Lens hoods, are they necessary?

[Wadecool]

My Nikon D3100 came with 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses. The 55/200mm has a lens hood that came with it, and a recent trip to the zoo got me thinking. A good percentage of DSLR shooters I saw had lens hoods attached. Are hoods really necessary, and do I need one for my 18-55mm also?

 

[m-tinkerbelle]

My Nikon D3100 came with 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses. The 55/200mm has a lens hood that came with it, and a recent trip to the zoo got me thinking. A good percentage of DSLR shooters I saw had lens hoods attached. Are hoods really necessary, and do I need one for my 18-55mm also?

my 55-300mm lens came with a hood too. I've been watching videos in youtube (beginner photography YT courses) I learned that it's a good idea to have them attached. They protect the lens from accidental crashes and they avoid some flaring from the sun and ambience light.

I've heard it's better to have rubber hoods so that you can collapse if at certain focal lengths if you get vignetting. I don't know if that's true or not.

I tried my 300mm lens with its hood yesterday and I didn't get a single pic with vignetting effect (shadows in the corners of the picture)

I have yet to buy a hood for the 18-55mm

 

[10dedfish]

Ive had several issues with vignetting when using my lens hood on a 75-250 lens. I don't remember exactly what the focal length was where it first showed up, but I will try to pay more attention to it at my next opportunity.

*EDIT

Ok, looking at some of my shots, at around 18mm focal length was when they were showing up. If you interested i can post some of them so you can see.


Matt

 

[YesDear]

This issue can be about as heated as Canon Vs Nikon. The lens hood is designed to provide two functions. Reduce lens flare and protect the front optics of the lens.

You will find two camps here. Those that support full time use of lens hoods and those that support front optics filters on the lens.

I have always used filters and then add the lens hood if I think flare is an issue. Others will express their opinions.

As with many choices in photography, it boils down to just that... your choice!

 

[m-tinkerbelle]

Ive had several issues with vignetting when using my lens hood on a 75-250 lens. I don't remember exactly what the focal length was where it first showed up, but I will try to pay more attention to it at my next opportunity.

*EDIT

Ok, looking at some of my shots, at around 18mm focal length was when they were showing up. If you interested i can post some of them so you can see.


Matt

I don't know, maybe you need a hood more suitable for a wide angle zoom lens? Look at this website: http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/lens/lens-hoods.html
If you see vignetting, take the hood off or turn it around

YesDear I agree 100%. Still, for me it's a great idea to have something on the lens that might save it from crashes (if something belongs to me, chances are is that sooner or later it'll crash against a wall, handrailing whatever you name it lol). I'm even thinking on buying a couple of rubber lenses for outdoor shooting.

 

[ukcatfan]

I am in the always on club. With everything else you are thinking about when shooting, do you want to miss the unwanted light and ruin the shot? As long as you have the right one on then there is no problem with vignetting. Use a petal type for wide angle.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

I am solidly in the 'use the hood' camp. I don't recommend the rubber kind because one of the purposes of the hood is to protect the front of the lens. A collapsable hood doesn't do that as well. The only time I have had any problem with vignetting is while using the onboard flash (which I very rarely use-I use an external flash). I personally do not like to put another piece of glass (possibly inferior glass) in front of my lens, but as others have stated, it is a personal choice.

 

[SrisonS]

I'd say to always keep one on, especially for protection. You can always quickly take them off or turn them around if there's ever a need (as someone mentioned, when using the pop-up flash). I constantly walk around a crowded Disney with my lens cap off, and the hood on to protect my lens. I haven't had a problem yet, and i definitely bump into my fair share of people.

 

[Experiment_626]

Always on. There are a couple of types of lens flare. There's the obvious kind, which shows up as bright, "sunny" geometric shapes (the same shape as the lens aperture). There is also a less-obvious type of flare that robs your images of contrast and is usually more spread out over the whole frame. That second kind is a good argument for using the hood even when it isn't obviously needed.

