I'm looking to create a lens flare effect, such as when a camera lens passes by a bright light such as the sun or other source of light. I've searched the tutorials as well as the forum with no solid results. But I have seen the effect used in animations. I can't imagine it would be too difficult but I'm not sure where to start in order to get predictable results. Any ideas?

Corel KPT Collection has a lens flare. I can't recall seeing a free filter that would do it, but there may be one out there for Photoshop.

qay has some light effects for Poser, etc. located here: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=17163 There's different ways to get the effect outside of Poser too as rreynolds pointed out, but it all depends... is this for animation? Stills? If it's for stills, Photoshop has a lens flare effect that works nicely. If for animation, then a video FX editor (AfterEffects, Combustion, etc.) is your best bet, since it would allow you to easily animate the flare over the course of your video.