Lens hoods

[Tom Kershaw]

I've read through Tim Parkin's article on the 'Lee' brand lens hoods, but these seem to be designed for use with the 'Lee' resin filters, as is to be expected. Any comments on lens hoods (to avoid stray rays and the rain), that work well with standard glass B+W type filters? Initial use would probably be with a 180 or 210mm lens.


Tom

[dave_whatever]

I have no experience of other hoods, but you can still use a lee hood with normal screw-in filters. You just screw your filter on to the front of a lee adaptor ring, or vise versa.

[Joanna Carter]

The Lee lens hoods are of a compendium type, basically another bellows that fits in front of the lens.

The idea of such a compendium shade is that you have a rectangular hood, rather than a round one, thus avoiding the possibility of vignetting the corners of an image whilst trying to shade the sides. What is more, you can flex the hood in such a way that one side/corner is extended further than another, making it possible to, not only shade the lens, but also the other side of the shade, which could itself reflect light into the lens.

The purpose of a good lens shade is not just to avoid flare caused by light falling directly on the lens, it also helps to minimize extraneous light entering the lens from outside of the image area and bouncing off the inside of the camera onto the film.

Finally Tom, I don't know if you have gathered yet, but I can supply Lee products at a 15% discount for UKLFPG members.

[Tom Kershaw]

Finally Tom, I don't know if you have gathered yet, but I can supply Lee products at a 15% discount for UKLFPG members.

Thanks for the reply. How does one go about attaching the lens hood to the lens?

Tom

[Joanna Carter]

You buy an adapter ring for each size of lens that you want to attach to. Then the hood simply clips onto that ring and can rotate to any angle. Of course, you can also screw filters onto the lens first, as long as they have a thread on the front for the adapter to screw into.

But, most people tend to buy in to the 100mm filter system because, once you have bought the holder, you only have to buy an adapter for each lens and you can use the same filters on anything from a DSLR to an LF lens. Yes, the filters may cost more to start with, but you only need to buy one of each instead of one of each per lens size.