Do you use a sun hood?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

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It will be interesting to see how much they charge for the Summarit hoods; the price of some of the others is obscene - I want to buy a replacement hood for my WATE (£106, $180) but according to Leica UK, "they haven't started making them yet".

 

 

Mark maybe send a note to customer service in Solms. I am sure they can get you a hood

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[lars_bergquist]

A rectangular hood of proper dimensions for the cropped format can shade out a source of light that would otherwise cause flare and reflexes, and that a wider hood would let in. The same argument goes for square versus round hoods.

Any decent lens deserves a decent, square hood. Most Leica hoods are just ridiculous. The Summarit hoods seem to be screw-in, thus round, thus ineffective. They are probably useful only in rain, and those for the 90 and 75 mm lenses will also make the lenses considerably longer in the bag. Leica should try to understand that photographic lenses are not for bench testing, neither are they objets d'art, but intended for photography. At least, this is what some perverse people out there insist on using them for.

[giordano]

Any decent lens deserves a decent, square hood. Most Leica hoods are just ridiculous. The Summarit hoods seem to be screw-in, thus round, thus ineffective. They are probably useful only in rain, and those for the 90 and 75 mm lenses will also make the lenses considerably longer in the bag.

 

It was not always thus. Here's a real 50mm hood on a Summicron 35 (no visible vignetting at f/16, some viewfinder obstruction but that's why one keeps both eyes open;) )

 

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[luigi bertolotti]

Herr Muller made, I think, a nonsense sentence : hoods are always welcome and useful, and the Leica's history is full of hoods of any kind and dimension; if they decide not to provide them bundled in new Summarits.. ok, we'll take note and found them somewhere, or buy the originals... I am not scandalized they do not include them in the price... but is stupid to declare such a justification.

[Iron Flatline]

Ditto to what Luigi wrote.

[carstenw]

I don't use any hoods except for the built-in ones. If I travel to a very sunny place, I do sometimes use them. I use my hand when I am concerned, but the lenses are so flare-resistant that most of the time I prefer the compactness of the lenses without hoods.

[danielt]

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I live in Spain, and here, lens hoods is a MUST

[erl]

A lens can be a must at any time without notice. At such times it must be effective. This is not negotiable.

 

Re. the new summarits etc I was told a few hors ago by the Australian importer that the 'real' reason they are being marketed without hoods is that the dealers make so little on the lens sale, that selling a decent hood as an extra is the only real profit margin available to them. O.K. I can accept that. Everyone is entitled toa profit in business. But what is so embarrasing about stating the truth up front instead of making some cock 'n bull story about "photographers don't use them!.":eek:

 

Anyway, buy the lenses, then chase an appropriate hood if you desire. The important thing is to capture your pictures 'cleanly' with a good hood where necessary.

[Philinflash]

The M8's crop factor really doesn't matter. If the hood is proper for a 35mm film it will still work for the crop. You are (at least I am) using it to reduce "leakage" of non-image forming light into the lens, increasing contrast. The fact that the image formed in the camera body is only partially sampled doesn't change basic systems performance.

 

c.

 

(PS, I use them all the time, favoring rectangular ones, Hama makes some nice clip ons)

 

Carl, I agree that the stock rectangular hood that comes with the 35 cron "works" whether the lens is on a film camera or in an M8, in a sense. However, a "tighter" version of the same thing would be more effective in reducing non-image light into the lens increasing contrast, as you say, for the smaller capture area of the M8. The whole point seems to be that you do not want any more light falling on the lenses than will actually be used to form the image. If the hood is optimized for lenses on film cameras with their larger capture zones, it must follow that the 35 cron lens captures "too much" light outside the M8 sensor area and it is therefore not optimal for use on the M8.

 

I will look at the Hama line to see if there is something there that might do the job. Otherwise, I am thinking of buying another hood cap (like the original) and cutting a rectangular hole in it to scale down the opening by 75% and then just clipping that on the lens hood when required. I will have a word with the Leica people when I see them later this month at the Javits show.

[michael_b_elmer]

Luigi is right - couldn't someone tell Herr Muller?

[wlaidlaw]

Luigi is right - couldn't someone tell Herr Muller?

 

The whole article is a pretty crude sales pitch and it might have been more believable or honest if they had put in italics at the top of each page "advertising feature". Leica should remember that this is a magazine we pay for and not an in-house freebie give-away.

 

Wilson

[charlesphoto99]

Well just remember this is coming from the same company who has said it would be "dangerous" for users to enter their lens in the menu (vs having lens coded). Yeah, funny stuff....

