In actuality, a rectangular or tulip “petal” hood is preferable. Both are effective at removing “flare” or unwanted light that can come from the edges of your lens. The diagrams in the link provide a much better explanation.
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Cylindrical Lens Hoods
In general, cylindrical lens hoods are effective in shielding your lens from stray light. They frequently go along with a prime or telephoto lens. Even though they are typically long, there is very little chance that the hood will appear in your frame because the field of view shrinks when you use longer focal lengths. Also available are cylindrical rubber lens hoods that, when not in use, flatten toward the base.
Petal Lens Hoods
To maximize the frame size provided by a wide angle lens and full-frame camera sensors, petal (or tulip) lens hoods are specially made to be shorter and have curved notches that strategically block off light. It normally has four petals, and you must turn them properly to prevent them from falling into your frame.
Fortunately, there’s no need to stress over the kind or design of lens hood to purchase. Each lens hood is often designed to work with a specific range of focal lengths, so you can easily ask or study the best lens hood form for your lens.
How effective are rubber lens hoods?
The front lens element is not at all protected by them. I only ever use the metal or plastic ones that Nikon includes with its lenses, and they have repeatedly prevented the front of the lens from colliding with an object. In the worst-case scenario, I’ve had to spend more money on a plastic lens hood replacement than on a lens itself.
I believe you should add a few caveats to this assertion. Rubber hoods come in several varieties. Rubber lens hoods from Mamiya are incredibly robust and don’t collapse like the subpar models seen on eBay. They have a strong metal ring inserted in the rubber at the front end, and it takes quite a bit of energy to bring them down. In terms of protection, I believe they are just as effective as metal or plastic hoods.
Hoods made of metal or plastic also don’t always safeguard the front component. Inadvertently, I accidentally scratched the front elements of two costly lenses (17-55 f2.8 AF-S & 50 f1.4D), and they were always covered by hoods. My pricy lenses now include high-quality clear or UV filters on the front.
Does your lens actually need a hood?
The main purpose of a lens hood is to exclude stray light from entering your lens, which can result in lens flare and reduce contrast in your photographs. When shooting into the sun or with a bright light source in front of the lens, this typically occurs. Let’s examine a few illustrations.
What does a lens hood do?
It only prevents light from passing over the lens’s front element. Here is a straightforward picture of the same thing in the same location. One with and one without a lens hood mounted to the camera. Without the lens hood, light enters the image through the front of the lens, reducing contrast and resulting in what is known as lens flare.
The front element of the lens is being obscured by the lens hood, which prevents light from reaching it.
So that’s the primary justification for using a lens hood.
to block undesired light from reaching the lens. This will prevent lens flare and give your photos a stronger color and tone contrast.
When should you use a camera lens hood?
Always wear a lens hood when shooting. Even when you’re indoors or it’s dark outside, stray light may enter your lens from the front, lowering the contrast in your picture. Utilizing a lens hood has the added benefit of protecting the lens’ front element. Your lens hood will break first if you swing your camera around and the front of it collides with something. Much less expensive to change than a lens!
Another piece of advice is to keep your lens clean at all times because doing so will improve contrast and prevent lens flare.
Exceptions to this rule
You might choose not to utilize a lens hood on occasion. When using your camera’s pop-up flash or when you truly want to create lens flare, this is the time. On some cameras, the lens hood will obscure the pop-up flash’s light, resulting in a shadow at the bottom of your image. Using a flashgun will prevent this from happening because the flash will miss the lens hood because it is higher on the camera.
Intentionally generating lens flare can also offer portrait and landscape photographs a stunning appearance.
What types of camera lens hoods you can get?
Really, there are just two major categories. a cylindrical lens hood as well as one with petals.
The edges of petal lens hoods have been removed. These hoods are utilized with normal zoom lenses and lenses that have broader angles of view. This is due to the fact that, at wide angles, you would actually be able to see the lens hood if the corners weren’t chopped away. Your photo would have black corners, which doesn’t look nice.
