best nifty lens hood

I just ordered the 50mm f/1.8 and was wondering if I should stay away from the factory lens hood. Reviews seem to suggest that it is very poorly made and breaks easily. Anyone found a good aftermarket, or should I just stick with the canon version.

Does anybody use a lens hood with the nifty fifty? I just use a cheap Quantaray UV filter on mine.

i have a collapsable rubber one
works ok actually

and was like 5$ so win win

The front element of the 50 1.8 is pretty deeply recessed within the body of the lens. I never bothered with a hood for this lens, though I did have a UV filter on it.

I have bought a hood for my 1.4 version though as it has a lot more glass up front.

I've been wondering the same thing about the 50.

I was thinking about getting one of the rubber ones from here:
http://www.camerafilte​rs.com/pages/lenshoods​.aspx

The OEM 1.8 hood is so ridiculously poorly designed that it's never actually made it on my lens when I have a 1.8 -- I only had it because I bought it used and it came with it.

I would suggest anything except for the OEM one, with it's two-piece design. I honestly never had a problem just not using a hood, so I would definitely try that out first.

I never use a hood on mine, it's not really needed imho. Buy it and then decide once you play with it a bit. I actually dropped mine a day ago from about four feet onto a wooden porch. I looked down expecting it to be cracked in half, like many have reported, but it held fine. I got lucky I guess.