[grober]

Always use 'em. Mainly to protect the front of the lens from any potential physical damage. If this practice also eliminates the occasional flare, so much the better.

 

-g

[t024484]

I don't use any hoods except for the built-in ones. If I travel to a very sunny place, I do sometimes use them. I use my hand when I am concerned, but the lenses are so flare-resistant that most of the time I prefer the compactness of the lenses without hoods.

 

I do exactly the same, also when I am at the Riviera in bright sunlight and a strong reflecting sea.. I do not use a hood on my CV15, and not on my Cron 28/2.0.

On the Cron 50/2.0 and the Cron 75/20 I use the built-in hood (when I don't forget to shift them out). And so far with 1600 photo's, I could never find any reason to change this habbit.

Makes me wondering in what situations you really need a hood, must be quite an exceptional situation.

[stunsworth]

Makes me wondering in what situations you really need a hood, must be quite an exceptional situation.

 

Not really, having the sun or bright light just out of the frame can provoke flare fairly easily if the lens isn't shaded.

[adan]

I fall in the "rarely use lens hoods" category - on Ms. If I wanted as much camera bulk as in John's shot above - I'd switch back to SLRs.

 

With wide angles, any hood compact enough to stay out of the field of view of the lens (or the viewfinder) is basically useless anyway. It adds about 5-10 degress of sun protection over the lens barrel alone - beyond that and the light is hitting the glass regardless.

 

So - 15mm, no hood, 21mm, no hood, 28mm, no hood (although the hoods for the 28 f/2.8 ASPH and the various 35 f/2s are an excellent size, and do provide more angular protection - I'd use them on those lenses). When I had a 28 f/2, I got a little round rubber screw-in hood, more for physical protection and to keep my fingers from slipping into the corners of the frame than for light protection.

 

As mentioned, the built-in hoods for the 50/75/90 f/2+ lenses are rather vestigial (especially once an IR filter is mounted) but by the same token they are relatively compact, so I usually pull them out)

 

I have snap-on hoods for my older 90 TE and 135 TE lenses, and will pop those on when the light is in front of the camera - usually. The 90 TE is much more flare-prone than any of my other lenses, and the hood is deep and a reasonable tradeoff in that case.

[ccc yyy]

all the time (... for all the reasons mentioned

above), with each lens for which i have a hood.

[tom0511]

I use them all the time.

For 2 reasons a)to avoid flare etc.

(and maybe more important) protection

 

I do not see any problem with the original hoods. Why? I use them and do not finy main (if any) images where I would see flare.

So maybe they are not that effective, but IMO effective enough for the Leica lenses, which seem to be pretty flare resistant and contrasty.

In case of the 90 Macro I even prefer the smaller 50/2.8hood to the large hood of the 90macro.

 

Now regarding crop: of course would a tighter hood be bale to protect from some light sources which woul shine into the original 35mm hood.

But then: How many full frame/35mm images did you have where you felt the original hood did not work? And if the hood works for full frame, it should also work for cropped full frame.

 

Cheers, Tom

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Hallo,

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[Olsen]

I always use a sunshade. I don't take a camera seriously if they don't have a possibility to put a sunshade on the lenses. In this respect most of the shiny, small digital cameras of our time falls thru. The use of sunshades (but also the use of tripods, artificial light, shades, reflex surfaces) splits the amateur from the professional. The pro's always use sunshades and often large and bulky ones that don't come as standard with the camera.

 

In aditiion to using a sunshade I always try to place myself and the camera in the shade. I like to take pictures against the sun (or flashes). Then it is important that the light sources don't shine onto or into the lense.

 

As for the Leica sunshades I find them all too small. But here it is a conflict with how portable the camera system is supposed to be and the efficiency, quality etc. Therefore, it is important when using a Leica camera to use natural shades to cover the lense, at least.

 

The reward for using efficient sunshades is high contrast pictures. Particularly, this is rewarding when using a Leica camera because the Leica lenses are so contrasty.

[woodyspedden]

Woody i use one of these on my 24 and 21 when i had it . You can see better also. I will show you in Yosemite.

 

New! Metal Wide Angle 55mm Screw-in Lens Hood - (eBay item 140163541844 end time Oct-04-07 11:37:16 PDT)

 

Guy

 

Thanks for the help. I just bought two of them, one wider than the other. The really wide will be used on the 21 Elmarit and the mostly wide on the 24 Elmarit.

 

My problem with the leica hood is that the rubber cover slips off. I had it drop on the ground several times as I exited my car and finally it fell off and I was not aware of it so it stayed lost.

 

See you on Monday

 

Woody