Does anyone use lens hoods?

drsilver

drsilver

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Does anyone use lens hoods these days?

I've mentioned I was away from photography for 30 years. When I got back, lens hoods had become huge. I've got a whole cabinet full of lens hoods. I admonish my wife periodically about the refrigerator and pantry, DON'T STORE AIR. Lens hoods, when stored or transported, are liters and liters of air.

web-5564.jpg web-5577.jpg
Left: Canon 24-105mm f/4 with hood, circa 2016. Right: Nikkor 24mm f/2 with hood, circa 1980.

When a lens hood comes into play, you're looking at a tough shot anyway. You might reconsider the angle of your light. But if you think, no, this is the shot I want, then a left hand is an almost-always adequate shade.

So I don't carry lens hoods. Just too much empty space to lug around.
 
i use them all the time. mostly for protection cause i usually carry the lens with the cap off when it's out of the bag. but the hoods can be flipped backwards on the lens for storage so to me they don't take up that much room.
 
nokk said:
i use them all the time. mostly for protection cause i usually carry the lens with the cap off when it's out of the bag. but the hoods can be flipped backwards on the lens for storage so to me they don't take up that much room.
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+1
 
Yes, mainly as protection for the front element.
 
drsilver said:
Does anyone use lens hoods these days?

I've mentioned I was away from photography for 30 years. When I got back, lens hoods had become huge. I've got a whole cabinet full of lens hoods. I admonish my wife periodically about the refrigerator and pantry, DON'T STORE AIR. Lens hoods, when stored or transported, are liters and liters of air.

View attachment 292788 View attachment 292789
Left: Canon 24-105mm f/4 with hood, circa 2016. Right: Nikkor 24mm f/2 with hood, circa 1980.

When a lens hood comes into play, you're looking at a tough shot anyway. You might reconsider the angle of your light. But if you think, no, this is the shot I want, then a left hand is an almost-always adequate shade.

So I don't carry lens hoods. Just too much empty space to lug around.
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Most hoods these days can be reversed on the lens for transportation so take up less room.

I hate large lens hoods with a passion as I find they bump into things and people, fall off, don't stop flare and make you look like a camera nerd.

The most useful aspect of a lens hood for me is in wide angle lenses - they keep my left hand out of the frame!

I replace hoods on telephoto zooms with collapsible rubber hoods - but that's mainly as a bumper. The hood on my Nikon 24-70 is used in the rain as it is part of the weather sealing.

If I can manage without a hood I will. Nasty things.
 
Big hoods have been around for a while. This one was introduced 80 years ago:

Leica-Summitar-Barn-Door-Barndoor-Lens-Hood-Shade.jpg


Though rather cleverly they anticipated your complaint - it folds flat very neatly:

500px-SOOPD.jpg


Nearly every modern hood I have reverses on the lens and adds very little to its bulk. If they are taking up litres of space you are doing it wrong. As well as shading, they are pretty useful for protection of the glass against some kinds of impact (let's not mention UV filters!).
 
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Ed Sutton said:
The most useful aspect of a lens hood for me is in wide angle lenses - they keep my left hand out of the frame!
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I used to use a 27mm lens on my Fuji X-T1 and now have an X100F which has a fixed 23mm lens. Both are pancake lenses and the hood are essential, not so much for reducing flare but for keeping my little finger out of the shot!
 
A trend seems to be to use the camera with the lens hood reversed. Thus making the camera difficult to hold and probably limiting access to one of the adjustment rings.
 
I've been using them since I was a kid in the '60s, starting with a folding 120 camera (Kodak 66?).
 
I never take mine off, but then I use them instead of lens caps as protection

I've never damaged a front element yet but I have broken a couple of lenshoods, and had several instances of where the hood took the impact (but didn't break) that might otherwise have damaged the front element

Dave
 
I tend to use soft edge grad filters so don't use them. If shooting urban I use the hood to stop flaring from street lights etc. For landscapes shooting away from the sun I've never felt the need to use hoods - and that is how I shoot 99.99% of the time.
 
