What does a Camera Hood Do | Everything You Need to Know

Camera hoods are an essential part of photography; however, many of us have no clue what it does? A lens hood does something great for which you can do clear photography. It ensures there are no unnecessary lens flares caught up in the camera.

Especially when taking photographs under the sunlight, the pictures will come as washed-out without a lens hood. But this is not the only thing camera hoods do, it does a lot more, and we will discuss it in detail. There are other common queries like when to use and not use a lens hood and the types of lens hoods we will answer.

Therefore, we will explain every little important detail about the camera hood. These pieces of information will help you a lot to get better images. So let’s dive in.

What does a Camera Hood do?

A camera hood has a significant impact on photography. It ensures the safety of the lens and helps it get the perfect inputs. Every photographer should know the significance of a camera hood to realize its worth. So, let’s jump right into the explanation part to understand better what it does.

Prevents Light Hitting

What do we usually do when the strong light from the sun hits our eye lens? In such a case, we use our hands to block the light and prevent the light from hitting our eye lenses. Our hands work like a shield over the eye lenses. A camera hood does the same thing.

When you add the lens hood it becomes an extra layer over it which does not let the sun directly hit the front camera lens. This way it betters the quality of photographs.

Protect Your Camera Lens

It can safeguard the lens from various outer damages. We have mentioned some of the common damages that happen to lenses without lens hoods as follows.

Finger Marks

Being a photographer, there are times when our fingers accidentally touch the camera lens. Since lenses are pretty sensitive, our finger marks stick over them and thus make the lens messy. Later you have to put in a lot of effort to remove those finger marks.

But the marks of fingers are rarely removed from the lens properly. This problem made many photographers repurchase a new lens. Camera lenses are so expensive that you don’t want to face the same issue, right?

If you want to keep your camera lenses under protection from getting finger marks on them, you should get a camera lens hood today.

Because it works like a shield over the lens and protects it from dust, spots, sunray, scratches, and other possible damages. When your lens is under a camera hood, no matter how many times your finger touches the lens, it will leave marks on the hood instead of the camera lens.

Besides, without any worries of damage to the lens, you can keep doing the cleaning with a piece of cloth. The lens hood will be cleaned with no marks over it.

Rain

Imagine this, you are taking pictures of your client, and suddenly it starts raining. The raindrops will hit the lens on your camera and can damage it. However, if it’s drizzling, your lenses will not have any problem. In heavy rains, a possibility of a camera lens being damaged is 100% because the water force makes the raindrops go inside the lens.

Later those water drops create a moisturized environment inside of it. It will do modules inside and will thus develop stains. Those stains are hard to clean and do not quickly vanish. Moreover, the watermarks of water drop also stay a little and affect every picture even if you tend them with a clean cloth.

Bumps & Scratches

Another most common issue most camera users face is, their camera lenses get bumped into something and develop scratches. The object that can bring scratches on it by a collision can be anything. It can be a table corner, a tree, or anything. When your camera lens is not under anything protective, various objects can often leave them with unwanted scratches.

For this reason, it’s a must to use a camera hood. You can freely move around and click Images without being worried because the scratches will appear instead on the camera lens hood. The camera hood is tough enough that it doesn’t quickly get scratches, but you can replace the scratched one with a new one even if it happens because it is not as expensive as the lens.

Adds Image Contrast

The camera hood works as a layer of shield over the lens and does not let the sun rays go directly over the lens and so the pictures are captured with proper contrast. On the other hand, a lens without a camera hood cannot stop the sun’s rays from going directly over it, so the photos come out with less contrast. The results are images with lens flare.

What Types of Camera Lens Hoods can You Get?

The camera lens hoods are available in two types. One is cylindrical, and the other is petal-shaped.

Cylindrical

Cylindrical camera lens hoods protect the lens well and block stray light. These lenses come with four petals, allowing you to rotate the hood and get optimum performance. It doesn’t let the lens get in the frame. Every hood is differently used for a particular lens, and each of them is optimized for using the focal range of lenses.

You should know your camera lens shape well and if it is a cylindrical shape, get the same camera lens hood. If you don’t know about the shape of your lens, you can research it on Google or ask us through email.

Petal

Petal lens is unique, and they have notches that are curved and are designed shorter. It does a fantastic job of blocking out light and increasing the size of frames. But this suits best the lenses that come in wide angles and camera sensors with full-frame. This is why sometimes the hood seems a little in the frame.

When to Use a Lens Hood

Lens hoods are very useful and so for doing professional photography one should get a lens hood. But do you know, there are times when using a lens hood becomes mandatory? It means in some situations you should have a lens hood on your camera lens. So, utilizing a lens hood is a must for bringing perfection in your clicks.

Now, are you getting excited? Calm yourself down because we will tell you the exact times of using a camera hood on a camera lens. But let us tell you one thing before sharing the facts, a lens hood is not usually removed but if you want to take clicks like the experts you should have the right knowledge on when to use a lens hood. So, let’s find out the answer.

• When you want to block the undesired light

• When you need to protect the lens from external harm

• What you require adding contrast to the images

• When you desire to eliminate lens flares from the camera frame

It may seem like you can keep away the lens hood always except for the time when needed. But the fact is you should keep using a camera hood to ensure its safety. Also, it will prevent your pictures from never coming out.

The benefits of using a camera hood know no bounds but the best Photographs are captured with it when the camera hoods are utilized correctly.

When Not to Use a Lens Hood?

There are two vital moments when you should not use the lens hood. Read from the explanation and understand the correct times not to use a lens hood.

Creating Lens Flare

Sometimes to bring uniqueness to the photos, you would want to create lens flares. Since the camera hood stops lens flares from forming, you can remove them to make the pictures’ bursts appear.

Stop Shadow Creation

Some cameras come with a pop-up flash, and sometimes you want to use them for photography purposes. You should remove the hood in such a moment because if it’s not removed, it will block that pop-up flash, causing the photo frame to capture the unnecessary shadow.

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

How Important is a lens hood?

The importance of a lens hood is immense. It gives your camera a perfect contrast when too much light is around. Protect your camera from outside damages and stay clean from dust and stains.

Do PROS use a lens hood?

Professional photographers always use the lens hood to reduce unwanted lens flares. Besides, it can keep the lens safe from external harm, ensuring its longevity.

Should I use a lens hood indoors?

A lens hood is generally used to reduce lens flares by stopping stray light from going over the lens. But when you are taking pictures indoors, you can either keep the lens hood or remove it since the indoor lights are never too strong; however, if you want to protect it while shooting.

Wrap Up

Now that you know well what does a camera hood do, we think you should immediately buy one if you don’t own one. The camera lens hood is not too costly, but its significance in keeping your lens safe inside the camera is crucial.

Know which type of lens your camera requires and match it; get the correct type of lens hood today. You now also know the right and wrong times of using a camera hood.

We hope we have answered all your queries well and left you with no confusion at all. So, next time you’re doing photography, make sure to utilize a camera hood properly.