lens Hoods

trishw78

i was just wonder how useful are they and what are they used for.

AnCatDubh

its kinda a Irish thing (hehe) - it keeps both rain and sun out ! reduces risk of sun flares occurring and keeps extraneous light out. also can act as a lens saver should you drop or knock the darn thing. maybe more but that springs to mind to begin with.

ThOnda

They are very useful. The main purpose is to prevent unwanted light to go into your lense - onto the veri first one in the front of your camera. This "parasite" or "ambiente" light can cause many problems, like haze, reflections or even to trick metering.
So the lense hood is good to reduce light that goes into your camera to light from the frame you have in viewfinder.
The second good feature of hoods is that they protect your lense both mechanicaly and also against the rain.
There are also some problems - they could cause vignetting, if they are designet incorrectly. And they can cause problems with polarisers if they don't have small "door" at the bottom.
But I have excellent lenses and filters, so even having a hood, I don't use it :-)

trishw78

I had kinda guessed the sun flare.

Muineach

I tend to use them more for protection, if I'm out walking through fields walking through bush's etc. they're great to prevent scrapes on the lenses and of course you can 'bang' the lens cover off anything, not recommended, but I've done it enough times :rolleyes:

melekalikimaka

alot have this weird fluffy inside to attract dust to it as opposed to the glass

deRanged

you could try a DIY one to see what you think!

Fionn

i always put the hood on the lens - for all the reasons above

Blip

If you use a filter UV/Polorising would you also add the hood of just for sunny days?

ThOnda

The more glass on the lense - the more is the hood needed. Well, not needed if you use PENTAX SMC filters. Clean ones, of course.

JMcL

They're pretty useful protection wise. I bought a Canon 100mm macro recently, and the front element is so far forward on that lens I was a very nervous bunny. Since Canon, unlike Sigma, believe in charging €40is euros for a piece of plastic, I bought a cheapie rubber lens hood in Jessops, and it does the job nicely. It has the added advantage that you can pull the rubber back to adjust a polariser

BanzaiBk

When I first started dabbling in photography I diy'd my own hood and liked the results. Parents bought me a proper hood for my last birthday and I love it. I wouldn't use it all the time though, mainly if I'm outdoors tbh. I'll post up a few comparasin shots later.

SOL

I have actually found that having a lens hood on can be worse for bangs in some cases, where the lens hood goes onto an inner moving part of the lens, it can cause bangs to stress onepart ofyour camera leading to

trishw78

well bangs aren't an issue with me. I usually have any camera I own wrapped in cotton wool (figuratively not literally) and should it get banged I'll ususally loss the plot and try to kill what every it banged into. It's a bit disturbing to watch actually. If you can imagine a red haired girl treatening to kill a tree or a rock.