To test this, do the following: zoom your lens out to its widest extent, look through the viewfinder, and move your hand in front of the lens; you’ll notice the hand in the corners.
Then there are cylinder lens hoods, which are flawless cylinders with no cuts made to them. They are designed for telephoto and fixed focal length lenses (prime lenses). They have this shape because prime lenses don’t zoom out; instead, they are set to a specific focal length, allowing the hoods to be created precisely where they won’t be visible in the image. Cylindrical lens hoods are another option for telephoto lenses, which are frequently employed for sports and wildlife photography. This is because the lens hood won’t be visible because these lenses don’t have broad angles.
The purpose of using a lens hood
A lens hood’s primary function is to shade the front of your lens, preventing light from shining over it and creating undesired flares and a washed-out, low contrast appearance. A lens cowl blocks light from reaching the camera, producing a crisp image that is free of glare.
Lens flares can be artistic and produce unique effects in photographs, but they can also be annoying, particularly if they end up obscuring your subject or the majority of your scene. A lens hood is advised for professional images, such as headshots or school pictures, to provide a clear image.
Should I use a lens hood when photographing wildlife?
There are several advantages that lens hoods offer to photographers. You’ll receive one with almost every lens you purchase, and the most of them are detachable. The exception to this rule is when using more specialized lenses, like fisheye lenses, in which case the lens hood may actually be built into the lens body.
However, lens hoods are typically easily detachable and ought to be worn at all times. Here are several benefits of using a lens hood.
Eliminating stray light
When the sun is in your eyes while you’re outside on a sunny day, you instinctively raise your hand to block it away. Your vision “improves and you can see better as soon as you do this.” Why ought your camera to differ?
This is what lens hoods do. The majority of stray light will be successfully eliminated by them, improving the contrast and overall quality of your photographs. Your photographs will be crisper as a result of the shot’s greater clarity due to the increased contrast.
You’ll notice that your photographs occasionally may have lens flare if you don’t use a lens hood. Even while this can be an interesting creative element, it is rarely a smart idea to use it in your shot. A lens hood can quickly eliminate that.
Physical protection of the lens
This is how a lens hood has previously helped me to save a ton of money. If you trip or fall, the lens hood, which clips onto the end of your lens, will be right there to catch you.
I once slipped and hit the rocks with the snout of my Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens while photographing on a rocky beach. I was afraid to look at the lens for fear of seeing more damage, but happily there was just one small screw that had broken in the lens hood. The glass components of the lens almost surely would have broken if I hadn’t had the lens hood there to absorb the impact.
No matter how careful you are, accidents still happen. If you do fall while holding your camera, you’ll be glad there is a lens hood.
Why are lens hoods fashioned like flowers?
A petal-shaped lens hood can extend as far from the lens as feasible without entering the frame because to its form. Although we capture rectangle photographs, lenses are circular. The hood’s corners would be visible if these petal lens hoods were perfectly rounded.
When it’s overcast outside, should I wear a lens hood?
Using the depth-of-field preview button would have revealed lens flare. Then, all that is left to do is easily cover the light with a hand or hat.
It’s similar to flossing your teeth to use a lens hood. You know you should, but how many of us actually follow through? (My wife works as a dental hygienist; I have to floss.) Additionally, using a lens hood frequently will enhance the quality of your photographs, just as regular flossing will enhance the condition of your teeth.
The primary function of the lens hood is to shield the lens from direct sunlight on bright days, decreasing or completely eliminating lens flare.
Lens flare is a reflection that occurs when direct light strikes the front element of your lens or any filters you may have added. Flare can appear as a line of roughly circular forms marching across the screen, a big, hazy circle, or as a general loss of contrast. Although lens flare can be creatively exploited, we usually wish to get rid of it. A lens hood is the most effective tool for achieving that.
You need to locate your lens hood first. You probably have it in your bag somewhere. It could perhaps be in one of the side pockets. Please don’t tell me that you put it in a closet at home!