The only exception is when I'm using a filter that would either interfere with the hood, or when the hood would interfere with the filter. Examples of those would be a polarizer or my brand-new variable neutral density filter. Both of those need to be rotated to be used. In addition, the variable ND has a larger outer diameter -- mine fits my largest lens at 77 mm, but to attach an additional filter to it, I'd have to move up to an 82mm filter. Thus, to make a long story short, the included hood won't fit.

But I'm working on finding a solution ...

Scott

 

[Marlton Mom]

Another vote for a lens hood here. I found when using UV filters I had unwanted light spots in my pictures from the light refracting off the filter.

Marlton Mom

 

[zackiedawg]

Always on, all lenses, at all times except indoor flash shooting (where lens hoods can obstruct the flash path). The choice was fairly easy since all my lenses come with hoods already - none have to be purchased...so I use them because I have them.

 

[Wadecool]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I was thinking the UV filter would be enough protection, but it sounds like I need to find a hood for my 18-55mm.

 

[photo_chick]

I'm in the leave it on camp.

 

[ukcatfan]

Always on. There are a couple of types of lens flare. There's the obvious kind, which shows up as bright, "sunny" geometric shapes (the same shape as the lens aperture). There is also a less-obvious type of flare that robs your images of contrast and is usually more spread out over the whole frame. That second kind is a good argument for using the hood even when it isn't obviously needed.

Great point!

The only exception is when I'm using a filter that would either interfere with the hood, or when the hood would interfere with the filter. Examples of those would be a polarizer or my brand-new variable neutral density filter. Both of those need to be rotated to be used.

This is why I love the newer Pentax hoods so much. They come with a little access panel that can be removed to easily adjust rotating filters. Simple, but so very effective and convenient!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I was thinking the UV filter would be enough protection, but it sounds like I need to find a hood for my 18-55mm.

I personally would not use both, but that one is your decision. It depends on how accident prone you are I guess.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

I take a lot of shots outdoors, much more so than inside. For the longest time, I've had a tremendous problem with overexposure, but only on my DSLRs. Never on my PnS's. For the longest time, this really bothered and puzzled me. Having to bracket-down a notch or two just to get the shot seemed totally irrational to me, but that's what I seemed to always have to do to get the shot.

I went hunting for some higher end glass, and since I'm a Canon guy, I started investigating Canon's L lenses, and this strange phenomenon suddenly occurred to me. It appeared as almost an epiphany of sorts.

It seems that all of Canon's L glass come with a lens hood in the box. "This has to be more than a mere coincidence!", I said to myself. "They can't be doing this just out of the goodness of their hearts and to simply add to the cost of their already extraordinarily highly priced lenses."

I'm accumulating some better glass now but that's not what helped the most with my shooting.

I'm old-school SLR so I had UV filters on all my lenses all the time too. Why? Because that's what I had always heard I was suppose to do, so I did.

I ordered genuine Canon hoods for every lens in my bag, and when they arrived, I removed every lens filter I had on every lens I own, and gently placed them back in their pretty little round cases that they came in. I had kept them all over the years.

The quality of my shots went up an order of magnitude. I'm not kidding, and I finally figured it out.

Little PnS's have tiny little sensors which equals little light gathering. No overexposure, or at least a lot less potential for the problem.

One of the reasons we use DSLRs is because of the larger sensors and the light gathering these larger sensors provide. One of the downsides is that these sensors gather all light; sometimes including light we don't see nor mean to gather! After my experiment, I learned that the lens hoods stop a lot of this undesired light. Eureka!

Your results may vary, but I never shoot without a hood anymore; especially outside. Buy a nice hood for one of your nicer walk-around lenses and try it for a week. My bet would be that you too, will never look back.

 

[boBQuincy]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I was thinking the UV filter would be enough protection, but it sounds like I need to find a hood for my 18-55mm.

The lens hoods for 18-55 (Nikon and Canon at least) are better than nothing and I still use them but they are very short and provide little protection from bumps. I have the official Canon hood and since it has to avoid vignetting at 18 it can't do much for flare at 55. Compared to a petal-style hood for a L series they look fairly ineffective but a petal would not work on a lens where the hood rotates.