Julian Loc: Sarasota, FL

Just exactly how can you tell the shade was in its storage, reversed position? Perhaps there was no shade available at the instant or it was still in the bag. Humm...

Collhar Loc: New York City.

Please. Don't say that.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Amateur's

Capn_Dave

With the advent of a lot of ultra zoom lenses 5 to 1000000000 mm a one size fits all lens hood just will not work without some vignetting somewhere

SonyBug

Hi Grandpaw. What I see missing from this thread is that the manufacturers put the lens hoods in the kit for a reason. That is mainly to keep random beams of sunlight from lighting up the inside of the lens itself. Any light bouncing around in the lens will change the image. Try it. Shoot a picture where the sun is to the side of the camera, at 90 degrees. Then put the lens shade on, and do it over. Do you see the difference? When I do that I definitely see a difference. So, that is the real case to me for lens hood or not.

nikon_jon Loc: Northeast Arkansas

A few years ago I was at a hot air balloon event in St. Louis. I was using a Nikon D90 with a Sigma 70-300mm lens. A young couple approached me and asked why I had my lens protector on backwards. As I looked at the camera they were using I saw that the shade was turned to the storage position on the front of their lens. I asked them why they called it a lens protector. They said that they had both taken the same photography course in college and the instructor said this was the principle purpose for this piece of equipment.

I explained a little about extraneous light and how the lens hood helps prevent the problems caused by this bit of stray light causing lens flares. They had never heard of such a thing. I illustrated the point with the fact that professional cinematographers almost NEVER shoot without a hood mounted on the lens.

So, as I see it, here is the problem. There are folks walking around in the world who are half educated, teaching classes and promoting themselves as 'experts' and passing along their 'almost expertise' to gullible newbies. I had a friend many years ago who didn't want anyone calling him an expert. He said an ex is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.

As to the comment by rmorrison1116 that as long as you use the hood correctly, what do you care what others do with it. How sad. Here's the point...it's called unselfish interest in your fellow man and being willing to care enough to correct an erroneous bit of information for their benefit.

Steve Perry Loc: Sylvania, Ohio

I use hoods most of the time, however, there are two times when I may forgo them.

1. When shooting macros of small animals and there's little chance of any kind of flare. When you get close to a sensitive subject, they tend to become skittish. A frog doesn't know the difference between a lens hood and the front element - all it knows is some big, black thing is too close for comfort. Remove the hood and your working distance is the same but the critter is more comfortable.

2. On overcast days with a long lens in a cramped car. I'll sometimes (stress sometimes) remove the hood from my 600mm when I'm in a cramped vehicle with little space to maneuver - but only if it's a cloudy day and without any chance of flare. This can also help when you pull up to a sensitive animal since you can keep the entire lens inside the car and not have anything "scary" protruding out of the window. I've frighted off more than a few sensitive animals (mostly birds) when the lens hood of the 600mm starting come out of the window!

As for the you tube people, who knows. Maybe they are just trying to demo a technique and aren't really taking a photo.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I use my lens hoods on all time except when using a polarizer

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

Why do some folks wear their caps backwards? I store mine backwards to facilitate it fitting into a tight camera bag but only after having placed the lens cap on it first. Otherwise , I place the hood in the proper position. My larger 400mm L series lens will only fit it's special case with the hood-reversed and that's from the manufacturer's design so it must be a Canon thing originally....????? Some cameras with built-in flashes require it reversed to eliminate a partial shadow in their image caused by the hood blocking the fill-partially and storing it in your pocket or bag may be inconvenient.

I pack my Nikon the same way to save space for more lenses....go figure.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Maybe they forgot to reverse it to the shading position. Maybe they didn't think extraneous light would be a problem.

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

Well their are some reasons. When I store the shade it is smaller and ready for use. Some makers the shade snaps in well others it is just OK. My Sony camcorder shade does come off easily I have had the camera
for 5 years it is still going strong 10 bit video. When I do races and tri events with crowds and action
my camera's do bump into people and objects no matter how hard I protect them. So I must have the shade. And lastly thier is is a movement in efx to have light leak and efx created by reflection. Some filter makers are selling this effect. Even movies are doing this sometimes. Now then we have the folks who will never use the shade. I cant say how many times it saved the lens when walking through places or a crowd.
Some times I put a small piece of gaffers tape so the shade wont be knocked off. Enough on this subject.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

I posted this photo of me once ... in another thread. It was posed for when someone asked to take my picture. I liked the picture and never noticed the reversed lens shade until it was pointed out by several Hoggs. I still like the picture.

Collhar Loc: New York City.

I use hoods most of the time, however, there are two times when I may forgo them.

"1. When shooting macros of small animals and there's little chance of any kind of flare. When you get close to a sensitive subject, they tend to become skittish. A frog doesn't know the difference between a lens hood and the front element - all it knows is some big, black thing is too close for comfort. Remove the hood and your working distance is the same but the critter is more comfortable.

2. On overcast days with a long lens in a cramped car. I'll sometimes (stress sometimes) remove the hood from my 600mm when I'm in a cramped vehicle with little space to maneuver - but only if it's a cloudy day and without any chance of flare. This can also help when you pull up to a sensitive animal since you can keep the entire lens inside the car and not have anything "scary" protruding out of the window. I've frighted off more than a few sensitive animals (mostly birds) when the lens hood of the 600mm starting come out of the window!

As for the you tube people, who knows. Maybe they are just trying to demo a technique and aren't really taking a photo.
Check out my site
http://www.backcountrygallery.com"

Amateurs like this guy???

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

No.
The lens hood is there to make it look like you have a bigger lens.
It invokes lens envy among the lesser photographers.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

- AND, I cap the shade when not in use .
.