"Hey, there's the camera!"

There is one belief I will absolutely cling to forever, no matter how many people say I'm wrong or that it doesn't matter: Showing a camera lens flare in a movie is sloppy film making. If you're watching a movie, notably a period piece and you're involved in the action and you see a camera flare, you are aware that you are watching a movie. It tells you that  that this is a set, these are actors, and there are all kinds of workers nearby. The fantasy is ruined. Yet even the most admired directors have frequent camera flares. Spielberg uses them shamelessly. In the golden age of movie-making if the camera lens was evident, the director redid the shot. Now, for some unfathomable reason, directors think this visual cliche is creative. Would they think it was creative to show the microphone boom? Of course not. But it's the same thing. A reminder of the technology, and a distraction from the story.