You made several rather specific claims in one post. It's quite reasonable to ask what you are basing those claims on. Are you comparing it to something? Is this entirely your personal opinion? Something in between?
For example:
What flare behavior are you basing it on? If it looks "less like" something, then you need some kind of baseline. Or should you rephrase as "it looks less like what I imagine flare behavior would look like"?
It's the "lack of priors" part I was referring to, not the question about what I'm basing it on.
I actually managed to make a short clip with a phone app, so my point should be clearer. This is the section I'm talking about.
To answer your question, my opinion is mainly based on the visual behavior in this specific clip, not on strong technical priors about flares. I don't have any deep expertise regarding lens flares or IR sensor artifacts. My familiarity mostly comes from flares I've seen in various videos, in footage I've recorded myself with my samsung s4, and from the examples discussed in this thread (and others).
So yes, this is largely a visual impression rather than a technical conclusion.
That said, I think that clip illustrates the point I'm trying to make. The way the object appears to be partially obscured by what looks like a thin cloud layer seems visually different from the flare examples I've seen so far. The fading appears localized and follows the apparent trajectory of the object.
I'm simply saying that, based on what I can see in this clip, the cloud-occlusion interpretation feels more natural to me than the flare interpretation. If there's a flare mechanism that reproduces this specific behavior, I'd be interested in seeing it.
