What do hoods do ?
- Thread starter Llama
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Hi Jack, a few things they are good for. The primary use is stopping stray light getting in there and causing flare which appears as little circles or hexagons in your pic. Most of them are coated on the inside.
The other use is to protect the front of the lens. Some people use filters but the lens hoods are actually very good at protecting the glass.
HTH
The other use is to protect the front of the lens. Some people use filters but the lens hoods are actually very good at protecting the glass.
HTH
The funny shape is because the image the camera 'sees' essentially is a rectangle. This means that if the hood had been completely round, especially on a wide-angle, the corners of the rectangular photo would be blocked.
Does that make sense?
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On the Huh
Little Ball of Fur
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Petal shaped hoods are normally for wide angle lenses to help prevent vignetting.
On the Huh
Little Ball of Fur
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I knew someone would answer before I pressed the button! Too slow at this typing marlarky.
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i use the hoods as protection from dings and taps on tables and things as i put the camera down (tend to use it outdoors so lots of rocks and walls)
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If you ever shield your eyes with your hand from the sun to see more clearly, that’s when a lens hood is useful.
I walked into a concrete anti-vehicle bollard in pitch darkness the other night, camera first, and the lens hood got a scrape but the lens was fine, so protection is good.
QS
I walked into a concrete anti-vehicle bollard in pitch darkness the other night, camera first, and the lens hood got a scrape but the lens was fine, so protection is good.
QS
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The primary purpose of a hood is to shade the lens and prevent flare. It's a bit like shading your eyes with your hand, or using the sun visor in a car. But TBH, I think their main function these days is protection, for which they are very effective.
In practise, a fixed lens hood on a zoom lens is only ever optimum at the shortest focal length because it cannot be made any longer without intruding in the picture (known as mechanical vignetting). And if you fit a full frame lens on to a crop format camera (eg Canon EF as opposed to EF-S) then even at the shortest setting it's not going to be optimum. Sigma has started to supply some of its lenses with an extension to the hood for use on crop format cameras, for this reason.
A really accurately fitted hood makes a big difference in difficult light, eg when there is bright light just outside the frame. Of course, a hood can do nothing if for example the sun is actually in the picture.
An ideal hood is rectangular, and shades the lens right up to the edge of the image. Petal hood are effectively rectangular, as said above, when seen through the lens. Hold one up to you eye and take a look. But making them round is cheaper and stronger, and you can reverse them on the lens for storage.
I use a very deep hood when shooting bright white backgrounds in the studio, and that gives a useful boost to contrast by cutting out all the bright light from the background outside the image area. I use the hood from a 100-400L on my 24-105L lens, and it only intrudes into the picture from about 85mm and below, so that's about perfect.
This is another very good lens hood from Kood (also doubles as P-type filter holder) http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photographic/square-filters/p-type/ptype-bellows-hood-p-1259.html It's a bellows style, so you can adjust it just right. There is also a slot in the front where you can slide in a black card rectangle for even better shading of longer lenses. By the same token, if you cut a rectangle out of a piece of card and BluTack it to your existing hood, that is also very effective but you need a different sized rectangle for every focal length! Easy enough to knock something up for studio use maybe, when you're often usuning the lens set at just one focal length.
In practise, a fixed lens hood on a zoom lens is only ever optimum at the shortest focal length because it cannot be made any longer without intruding in the picture (known as mechanical vignetting). And if you fit a full frame lens on to a crop format camera (eg Canon EF as opposed to EF-S) then even at the shortest setting it's not going to be optimum. Sigma has started to supply some of its lenses with an extension to the hood for use on crop format cameras, for this reason.
A really accurately fitted hood makes a big difference in difficult light, eg when there is bright light just outside the frame. Of course, a hood can do nothing if for example the sun is actually in the picture.
An ideal hood is rectangular, and shades the lens right up to the edge of the image. Petal hood are effectively rectangular, as said above, when seen through the lens. Hold one up to you eye and take a look. But making them round is cheaper and stronger, and you can reverse them on the lens for storage.
I use a very deep hood when shooting bright white backgrounds in the studio, and that gives a useful boost to contrast by cutting out all the bright light from the background outside the image area. I use the hood from a 100-400L on my 24-105L lens, and it only intrudes into the picture from about 85mm and below, so that's about perfect.
This is another very good lens hood from Kood (also doubles as P-type filter holder) http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photographic/square-filters/p-type/ptype-bellows-hood-p-1259.html It's a bellows style, so you can adjust it just right. There is also a slot in the front where you can slide in a black card rectangle for even better shading of longer lenses. By the same token, if you cut a rectangle out of a piece of card and BluTack it to your existing hood, that is also very effective but you need a different sized rectangle for every focal length! Easy enough to knock something up for studio use maybe, when you're often usuning the lens set at just one focal length.
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would anyone judge me if i said they make the lens look better as well XD
cowasaki
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Yes we would.
but only in an awesome way
as an aside except in very few circumstances when it is good I want to do violence to people with hoods reversed
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It's one of the questions I always ask when buying a new lens, is "does it come with a lens hood", I also reverse them for storage especially the 70-300 otherwise it won't fit in the bag
the only problem I have with sigma 18-200, lens hood is that it casts a shadow when using the pop up flash, so the hood has to be removed when using it, using hotshoe/off-camera flash however doesn't need the hood removed.
the only problem I have with sigma 18-200, lens hood is that it casts a shadow when using the pop up flash, so the hood has to be removed when using it, using hotshoe/off-camera flash however doesn't need the hood removed.
I also reverse them for storage especially the 70-300 otherwise it won't fit in the bag
the only problem I have with sigma 18-200, lens hood is that it casts a shadow when using the pop up flash, so the hood has to be removed when using it, using hotshoe/off-camera flash however doesn't need the hood removed.
Yes many of them can be counter productive when used with pop up flash, I suppose it's down to the small distance between lens and flash
cowasaki
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You can get lens eclipses using a pop up flash even without the lens hood! Try an AFS 18-200 vr but you are almost guaranteed to get it with the hood. The lens manufacturer would probably say that if you need flash you probably don't need the hood OR use a separate flash but some of us use the hood as a protection device.
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also..if you forget the cup for you're flask and have a plastic bag with you you can fit the plasy bag in the hood and it becomes a cup........
Not a lot of people now that ( said as cockney)
Darren throws big stone at Rick.
Not a lot of people now that ( said as cockney)
Darren throws big stone at Rick.
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