Pound Coin said:
A trend seems to be to use the camera with the lens hood reversed. Thus making the camera difficult to hold and probably limiting access to one of the adjustment rings.
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Really?! That leads me to the horrifying thought that some people who don't really understand what that plastic thing is for are taking the lens out of the box with the hood in that position and just leaving it there. I think I've taken a couple of shots that way when I was in a hurry, but on most lenses it will become pretty annoying pretty quickly.
 
I use lens hoods for my

24-70
70-200
100-400
24
35

but not for my

50
85

or my

80 / 135...

Basically if the hood is relatively large for the lens, like 50% of lens size then I don't use it.
 
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I have my CV40 1.2E hood on my CV21 3.5E I sometimes find side light an issue on the 21mm but the hood is so small anyway.....

Otherwise no. They get in the way of using the CPL.
 
dancook said:
Basically if the hood is relatively large for the lens, like 50% of lens size then I don't use it.
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usd to have the Fuji 60mm lens, the hood was almost 100% the size of the lens and, being metal, was bloody heavy. Needless to say, it never got used.
 
The only time mine come off is if I'm fitting filters.

Like Dave, I don't bother with lens caps either and hoods have saved my lenses from a 'ding' many times.

I would never be without them . . .
 
Yes, pretty much all the time, the one that I find to be a pain is the hood for the 16-35 which is a really large diameter and takes up a lot of space in the bag if left on the lens. As well as the protection offered at worst a well designed hood can't harm image quality and probably improves it by shading the glass in most circumstances
 
I always use a lens hood for the following reasons...
  1. They protect the front element from rain and unexpected contact with unexpected things.
  2. They stop glancing light causing flare.
  3. I think they're pretty (well, most of them).
  4. I like storing air.
:tumbleweed:
 
I leave mine on almost all of the time. Flare is a real problem if you do not use them and remember that the effect of flare may just be a reduction in contrast which you may not notice until you get home. As others have said, the lens hood also provided good physical protection as well. They do not take up any significant extra space in my bag as all Canon lens hoods (and probably other makes as well) can be reversed for storage. I would certainly not take a shot with the hood reversed as it will not be doing its job.

Dave
 
I use a lens hood on all my lenses all of the time with the exception of the 50mm f1.8. I've not got round to buying a lens hood for that lens, and because the front element is recessed so is well protected anyway.
 
Yes if they are large enough / right shape to actually be effective at what they are meant to do.
 
Marc said:
I used to use a 27mm lens on my Fuji X-T1 and now have an X100F which has a fixed 23mm lens. Both are pancake lenses and the hood are essential, not so much for reducing flare but for keeping my little finger out of the shot!
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I don't have the problem with my X100T because I hold it differently to a DSLR. It wouldn't fit on my jacket pocket with a hood on anyway!
 
Most of the time. As much to protect the lens from scrapes when going through or over stiles, which seem to breed round here.
 
With modern lenses not so much these days maybe because the designs have become more flare resistant or the coatings have got better? For whatever reason they don't seem to be needed as much, in my experience, and most of my new lenses seem to cope well with flare but of course some old film era lenses don't do anywhere near as well. One in particular suffers terribly with flare but it's a wide angle and I haven't yet found a hood that doesn't cause vignetting.
 
Lots of people stating why they use a lens hood... Any good reason not to use one ?

As a sports photogrpaher if in a crowded space with lots of other photogrpahers using 400mm lens we take the hood off so as to give the photogrpahers next to us more access to the scene ? Not to block there view sort of thing..

other than that for me... yes.. thy not ?
 
I always use a hood, protects the lens and stops flare.
 
KIPAX said:
Lots of people stating why they use a lens hood... Any good reason not to use one ?

As a sports photogrpaher if in a crowded space with lots of other photogrpahers using 400mm lens we take the hood off so as to give the photogrpahers next to us more access to the scene ? Not to block there view sort of thing..

other than that for me... yes.. thy not ?
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Just the bulk and maybe it makes the kit look slightly more noticeable / attractive to others and of course it could make the use of filter or lens caps more fiddly.
 
