Hi Rual!
Sympathy and empathy your way. As an intentional sun-shooter myself, I've found the problem worsening on recent digital cameras. I never had a single problem with my old Pentax Optio S4 from 8 or so years ago, but then Pentax had some remarkable lens coatings, courtesy in part due to Hoya, now long-gone as well. Pentax is now just a name compared to days past; it has now been folded into the Ricoh Imaging group and is not the same company as provided my old SLR and early digital cameras and lenses.
Small sensors (relatively, compared to DSLRs, anyway) and long zoom ranges (my current has an optical range of 25-500mm in 35mm equivalent) have led to a greater incidence of flare, and much of it seems to be off-axis to the light source, where no lens hood really helps -- just as you've observed. My Panasonic TZ-9 with Leica-branded optics has lens flare nearly identical to yours in color, placement, and shape.
A more recent problem that has cropped up with some cameras like my Sony HX20 in odd circumstances is sensor flare (it seems nearly immune to lens flare, and sensor flare examples have been uploaded by other owners so it is not just my example). It seems to affect small-sensor, big-range travel-zooms in particular, and is a reflection of as many as 9 flares in a pattern reflected on the rear lens element and then picked up by the imager in a self-exposure. I've found a raised hand just out of the field of view does wonders at eliminating it completely, but I have to watch for it. It takes a just-right shallow-angle oblique entry of light to cause it. I can't cause it even shooting deliberately toward the sun. It is either No Problem the bulk of the time or Oops, the Aliens have Landed (see attached samples I just shot below). A bit different from your case, which looks like a genuine lens flare to me.
Best,
Dan. (...who takes photos with flare, but didn't want this kind)
