Are you using the lens hood regularly?

<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>as I am somewhat of a light-weight traveller, I actually hardly ever (never!) use the lens hood ("sun shield") for my lenses. I am well aware that in some circumstances - such as taking photos in direction of the sun, or where one has lots of reflections - this could be a useful tool. But how important is the regular use of the lens hoods in everyday, non-professional landscape/nature photography? Does anyone has example of with/without? It just takes more space (although one can generally put it reversely on the lens) and is not that handy, I find...</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences.</p>

<p>Yes, I use my lens hoods almost all the time. In addition to helping block sun, they serve a more important purpose for me - protecting the front element from physical damage. I rarely use filters on my lenses, so the hood do provide a degree of protection I otherwise wouldn't have.</p>

<p>The lens hood is a very important element to protect the front of your lens from impact damage. I have pointed out a couple of times that some strong wind blew my tripod over in the Antarctic last year. I had my 70-200mm AF-S VR mounted on the tripod and the D700 was attached to the lens. Apparently the front of the lens hit first and the lens hood took the blunt of it. I had to replace the hood but the lens and camera only had relatively minor damage. Both the lens and camera functioned 100% fine for the remaining 2 weeks of that trip in an area where there were no houses near by, let alone camera stores and repair shops.</p>

<p>To me, blocking stray light is merely the secondary function of lens hoods.</p>

<p>I use the hoods as much as possible because I rarely use filters. The hood protects the front glass element of the lens in addition to the usual stuff of reducing flare and so forth. Hoods don't weigh very much, and they are much less fragile than filters. I don't have any good examples, because I delete the photos with a lot of flare, but hoods help a lot! </p>

<p>On the other hand, you can always use your other hand as a makeshift hood to shade the front of the lens.</p>

<p>I wish more lenses came with a built in, retractable hood like the <a href="http://www.dyxum.com/lenses/detail.asp?IDLens=17">Minolta 50mm f/1.7</a>, but that's not really a feasible alternative for lenses with big hoods. </p>

<p>I never remove the lens hood out from my lenses. They help to prevent bumping the lenses around beside helping to get rid of the glare. More than anything else I use them for protection and I have never been bothered for the minimal extra weight.<br>

I had 1 bad experience with my equipment.... I dropped a brand new D700 with a brand new AFS 24 f/1.4 on it. Nothing happen to them but one thing I noticed is that the hood had some scratches while the lens itself was completely unharmed. I could be wrong but I am so thankful to the hood...</p>

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<p>I wish more lenses came with a built in, retractable hood like the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dyxum.com/lenses/detail.asp?IDLens=17" target="_blank">Minolta 50mm f/1.7</a>, but that's not really a feasible alternative for lenses with big hoods.</p>

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<p>Left, I afriad not.</p>

<p>I have also mentioned that 30+ years ago, I once dropped a Minolta 135mm/f2.8 lens when a friend accidentally bumped into my elbow when I was changing lenses. That lens had a retractable lens hood, and that hood simply retracted upon impact and provided little protection to that lens. Fortunately I also had the lens cap on. That cap was metal and the rim of the UV filter I had on the lens took the blunt of the impact. I had to take the lens to a repair shop to get the damaged filter removed, but there was not even a scratch on the lens.</p>

<p>The current Nikon lens hoods that are snapped on and are made from plastic that can absorb impact are very good.</p>

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<p>taking photos in direction of the sun</p>

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<p>No big deal, but that is where a hood will probably do no good at all when the sun is in the frame. It's when you're shooting away more to the <em>side</em> that the hood keeps the sun off the surface of the lens and keep light from bouncing around inside the lens to cause flares and loss of definition.</p>

<p>I use hoods whenever I can, both for flare reduction and the physical protection against banging and all.</p>

<p>i use hoods for two reasons: 1) on w/a lenses and others prone to flare, when shooting during the day; and 2) to protect the front element from a ding (such as when moving through a crowd).</p>

<p>I`m also in the protection side... currently I use a hood everytime I use the camera. In fact, I never remove the hood from some lenses that can be stored with it (hood in working position, I mean), like the 24-70, 50AFS, and others. It`s great that they also improve contrast.</p>

<p>Only on the 105mm AIS, which is built in. The 18-200mm already vignettes to an unacceptable degree and the hood would only make it worse. I once lost a whole day of shooting because the hood on my 12-24mm Tokina had moved slightly from the locked position and the corners were too dark.</p>

<p>I almost always keep the hoods on my lenses - I tend to bang the camera around when it's on a strap and the hood protects the lens.</p>

<p>I use the hoods all the time. They live on the lenses.</p>

<p>Always use one, when one thinks about it a bit why wouldn't one use it. Good protection for both reflection and damage, and it sure doesn't weigh much.</p>

