Do you wear a baseball hat when it’s sunny? See people who do? Do you wonder why people wear them? A lot of people wear baseball hats to shade their eyes from the sun. So what does this have to do with photography? Since photography is all about light, you want to make sure the light hitting your lens is the light you want.
What is this extra plastic in the box?
So you got some piece of plastic ring thing with your lens and you’re not sure what it’s for. Well, that’s your lens hood and it serves a few uses. This post will cover only one of the uses, reducing flare and contrast loss.
Why, Contrast-loss
The front of your lens is susceptible to stray light which may cause your photo to have dull colors. A lens hoods serve as a circular shade to block that light. Sometimes the hood isn’t long enough and some lights peek through and do affect your photo.
Below are two photos taken seconds apart. One with the lens hood in place and the other without. Image 1 has a sort of lighter tint and some blueing above the book. Image 2 has the lens hood in place and stopped the light from hitting front of the lens. This is an example of contrast loss.
Image 1 - No lens hood
Image 2 - With lens hood
To create this minor contrast loss, I aimed a flashlight straight at the front of the lens above and in front the camera as seen in Image 3.
Image 3 - Camera and Flashlight
Image 4 below shows extensive contrast loss outside due to the sun hitting the front of the lens.
Image 4 - Contrast loss due to the sun
Why, Flare
While outside on a bright sunny day it’s very easy to get flare from the sun (in addition to loosing contrast). Image 5 shows flare from the sun in the bottom left of the photo. Sometimes this type of flare desired. What are your thoughts?
Image 5 - Sun Flare
More
In addition to flare prevention, the lens hood carries additional duties which will be explained in another post.
the clubhouse kid
Lovely post, nothing like a couple examples to visualize things (I for one, never thought of using the hood inside).
About desired flare, a post on that would be great too!
I can get some pretty flare from my cheap 28mm Tamron, but none from my G 50mm.
Feb 21, 2010 @ 11:54 am
WhatsWrongPhoto
Thanks for the comment. Yes, visualization is the name of the game here!
I also learn by viewing real world examples.
Good idea about desired flare. I’ll add that to the list!
Feb 24, 2010 @ 8:50 pm
Amy
Lovely post, nothing like a couple examples to visualize things (I for one, never thought of using the hood inside).
About desired flare, a post on that would be great too!
I can get some pretty flare from my cheap 28mm Tamron, but none from my G 50mm.
Jun 05, 2010 @ 9:59 am
WhatsWrongPhoto
Of course there is the trap of being indoors when using flash with a hood on.
I wrote about that too.
Jun 14, 2010 @ 1:44 pm
Mobilef
Thanks for this, i had no idea what that thing was for.
Also thanks MUCHO for the example pics, a lot of photo blogs don’t put up enough “before and after” or “with and without” pics.
Jun 29, 2010 @ 10:27 am
FadiA
Just came across your post yesterday and have been reading ever since then. Would you recommend to use the hood on any style of lens? I have two Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF
and Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens. Please advice.
Oct 29, 2010 @ 6:11 am
WhatsWrongPhoto
Yes. I’d recommend to use your lens hood most of the time. The only time I would remove it is when it gets in the way. For example, when you are shooting close to the floor or close to a subject and the hood makes a shadow of the flash.
Nov 11, 2010 @ 6:47 pm