about artistic filters like neutral density filters, grads, polarizers, etc. I'm talking about the skylight/UV filters that many people use just as I used to. If you decide you do want to use a skylight or UV filter to give yourself peace of mind, make sure you invest in the best quality you can afford. There's little point in investing hundreds if not thousands on a lens only to destroy the image quality by placing a cheap filter between that lens and your subject.
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