Do hoods actually make a difference?

I hear time and time again that they can up contrast or cut glare or something else amazing...but unless I'm shooting during a sunset or something, how much can they actually affect the image?

I have a hood for my 28/1.8, but I never use it...

I do not think they help that much besides for protection of your glass. With the hood on my 17-55, even shooting anywhere towards the sun the hood will not help that much if at all. I think glare or contrast should be based on the design of the lens. My old 10-22 was very good at cutting glare even with no hood on it.

I think they do help. I was taking a picture indoor with the bright sun shining through a window lighting up the subject (my friend's dog) using my 70-200 w/o hood and the picture came out a bit hazy. Took a second pic with the hood on and the contrast was much better. So hood does help.

There is always light bouncing around. Hoods provide a subtle bump in contrast my blocking light that isn't actually going to the sensor.

It also provides protection if the lens falls front-first.

yes.

Most help in certain conditions, unless its the 17-40 hood.......whats the point!?

THE TROOPER wrote in post #10066327
Most help in certain conditions, unless its the 17-40 hood.......whats the point!?

+ 1 for the truth

toxic wrote in post #10066185
There is always light bouncing around. Hoods provide a subtle bump in contrast my blocking light that isn't actually going to the sensor.

It also provides protection if the lens falls front-first.

Absolutely right. Don't under-estimate the effect of the spurious oblique light rays that bounce around all over the place. The black non reflecting stuff in the lens hood helps tame that. Except, as the Trooper says, on the 17-40. I never use that one, and there isn't one for the TS-E17, but all my other lenses have the hoods in constant use.

THE TROOPER wrote in post #10066327
Most help in certain conditions, unless its the 17-40 hood.......whats the point!?

That's what I thought before, until I accidentally hit the lens with my lightstand in front, if the hood wasn't there, I guess I'd have a pretty scratched front element. lol

Omaru wrote in post #10066430
That's what I thought before, until I accidentally hit the lens with my lightstand in front, if the hood wasn't there, I guess I'd have a pretty scratched front element. lol

A good solid lens hood saved 2 of my lenses from destruction over the years. They take the impact instead of your front element. They protect your lens better than a UV filter. They also do help with keeping out glare and stray light. This is especailly true with the longer lenses. The smaller lenses have small hoods which are less effective as far as keeping out glare and protecting the lens, but they are still worth using.

...they probably don't help...but man, they look cool, don't they!?

Have you never noticed that shading your eyes with your hand makes things look more "contrasty"? Why do people wear wear hats with eye shades of various design? Ever watch a golfer shade his eyes while studying a put line? All optical lenses work best if "stray light" at odd angles is restricted, including the ones in your eyes.

A lens hood is the same principle in terms of image enhancement. Protection is another reason to use them.

Amazing how often this question comes up.

Why not use a lens hood? Photo nuts regularly spend big wads of cash to get a lens that might have slightly less barrel distortion, or less flare under certain conditions, than the lens they already have. Yet for the price of a good lunch you can stick a lens hood on there... I say, as long as there is any chance that it will improve the quality of the images, I'm gonna do it.

[QUOTE=tiger roach;10067006]
Why not use a lens hood? quote]
About the only time I don't use the hood is when I try to be as inconspicuous as possible. The hood adds a lot to the 'wow' factor on the 200 f2.0 that otherwise you can occationally get away with. The hood on the 70-200 2.8's adds a lot to it's length too.

My lens hoods have saved me a lot of physical lens damage. They have also provided some protection from sun light incident on the front element of the lens (a strong contributor to both flare and loss of contrast). But a zoom hood is designed to not vignette the image at the widest focal length - limiting the extent to which it protects the lens from the sun.

So, when I'm shooting outside, I always wear a wide-brimmed hat to shade the lens from the sun in those instances where the hood is not sufficient to the task (about 50% of the time) - but I always have the hood on the lens anyway for that much more protection from physical damage.

BTW - I believe sun on the front element will usually (always?) induce some sort of either flare or loss of contrast in your image - it's the nature of the beast.