What are your thoughts on lens hoods? I always leave the hood on my 35cron to prevent flare and for protection, too. Taking it off makes for a more compact camera and keeps the hood out of the vf. Under normal conditions, can any of you notice a differnce in your pictures?

-- Christopher Lutz (mesheca@yahoo.com), May 20, 2002

Answers

Interesting you should ask. I don't always use hoods, but this weekend I was on a 5K "Heart Walk," an organized event, and was carrying my new M6TTL with my new Tri-Elmar and had the metal TE hood on it. In trying to get my dog to go faster, I sped up a little. She froze at just that instance and I went head over heels, and the Leica went ass over teakettle. All in all, other than a few tiny dings on the shutter button collar and one on the corner of the top plate, the main damage was a thoroughly smashed (looks like a lopsided pancake now) $129.00 hood. But better than the $3K plus camera. And, amazingly, the fall didn't even knock off my rangefinder. I've dropped Leicas a number of times before, but never this bad. Usually the rangefinder is knocked off in any impact. Got very lucky this time, thanks to that hood.

-- Charles (c.mason@uaf.edu), May 20, 2002.

I always have used hoods on all my lenses.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), May 20, 2002.

I always use hoods for both shade & protection. I had a similar experience to Charles's--a $20 shade saved my 50/1.4 Nikkor LTM.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), May 20, 2002.

Certain lenses are very flare proof and do not need to be used with hoods. The Noctilux and the 35/1.4A are two examples. Often I will use my 35/1.4A with no hood and use a cap for protection when I am not photographing.

-- John Collier (jbcollier@shaw.ca), May 20, 2002.

I always leave the hoods on my lenses (including the last real, unretractable hooded 2/50). I'm not so worried about flare because I like low light. I'm more worried about scratches, in my bag, too.

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), May 21, 2002.

I like the cutaway hood on my 35 cron ASPH - it's code number is 12504 and I picked one up on eBay for under $40 recently in mint condition - though I've seen them advertised for a lot more. It doesn't interfere with the vf very much at all.

-- Paul Hart (paulhart@blueyonder.co.uk), May 21, 2002.

I always keep a fixed hood on all my lenses. Of course flare supression is good, but I really like not having to use filters or lens caps at all. The hood protects the front element plenty well, and I don't have to mess with the little bits and pieces that slow me down.

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), May 21, 2002.

I always use the lens hood. To me, the camera would be naked without one.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), May 21, 2002.

flare=bad, hood=good.

-- Mark Sampson (MSampson45@aol.com), May 22, 2002.