About lens hoods

[bmattock]

It is noticeably harder to eliminate flare in 10-15-20 element optical system than in 5-8 one. Also add resin asph patches and very complex kinematic schemes to that, and no wonder that SLR zooms require far more effort to get right than RF primes.

Yes, and if all things were equal, you'd be absolutely right. But the SLR designs are being continually redone - newer technology reformulations, new assumptions about the properties of light, newer glass, newer coatings, and so on. Not so with RF glass - they are NOT being redesigned, and so have the same anti-glare capabilities that were designed into them in the 1950's or so. Some improvements, of course - but not major redesign.

This is not an attack on RF lenses - just pointing out that they're not exactly a hot topic with lens designers these days, and thus, suffer in comparison to breakthroughs applied to SLR zoom lenses.

Some folks have noted that good zoom SLR lenses are getting closer and closer to the capabilities of good SLR prime lenses. True - but at least some of that is due to the fact that SLR prime lens design has more or less stagnated for the last twenty years. Better coatings and worse enclosures. Of course, zoom lenses are catching up - that's where the cool tech design work is being done.

The Morgan automobile had headlights that turned when the car did. But it was a mechanical design, and prone to failure. Now we have a new car announced that is reviving that idea (I forget the model, just saw the commercial). Likely to do it better. But only because no one is still designing new Morgans.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[back alley]

i'd rather use a hood than a never ready case.

i'm like gene, all lenses have hoods and all cameras are in a small bag if not on my wrist.

joe

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Bill (or indeed Bryan)

OK -- lenses of similar age/design/condition. Point taken about older lenses -- but then again I've just bought an Exakta Varex II with a 58/2 Biotar...

Then again, again, the front glass of the Biotar is about 20mm/0.8 inch behind the filter ring, as is the front glass of my old 50/2 Nikkor whereas it's a millimetre or two with my MUCH more compact 35/1.4 pre-aspheric Summilux (where I ALWAYS use a hood)...

Something else no-one has mentioned is dirt. A clean lens is much contrastier.

Incidentally there WAS a new Moggie recently, but I don't recall any Moggies with turning headlights. Some Citroens had 'em.

And thanks Rob for the advice on the 50/1.2 hood. I used a 'sink plunger' for a while but it cut out too much of the VF.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Kin Lau]

For Hoods, my J8, Helios-103, J-11 and J-12 all use the same 40.5 metal hood from Heavystar. I also have a Russian bakelite hood. The 50/2 Sonnar also uses the same hood. The J9 requires a 49mm hood which I also got from Heavystar. I can also store the 40.5 hood inside the 49mm hood (metal).

 

[Honu-Hugger]

I'm curious about the use of lens hoods. I've used them here and there, but never enough to get a sense of how much difference they make. They can be a nuisance for making it impossible to close the camera case over the lens, without removing the hood first. I just ordered one to go on my relatively new Jupiter-8 2/50 (LTM) and I'm planning to get one for my Industar 61 2.8/55 L/D.

I'd be interested to hear from members about their experience with lens hoods, and would particularly like to see sample photos taken with and without a hood in place, where the presence or absence of a hood seems to have made a big difference. Are they only useful out of doors, or can they also be useful indoors? Are they ever detrimental? Have you ever had a lens that was seemingly transformed by a hood, from blah to bling bling?

Never leave home without them 😉.
I always shoot with a hood and probably couldn't find a picture taken without one. I have gone to more trouble and expense to secure proper hoods than it sometimes takes to buy a lens. Case in point: a 180mm Angenieux arrived here just moments ago -- I already own the lens but this one had the correct hood (and both this lens and the hood are like new). I think hoods are crucially important.

 

[bmattock]

Dear Bill (or indeed Bryan)
Incidentally there WAS a new Moggie recently, but I don't recall any Moggies with turning headlights. Some Citroens had 'em.

Sorry, I meant a Tucker, not a Morgan. My bad! The Tucker had three headlamps, the center one turned to track the wheels. Great innovation - way ahead of its time. 1940's? Something like that.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

PS - One of my latest lenses - M42 mount CZJ 58mm f2 Biotar. Funny old world, innit?

 

[Seele]

Not all lens hoods are created equal; some work, some don't, and some cause more problems than not using them.

Consider what we want to get on film is an image produced by the lens, so we need to prevent non-image-forming light from getting there. If light from outside the image area hits the front element, then it would create flare; when I have a camera on tripod, I always take care to make sure that I create a shadow over the front of the lens, either with my body or my hand; a lens hood is something like that in a smaller and more mobile package.

However, there's more to consider:

If a lens hood actually creates such light then it is not good at all. I have seen old lens hoods with the inside in polished metal and that's definitely an extreme case of stupidity, but still, the inside of the hood should not do that at all.

Furthermore, the lens creates a round image, and the negative uses a rectangular (or square) slice of it; the excess image ends up inside the camera and that might cause flare as well. So a lens hood should trim the image to fit just over the negative area, so as to eliminate the flare inside the camera itself.

Combining all these criteria, an ideal lens hood should do all that and it should really be quite large, with a front mask for image trimming and also casting a shadow inside the hood so as to eliminate any chance of non-image-forming light from hitting the lens. Of course, this also means the ideal hood would be a compendium type as used on professional movie cameras but that would be at odds with the essense of rangefinder photography.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

I use the hood that is designed specifically for the lens and have yet to encounter a problem -- using good quality equipment probably minimizes any difficulties. It seems as though Zeiss and the better lens manufacturers probably knew what they were dong when they designed their hoods.

 

[iggers]

I've gone hood crazy. Now I've ordered a 39mm vented metal hood that I hope will fit my old Industar 50 and some others, from "americaneagle", for all of $7.95 plus reasonable shipping:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7531620089

 

[peter_n]

I guess I have some kind of religion or superstition or something. Every one of my lenses wears a filter and a lens hood. Don't leave home without them!

 

[Russ]

I rarely shoot without one.

Russ

 

[Kat]

*Deleted post*

 

[Russ]

I've found that the rubber collapsable hoods block the focusing patch? So I've gone to the metal screw on type, with much success.

Russ