You must keep in mind to utilize your lens hood now that you know where it is (or at least are aware it is in your camera bag). A good rule of thumb is to always secure the lens hood when taking pictures.
Many photographers believe that a lens hood is unnecessary when the sun is behind them or when the sky is cloudy. That may be true in some cases, but you’d be shocked at how often you actually need to shade your lens.
Days with bright clouds are a good illustration. You need to be concerned about a sizable bright dispersed source of light rather than a bright source point of light. Lens flare will also be produced by this type of light, but it will be a sneaky lens flare that is difficult to detect. It’s the lens flare that lessens contrast.
On a day like this, I would be photographing a stream happy when I received the photographs from the lab (during the film days), and I would discover a misty haze at the top of the frame that I hadn’t observed while in the field. Even if I couldn’t recall it, there is fog in the woods. Finding out what was going on didn’t take me very long. Although I was wearing a lens hood, the bright light from the cloudy sky still struck the front of my lens, resulting in the lack of contrast I noticed in my pictures. Wide angle lenses make this situation worse. Now, in circumstances like this, I’ll shade the lens even more with my hand or a hat.
Moran State Park’s Cascade Falls. Lack of contrast shows that lens flare is present (a sort of haze in the image). By sliding your palm over the top of the lens while looking through the viewfinder, you can add more lens shading and spot this. If the contrast seems to be becoming better, you know your lens needs to be shaded properly to prevent flare issues.
Without lens flare, Cascade Falls in Moran State Park. It was necessary to add more shade in order to prevent lens flare from reducing contrast.
You can look at the scene while shading your eyes to determine if you’ll need more shading. If something seems better while your eyes are shaded, it will also appear better when your lenses are shaded. This is also possible while using the viewfinder. If you use the depth of field preview button, you might be able to see lens flare more easily sometimes.
Certain circumstances, such as when using a rectangular graduated neutral density filter or if you employ step-up rings for filters, will make utilizing a lens hood impractical or impossible. It can be difficult to get enough shading when you’re using both hands to hold a reflector, a graduated neutral-density filter, or trigger the shutter. Use a tool like The Flare Buster, or if you’re shooting with a friend, ask them to pose so their shadow falls on the front of the lens (without them being seen, of course).
Utilizing a lens hood has advantages beyond just enhancing image quality. It can safeguard your lens, for starters. I’ve banged the lens hood against a boulder, my tripod leg, and countless other hard objects. I don’t use lens protection filters because they can exacerbate issues with lens flare, but I do use a lens hood when I’m shooting. I replace the lens cap while I’m not actively shooting.
Your lens’s lens hood also serves as an umbrella. It can prevent some rain or dust from falling on the front element. This is especially true for longer lenses with deeper lens hoods, such an 80-200 zoom.
Start looking for scenarios where lens flare can be harmful. Keep in mind that lens flare might appear even without a direct light source. On cloudy days, pay extra attention because that’s when you least anticipate it. Be aware that your lens hood may not always be sufficient and that you may need to employ additional shade.
Oh, and stop behaving like your lens hood is the annoying younger sibling you simply want to throw out. Consider it a crucial component of the overall photographic quality and a component of your lens.
Comments on the NPN’s nature photography guides? For the editor, please.
Professional photographer, author, and teacher Rod Barbee works in these fields. In addition to Nature’s Best, Mead calendars, Northwest Travel and Oregon Coast magazines, the Orvis apparel catalog, the National Park Service, and other publications, he regularly contributes to Outdoor Photographer. A number of his photographs are included in the Amphoto book “American Vision.” The Photographer’s Guide to the Oregon Coast, his debut book co-written with David Middleton, is readily available all throughout the country.
He became interested in wildlife photography after exploring Olympic National Park on hiking expeditions. Since then, he has developed a passion for it from which he continues to study and develop.
Rod and Tracy Rowley reside in Port Ludlow on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.