17-40L lenshood

When I was doing research to buy this lens the only negative I heard (from only a few) was they thought the lenshood was too BIG.

It is big, but assume it is so to protect from flare at wide zooms.

Assume nobody uses in indoors.

Anybody getting lens flare outdoors without it??

Do most of you only use if you get flare or do you attach all the time?

Lens hoods primary purpose is for flare, but a hood also makes an excellant bumper. Without getting into the filter/no filter debate, many members use the lens hood as their primary means of protecting their lens.

I usually leave it on. For full frame it's needed, for crop it's less so, but I like having a kind of high collar to protect the front element. And it looks neat . It fits badly in the bag though.

by BIG people mean wide and unwieledy. on crop bodies the 17-40 can use a different hood originally designed for the 24 1.4 prime. it is much more compact for storage, and provides much better protection and cover than the stock one.
heres a thread i made about it a while back. showing the compairison
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=158760

I use it except with flash. Its a bit wide and maybe not too much of a lens protector, but I don't have a problem with it. Flare is pretty easily controlled by not shooting into the sun. I use the lens as my general purpose lens and have never had a flare problem.

I primarily use it when I'm shooting outdoors. I leave the hood in the bag when I'm indoors and using flash. I still use filters when shooting outdoors, but I guess I have just grown accustomed to mounting the lens hood on the lens.

For crop bodies a 24-105L IS hood is about right (EW-83H), it's much smaller in diameter and will give far better flare protection.

I have the EW-83E on my 10-22mm and it's bl**dy huge! A real PITA to carry in my bag, and I'm not convinced it gives much protection on an ultra wide.