<p>I almost never use any of my lenses without the hood in place. The only exception is for certain rare situations in macro work where the hood would block the light from reaching the subject. I use the hood both for physical protection as well as for minimizing unwanted reflections of light that doesn't belong in the picture. </p>

<p>I always use the hood. With most (if not all) modern lenses, the hood reverses and fits over the barrel nicely. No reason to leave it behind. I've had stray light ruin a photo before when I wasn't using one, and it was a photo I can't just go back and re-take. That and the protection... the hood stays on!</p>

<p>The lens hood is primarily designed and intended to shade the lens to prevent flare, not physical damage. If they were primarily intended to prevent damage, they'd be constructed differently (i.e. rubberized, more resilient plastic, etc.). We're really not supposed to whack or drop our lenses, but using a hood for an emergency bumper definitely beats using nothing.</p>

<p>In practice, I don't use hoods very much, but unless I'm traveling really light, I carry them with me just in case lighting conditions warrant their use. Since I often use screw-mount polarizers or Lee-type filters, hoods either aren't usable or they just get in the way. I have a macro lens that allows rotating a filter with the hood mounted (a thoughtful design), but since I use a macro flash that mounts to the screw threads on the front of the lens, that hood's usually off, too. My most-used hood is a retractable one that's on a telephoto lens.</p>

<p>When I get a lens out of the bag, I just store the hood in that spot, so it's no big deal. My 'off' hand makes a fairly good shade in a pinch. As a side benefit, when I shoot hand-held, not using a hood seems to draw less public attention.</p>

<p>So far, the only impact lens damage I've had was to one that was in the bag with the hood reversed. My clumsy self (or careless if you prefer) whacked it while loading the bag into an airline overhead bin. The lens cap and cover took the brunt of the blow, but the AF and zoom went wonky. In a way, it was a 'happy accident', since the repaired lens works better than it did before. YMMV.</p>

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<p>The 18-200mm already vignettes to an unacceptable degree and the hood would only make it worse.</p>

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<p>Nope, it makes no difference to the vignetting whatsoever.</p>

<p>I always use hoods as well. As with some others, the reason is at least half for protection. I'm of the "no protective filters" school of thought so the hood takes over the duty. As a bonus the hood is about the simplest thing you can do to help keep out stray light that might diminish clarity and contrast.</p>

<p>I was outdoors this last Saturday at the Hampton Classic horse show. I had along just my D40 and 16-85 (with hood on!). As you might imagine I saw lots of people walking around with DSLR's....and almost NO ONE had hoods! This is in bright harsh midday sunlight where a hood is likely to do the MOST good....both for image quality AND protection.</p>

<p>Yes, always. The only lens I don't use a hood on is the 55mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor, as the front element is so recessed from the front of the lens barrel. A lens hood is small and lightweight, and I can't think of any reason not to use one. When I use my pop-up flash on the D300, I have to remove the hood, a minor annoyance, but other than that it's a good thing to use. If shooting indoors at an even, of course no hood is needed. But out in the sunlight a hood will improve contrast by restricting flare.</p>

<p>Peter, I'm going to have to test that out someday...</p>

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<p>I never remove the lens hood out from my lenses.</p>

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<p>+1.</p>

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<p>Only on the 105mm AIS, which is built in.</p>

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<p>Not all. There were several vintages of this venerable lens. According to Braczko's <em>Complete Nikon System</em>, the first 105/2.5 with a built-in hood was the 1981 AIS version.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>Yes, I have a lens hood on nearly 100% of the time. I don't use "protection" or UV filters so the hood is my defense against damaging the front lens element.</p>

<p>Additionally, I find that matrix metering (Nikon) gives me a better result, my wide-ish lenses have less flare when shooting outdoors in bright sun, and my images have better contrast when using a hood.</p>

<p>RS</p>

<p>Hey Henry Posner - is that a fact what Peter says, "a lens hood does not make bad vignetting worse"?</p>

<p>Sanford,</p>

<p>If you use the correct lens hood for a lens, it will not contribute to vignetting. If you use one that is too small, it might. In my experience, the hoods made for the lenses i have do not make any difference in vignetting. I haven't tested them all except, interestingly enough, the 18-200, since it was the first Nikon lens I had and I wanted to make sure I understood everything about it. The vignetting on the 18-200 (which I find less objectionable than you do) is due to factors that have nothing to do with the lens hood.</p>

About seven years ago when I was doing my last wedding ever ( A large one) I was coming out of the sanctuary after doing formals to photograph the bride getting into a limousine. I had two Bronicas and a Canon body around my neck. I was taking a 70-200 2.8 off the Canon when it slipped out of my hand and dropped to a concrete sidewalk. It weighs three pounds and it hit the cement hard. It bounced about two feet in the air off the lens hood. I picked it up and put it into use later that day. I am still using it regularly today. Guess what would have happened had I not used a hood. Much better protection, I think, than a filter. Sidelight not only causes flare but even if you don't see flare in the image later it will subtly fog part of an image.