Lens Hood

This is probably a dumb question but is there any difference between the petalled lens hood and the non-petal hood. Benefits/disadvantages​?

The petal hoods allow use on wide angle lenses, where the non-petal hoods will block light coming in from the side (well suited to tele lenses). I dont know if there are specific advantages/ disadvantages, just use the right one for the right lens!

Petal hoods are more efficient, since they are shaped to fit right around the borders of the FoV.
A non petal hood, shades a circle around the corners of the FoV, so left and right, and specially top and bottom, could be shaded better.

Rene,

Any idea why the 70-200 f/4 would be designed with a non-petal hood while the 70-200 f/2.8s have the petal hoods? The only thing i could think of was the actual size of the front element.

No idea. My 80-200L also has a regular hood, as do the 50/1.4 and 100/2.0. If I hade to make a guess: price. (allthough it's beyond me why a piece of plastic needs to be in the $30 range) Or maybe they thought a petal hood woold be to big and 'scary' for potential buyers of the f/4

Onc consideration WRT petalled hoods vs. regular round is whether the front element, or the mounting for the lens hood, rotates. It doesn't follow that if the front element doesn't rotate you'll get a petal hood, but if it does rotate, you can be assured you won't. I'd suspect that where a single hood could be used on 2 or more lens designs, they'd also avoid making it petalled, but that's just a guess.

Thanks for all your replies so quickly... this forum has been, by far, the best place to learn and improve my photography.

Thanks to all

Bulldawg534 wrote in post #2586198
This is probably a dumb question but is there any difference between the petalled lens hood and the non-petal hood. Benefits/disadvantages​?

I think that the petal hoods look cooler and that they can sell more. Optically I doubt if either design does much since the shades themselves are too short to be particularly effective.

Of course I use my petal shades since a lens specific lens hood is better than nothing. But for REAL lens shading I use a Lee Bellows lens shade. You tug it out until it almost vignettes and that gives the optimal shading possible.