Retune said:
Big hoods have been around for a while. This one was introduced 80 years ago:

Leica-Summitar-Barn-Door-Barndoor-Lens-Hood-Shade.jpg


Though rather cleverly they anticipated your complaint - it folds flat very neatly:

500px-SOOPD.jpg


Nearly every modern hood I have reverses on the lens and adds very little to its bulk. If they are taking up litres of space you are doing it wrong. As well as shading, they are pretty useful for protection of the glass against some kinds of impact (let's not mention UV filters!).
Click to expand...
Now we're talking. I might carry an accessory like this.

I generally carry 3 lenses in my bag. If I carry hoods, even reversed, one of those lenses has to stay home. For the 2% of the time where a hood might come into play, that seems like too big of a compromise, especially when other shading options (a hand, a hat, a tree.) are available in the field.

As for protection, a quality UV filter does the same thing and literally adds 5mm to the length of the lens (and nothing to the diameter.) In my lifetime, I've probably owned 50 lenses. Every one of them got a filter day 1. And yes, I've smashed a couple of them. And the filter took the entire hit.
 
I always use a lens hood to protect the lens from knocks when I lug it around. Sometime it just gets bashed agaiinst walls but one of my cameras, with a battery grip and a 2.8 70-200 on it, fell to the ground when my camera strap broke. The camera went lens first straight down to the ground. The only damage was some scrapes to the lens hood, no damage whatsoever to the lens or the camera. The semi-flexible lens hoods seem to absorb shocks very well, I doubt the lens element would've faired so well without it.
 
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People seem to have dodged the very very important fact that they make your kit look BIGGER and more IMPORTANT :)
Aside from that, protection from bumps and knocks can't be a bad thing to have.
And my 35-70mm is prone to flare, so anything to help that.....
 
Yes, I used lens hoods on the lenses I have them for. I find they nest-stack inside each other in my camera bag, and I can put an L-bracket wrapped in a lens-cloth alongside them, plus a roll or two of film in the middle of the 'nest' as well, so it's not lost space. I'm careful not to damage the flocking inside the hoods (I'm a Canon user) when doing this though, otherwise they won't be as effective.

In addition to helping prevent obvious spot-type lens flare, lens hoods also help prevent veiling lens flare, which can cause a loss of contrast before it becomes obvious.


dweeble said:
People seem to have dodged the very very important fact that they make your kit look BIGGER and more IMPORTANT :)
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I believe that a thin, red, elastic band can be used around the end of the lens to make it look much more expensive too!
 
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Mr Badger said:
I believe that a thin, red, elastic band can be used around the end of the lens to make it look much more expensive too!
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I wouldn't know, Is that something specific to Cannon [sic] users? Guess you guys need all the help you can get :)
 
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I have a few of these which look lovely on my lenses but as I said above, I find that most of my lenses perform well enough without a hood.

Untitled-1.jpg

In the past I've had many of the usual makes, Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Tamron etc but the best made hood by far was one that came free with something else I bought off evil bay, a lens cap or something. Great hood though, a work of art almost and better than anything I had from the big marques yet free :D
 
Similar scenario to @KIPAX dont use them inside wildlife hides.

one other benefit I think they bring is more stability. in low light and slow shutter speed I hold the end of the lens cap - feels like the extra length gives a more stable platform than holding camera body or lens.
 
woof woof said:
I have a few of these which look lovely on my lenses but as I said above, I find that most of my lenses perform well enough without a hood.

View attachment 292876

In the past I've had many of the usual makes, Nikon, Canon, Sigma, Tamron etc but the best made hood by far was one that came free with something else I bought off evil bay, a lens cap or something. Great hood though, a work of art almost and better than anything I had from the big marques yet free :D
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I have something much like that I bought on ebay instead of the Leica contraption for the Summitar shown above. It's actually very similar to the hoods that used to come with some other Leica lenses (a rather battered original was included with my Summilux). The Summitar itself has a unique conical filter thread that can be converted to a standard 39mm thread with a rare Leica adapter ring ('SNHOO'). But the ebay seller (I think it was Heavystar) had that covered too, including a nicely fabricated copy of this single purpose adapter, an equally high quality 39mm hood, and a lens cap, all for a very reasonable price (pin money by Leica standards).
 
I just started using my Olympus gear again (apologies for the repeat picture), maybe I should lose the hoods....

50355535951_3b2cfc348c_h.jpg
 
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