Curious about hoods

<p>So why different lenses use different types of hoods??<br>

For example:<br>

AFS 300 f/4, 180 f/2.8D, 85 f/1.4G & 50 f/1.4G they all used a plane straight hood.<br>

105 G Micro uses some kind of petal type but is not the regular petal shape.<br>

24 f/1.4G uses a regular petal shape.<br>

My older lenses, 35-70 f/2.8, 35 f/2, 50 f/1.8 they use some kind of cone type of hood.<br>

Sorry for such a hoody question.....</p>

<p>Wikipedia offers some basic design insights:<br>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_hood">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens_hood</a></p>

<p>Maximizing usefulness/effectiveness and minimizing vignetting would be my best guess.</p>

<p>In the past they never thought about petal shaped hoods and now the hood is a part of the design. Sometimes they make mistakes with these designs with the result the 70-200 VRII with the rounded top, looks nice, but you can put your lens upsidedown on the surface.</p>

<p>Most of the older style hoods I have on my old lenses, except for the widest angles, were designed in part so they'd nest on the lens upside down. Genuine Nikon lens caps, unlike others, had a little extra travel and would nest in the hood. The ones that went upside down took the cap that way, and the wide angles would take a cap inside. The nesting design, I suspect, made precise focal length matching secondary, and most of the upside-down style hoods I've seen are wider than they need to be.</p>

<p>Hmm. This triggers my standard rant about Nikon lens hoods. Why can't we have rectangular hoods that bayonet onto any lens that has a non-rotating front? Rectangular hoods are much better at reducing flare when working into a light source. How many times I've ineffectually poked a finger over the edge of a circular or petal hood to try and reduce flare....</p>

<p>As John says, a rectangular hood is near-ideal, as long as it's the right size and well matted or flocked to prevent reflections. Petal hoods attempt to emulate a rectangular aperture in a cylindrical shape, but most are far too sloppy in their cropping. A "perfect" lens hood would prevent all light except that from the field-of-view from entering the lens, but since the angle-of-view changes slightly with focusing distance, that's not practicable, even for a prime lens.</p>

<p>Sadly, most lens hoods sold or supplied these days are far from ideal, let alone perfect, with cylindrical or "flower-pot" hoods being the poorest design. Even more sadly, Nikon's wideangle hoods are generally oversized and fairly ineffective. Worst performers of all are hoods for zooms that have to accommodate the lens's widest angle-of-view. I find I often have to resort to using my hand as a flag to keep stray light off the lens.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, Nikon is one of the few "serious" camera makers that have never offered a compendium or bellows type hood of any sort. Even Cokin makes little clip-on square hoods for its filter and holder system.</p>

<p>I am afraid that any rectangular lens hoods would be difficult to store. If you can't conveniently put them inside the camera bag with your lenses, the chance is that you won't even use them.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Sometimes they make mistakes with these designs with the result the 70-200 VRII with the rounded top, looks nice, but you can put your lens upsidedown on the surface.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I hope you don't mean mounting the 70-200 VR II's lens hood on, facing forward, and then place the lens front side down on a table. That is a fairly long and heavy lens. If you have a hollow lens hood in front, the center of gravity of that set up is fairly high and it is going to topple easily.</p>

<p>There's a reason that people shooting cinema have those giant rectangular rigs out in front of their lenses. That's when a "hood" starts really, really making a difference - though that really doesn't lend itself to walk-about still photography. But even modern zoom's multi-focal-length petal style hood is better than nothing - mine are always present on my 17-55/2.8 and 70-200/2.8, even though I've been known to use a hat to kill that last bit of low-angle flare.</p>

<p>Hoods for zooms are also more complicated in the sense that they must not vignette at the widest, but still have to provide some protection at the longest.<br>

Things like shift and tilt lenses are even more difficult. The "official" hood for my old PC-Nikkor 35mm was, as I recall, the same hood as for the 20mm wide angle.</p>

<p>Why don't Nikon make DX hoods for their FX lenses? Simple question. Very simple to make. But they don't.....Ever thought why??</p>

<p>Another slap in the chops for 'amateur' DX users??</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Why don't Nikon make DX hoods for their FX lenses?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Uhmmmm! Coz they don't know who will buy them? For sure I wouldn't want to pay extra when I buy a lens and the reason will be coz they come with 2 hoods....</p>