DIY Lens Hood

[Justin Low]

Being pretty bored at home on a warm afternoon, I made myself a square lens hood. I find it's much better than my previous round hood in preventing flare.

Does anyone else make their own lens hoods? Perhaps we can exchange ideas. 🙂

 

[pvdhaar]

That looks really nice Justin, why don't you tell us a bit more about how you made it?

 

[Justin Low]

To make the square hood, I started with the round one. Here's how I did it.

You'll need a few things in order to make the hood: thick but flexible card, a ruler, a paper knife or pair of scissors, and a pen or pencil. You will also need to have some tape handy, as well as a flat black paint and a brush to paint the hood (the inside should be black; outside can be any color you want).

First, decide how deep you want the hood to be. I decided on half an inch. It'd be good to estimate the circumference of your lens too; for me it's about 5 1/4". After making the measurements, you'd then cut a strip of card; in my case that strip would measure 1/2" x 5 1/4".

You'd then want to form a ring with that strip of card around the lens barrel. The fit should be snug. You might have to trim the strip down to get a good fit. Once the fit is good, tape the two ends together.

You've pretty much made the round hood, and now you'll need to paint at least the inside of it. I used black poster color for mine, undiluted.

 

[taffer]

Nice hood indeed ! I may try something similar. My only problem with my DIY ones has come from the paint (flat black spray paint) which after a while starts to crack and fall off, and that's a bit annoying for something that seats so close to the lens as a hood... 🙁

 

[Justin Low]

Now, on to the square section of the hood. Same materials as before.

First measure the diameter of the round hood. A pair of vernier calipers comes in handy here, but it's not essential. In my case, the diameter is about 1 5/8".

Again determine how deep you'd like the square portion to be. Mine is about 5/8" deep. Cut another strip of this width; the length should be 4 times the diameter of the round hood.

Fold the strip into a square 'ring', and using a touch of white glue or tape, glue about 1/2" of the square ring onto the round ring like shown in the photo.

Again, paint the inside of the square black, and voila, your new lens hood.

 

[Justin Low]

Nice hood indeed ! I may try something similar. My only problem with my DIY ones has come from the paint (flat black spray paint) which after a while starts to crack and fall off, and that's a bit annoying for something that seats so close to the lens as a hood... 🙁

I've never used spray paint for my hoods; instead I prefer brushing on the black poster paint. It dries to a flat black that has a fine toothed texture. It's never flaked off before, though it does wear smooth if you rub against it too much.

I also reinforce the card I use with gummed kraft tape as I find that it adds a bit more rigidity to the final hood.

By the way, the M-Rokkor has practically no barrel protruding past the aperture ring so I've screwed in a filter ring that has had it's glass removed. I think slide the hood onto the ring.

 

[Seele]

This sounds somewhat similar to the way I make custom lens caps for my old and odd lenses.

The critical issue is to have a stiff enough ring which can slid on to the front of the lens barrel. I use thin paper strips to build it up because, proportionately, using thin paper will give a higher glue content in the final structure.

First I add a few turns of paper strip around the front of the lens barrel to add a little extra diameter, then wrap the front with Glad Wrap. Then I start coiling thin strips of paper, saturated in woodworking glue (for really heavy-duty work, I would use epoxy resin like Araldite), and keep repeating until a thinckness of like a little more than a millimetre is built up. When the glue is set, it can be taken off the front of the lens, the Glad Wrap stops it from sticking. This ring should be rigid enough for sanding to clean up the edges, and for a lens cap a stiff material such as mattboard can be added to the end and the outside wrapped in leatherette (actually a little more complex than that). The inside surface is lined with a turn of felt-finish ConTact paper. Of course, I use black paper for the final layer of the lamination so no need to paint.