Is Leica S 30-90mm lens hood 12404 necessary?

[Einst_Stein]

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A lot of used 30-90mm does not have original lens hood. I understand it is not convenient to use polarize filter. But how bad it can be without it? Any alternatives?

[ImmerDraussen]

The lens hood of the 24mm and the 30-90mm are identical. The hood is very short and wide. The protection is pretty limited. There are rubber hoods with 95mm size available or you buy a 24mm lens and get a free hood for the 30-90mm😉.

[jankap]

From 30mm to 90mm is a large range. Does a hood for 30mm make sense for a 90mm lens? Perhaps the zoomlens construction helps.

With a filter in front of the lens, a hood should be. Therefore, I use neither hoods nor (pola)filters. 

[LeicaR10]

Einst_Stein,   When I used the S system for over a decade plus for my business to include the 30-90, I never used lens hoods.  The lenses are so well corrected for flare, the hoods were unnecessary for me.  Same goes today with my SL lenses.  No hoods.  I only used a protective Breakthrough Photography filter in harsh environments, mostly rain, mist and fog.  r/ Mark

[Stuart Richardson]

I tend to use hoods on most of my lenses, but as said above, the hood on the 30-90mm was both so big and so short that it did not really seem to do much of anything, and it made it too big to fit in most camera bag lsections, so I at times left it off. I agree with Mark though, flare was not a big problem for the S lenses that I recall, but as I said, I mostly used hoods, except for the 120mm (even then I probably used it much of the time), which was already quite recessed. The one that needed the hood the most was the 70mm, I believe. If I recall correctly, it has a flat glass element as the first element that does not have an optical function, it is primarily there for weather sealing and protection purposes, so in that sense it is kind of like a filter, so it benefits a bit from a hood.

[Einst_Stein]

Thanks for all.

For wide angle, my practice is rubber hood but taped the upper and lower edge to mimic the narrower vertical. The rubber is also helpful if I want to  eliminate reflection when shooting across window glass. 

[John McMaster]

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3 hours ago, LeicaR10 said:

The lenses are so well corrected for flare, the hoods were unnecessary for me. 

The 120/2.5 can get terrible veiling flare

john

[Sarnian]

A 30-90mm just sold on eBay.com for an unbelievably paltry $1,495. It had a new autofocus motor, too! 😪

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Edited July 16, 2024 by Sarnian

[dritz]

30 minutes ago, Sarnian said:

A 30-90mm just sold on eBay.com for an unbelievably paltry $1,495. It had a new autofocus motor, too! 😪

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Wow!  And I thought I got a deal buying one last week (from a US Leica dealer) in mint- condition, box and hood etc, and 1 year warranty for $2400.  The low cost of S lenses on the used market creates cognitive dissonance!  So superb and yet so inexpensive.  And yet, the "market" has spoken about it's market value, which ain't much.

[Sarnian]

1 hour ago, dritz said:

The low cost of S lenses on the used market creates cognitive dissonance!  

Which makes this the best time to own an S. Long may the price drops continue!

BTW, I didn't buy it as I already own one. It's my favourite lens (although I did have to send it to Leica to get it perfectly calibrated). 

Edited July 16, 2024 by Sarnian

[Einst_Stein]

Now I use a universal  95mm - 115mm round lens hood on it. It comes with a 115mm lens cap.  It still does not help using filters (115mm filter its very hard to find and expensive), but it is cheap. 

Edited July 16, 2024 by Einst_Stein

[Stuart Richardson]

Quote

Wow!  And I thought I got a deal buying one last week (from a US Leica dealer) in mint- condition, box and hood etc, and 1 year warranty for $2400.  The low cost of S lenses on the used market creates cognitive dissonance!  So superb and yet so inexpensive.  And yet, the "market" has spoken about it's market value, which ain't much.

I sold mine on consignment early last year for 4900 usd. Even though that is less than half of what I bought it for, I am very happy I got anything for it. "Superb" would not be my description of the 30-90mm. It is a great lens if you don't need your corners or edges to be sharp, but at the longer end they will not get sharp at any aperture, which to me made it a pretty useless lens. I fell for the marketing that it was "as good as the primes" when it was released and thought I could save some money by buying the 30-90 instead of the 30 and 45mm lenses. Unless you absolutely must have a zoom lens, I would advise trying before you buy. Personally I would not pay even 1500 dollars for one.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Stuart Richardson

[Sarnian]

3 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

 Personally I would not pay even 1500 dollars for one.

Did you send it to Leica to get it calibrated? Mine is pretty perfect under all circumstances. 

[Stuart Richardson]

I was going to Leica anyways, so I brought it there in person. They took it in and looked at it while I was there and calibrated it. It did improve slightly, but they confirmed that it was in spec. I have no reason to think they lied to me. If I recall correctly, they gave me it and another to just quickly test out in the courtyard area around the factory, and they seemed identical to me (I was able to review images on my laptop), so I kept mine. I may have missed something as the testing was fairly brief, but there was certainly not any night and day difference.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Stuart Richardson

[ImmerDraussen]

I already had a discussion with Stuart on the 30-90mm. I still find the zoom more than acceptable on a S007 if I can not change lenses.

The S-line primes are better and the Apo SL on a SL3 will deliver more details, but I prefer the look of the 30-90mm on a S007 over the 24-90mm on a SL.

But everyone sets different priorities.