Lens hoods

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pgflyer1
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A friend told me to try shooting at the minimum magnification. My lens is 18-105 mm. So I've been shooting at 18 mm. I wanted to use a hood to protect my camera lens. I bought a rubber hood 67 mm screw on. And found problems using it at the minimum magnification. I had some problems at the first extension too. I tried a 72 mm with a step up ring and had the same problems but less than the 67 mm. Now I made my own. It's a 72 mm rubber hood and at the first extension. I do not have any problems. And at full extension, my minimum magnification is 26.0 mm.
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Last edited by pgflyer1 on Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva." - Josh Groban
L_G_D
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OK, first thing, shooting at the maximum lens opening means the aperture, not the zoom. The aperture, or f-stop is set in various ways on different cameras. You'd have to look in the instruction manual for your camera and lens to see how to set the aperture. Most cameras can go to f/2.8 or so, this is pretty much standard nowadays. Maximum lens opening will give you low depth of field, which can be used for various effects. Mostly that means that only certain parts of the view will be in complete focus.

The 18-105mm setting on your lens is the zoom, or image magnification, it has nothing to do with aperture and shooting at maximum lens opening. Except in the case of a zoom lens that changes aperture as you zoom, but that's another thing.

As for lens flare, I'm not seeing any in the pictures you posted, as it doesn't look like they were shot under conditions that would produce lens flare. You usually get flare when the sun or other bright point light source is directly in or very close to the edge of the composed frame of the picture, and stray light is bouncing around inside the lens causing bright spots or flare. A lens hood will sometimes eliminate flare by blocking the light from directly hitting the front lens element, which in 99% of cases is the cause of flare. There are no bright light sources in your sample pictures, so there is no flare that I can see. FYI, I almost never shoot with a lens hood, most of the time, I never take them out of the box that the lens came in. While shooting, you just have to be aware of any point light sources and adjust accordingly. Most times, I just hold my hand or hat out to shade the lens if the need arises.

Your camera and/or lens should have come with a lens hood, unless that's the sort of thing they are skimping on now to get prices lower, but even kit lenses that come with your Nikon should have an included lens hood. They usually just snap onto the front of the lens in specific channels made for that purpose, and still allow you to use filters. Collapsible rubber lens hoods are also OK, as they are usually less bulky than a stiff plastic hood that comes with the lens.

Having said that, I don't see any issues in the sample pictures from using a lens hood, usually if you use a hood that isn't matched to the lens, at the widest zoom setting, you may see vignetting where the hood is blocking the actual view of the lens. A matched lens hood should not do this. I don't see any of these issues in the sample pictures, what is it in them that concerns you?

Now that I look closely, in the last picture with the homemade hood, there is slight vignetting on the outer corners, the page was too narrow for the pictures and I had to scroll them sideways to see it.
LGD
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pgflyer1
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Camera Model: Nikon D5500, P510
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Thanks for clarifying all that info for me. I edited my post. Hopefully it will make more sense now. The upper right corner of my last pic. is showing an edge of the rubber hood. I'll keep checking my photos from now on, a couple of times on the magnification before I take my picture to eliminate that too.
There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva." - Josh Groban
L_G_D
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Ok, yeah, what you are seeing is vignetting, or the edge of the lens hood is actually blocking the view a little bit. The only answer is to get a wider hood, zoom in a little bit, or don't use a hood at all. In these shots, since there's no bright point source of light like the sun, you really don't need a hood.

The same type of vignetting can occur when you stack too many filters or have a thick filter like a polarizer on the front of the lens. Also, some lenses are made in a way that they have built-in vignetting, which is usually the result of a cheaper design, the imaging circle they create isn't big enough to cover the entire frame of the picture, even without a hood or filter.
LGD
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