A better hood for the Canon 18-55mm

I have never used one, but I think the ebay petal hoods should work out quite well. They usually have some sort of adjustment to allow you to orientate the petals after you screw the hood into the filter threads.

If you get one, report back to us and let us know how it works out.

I use screw-in hoods...

I use screw-in hoods whenever I can. They stay on the lens better than twist-on hoods and protect from damage as well or better. A 67mm screw-in hood used on the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens is a lot smaller but will protect as well against flare and from physical damage than the larger Canon OEM hood. I fell on the concrete with the screw-in hood on the 70-200mm hitting first. The hood was toast but, the lens was unscratched.

I store my lens with the hood on and that means I can get it into action faster than I could if I had to attach the hood. The lens with a screw-in hood attached is even easier to store than the lens with the OEM hood reversed. See images.

Unfortunately, a round hood will vignette with the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens it will not vignette the 70-200mm lens at any focal length on a 1.6x camera. I don't know about full-frame cameras.

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RPCrowe wrote in post #8852874
I use screw-in hoods whenever I can. They stay on the lens better than twist-on hoods and protect from damage as well or better. A 67mm screw-in hood used on the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens is a lot smaller but will protect as well against flare and from physical damage than the larger Canon OEM hood. I fell on the concrete with the screw-in hood on the 70-200mm hitting first. The hood was toast but, the lens was unscratched.

I store my lens with the hood on and that means I can get it into action faster than I could if I had to attach the hood. The lens with a screw-in hood attached is even easier to store than the lens with the OEM hood reversed. See images.

Unfortunately, a round hood will vignette with the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens it will not vignette the 70-200mm lens at any focal length on a 1.6x camera. I don't know about full-frame cameras.

i'm not sure why you wouldn't just use the stock hood though. the smaller one couldn't possibly be as effective in flare deterrence as the deeper canon hood for the 70-200.

A hood for an 18-55IS? Really?!?!?

Did you spend money on a hood for a 50/1.8 as well?

I use the hood from my 55-250mm (ET60) on my 18-55 kit lens, it does cause vignetting at 18-20mm but after that no probs.

John

nureality wrote in post #8858169
A hood for an 18-55IS? Really?!?!?

Did you spend money on a hood for a 50/1.8 as well?

what's that supposed to mean?

Originally Posted by nureality
A hood for an 18-55IS? Really?!?!?

Did you spend money on a hood for a 50/1.8 as well?[/I]

alt4852 wrote in post #8860221
what's that supposed to mean?

I think that was poster's way of telling us that the only reason to use a hood is to protect it from bumps by wild things in the night...and that the kit and nifty50 aren't worth it...a look at his gear list says it all....oh well....

britishkiwi wrote in post #7982944
Hi, do you think those third party unbranded petal hoods on ebay would do the trick too for the 18-55mm?
They are much cheaper then the Olympus hood, works out at only 5 great british pounds over here for me.

Few months ago I eBayed two cheap Chinese knockoffs for the 18-55 kit lens,just for fun.
The uniformly-round EW-60C is the one you all of you already know but the other (petal-shaped) is stamped "DC-SN HOOD 58mm".It has a screw mount (as opposed to the EW-60C) ,has smaller petals than Olympus (wich I wasn't aware of,until this thread) BUT,unfortunately,the same annoying vignetting effect on the wide end.

BenJohnson wrote in post #7964959
Wow, lots of vignetting at 18mm.

The DC-SN develops significantly less "dark corners" as the Olympus li'l movie ilustrates...but the undesired effect is there,though.
Everything cleans up when you dial 20mm and above.

msowsun wrote in post #7983018
I have never used one, but I think the ebay petal hoods should work out quite well. They usually have some sort of adjustment to allow you to orientate the petals after you screw the hood into the filter threads. If you get one, report back to us and let us know how it works out.

I'm not sure what did you meant by "adjustment"...the DC-SN has a white arrow head stamped under the "HOOD" word (whatever that means) pointing towards the lens...and that's about it.
AFAIK,there's NO hope for the rotating barrel w/petals (at least,not with the cheapo 18-55).Once mounted (bayonet or screw-on),a hood has to stay firmly in place (yes,I already thought about not full-screwing it as to be able to rotate by hand...tried it and,as expected,it compromises focusing).The only "sort of adjustment" I can think of is switching to MF and rotating the barrel/hood manually until the vignetting dissapears...but this means you'll lose focus in the 18-20mm range.

nureality wrote in post #8858169
A hood for an 18-55IS? Really?!?!?

Did you spend money on a hood for a 50/1.8 as well?

You will get better contrast and less flare with a hood on just about any lens.

J.Doe wrote in post #12097690
I'm not sure what did you meant by "adjustment"...the DC-SN has a white arrow head stamped under the "HOOD" word (whatever that means) pointing towards the lens...and that's about it.
AFAIK,there's NO hope for the rotating barrel w/petals (at least,not with the cheapo 18-55).Once mounted (bayonet or screw-on),a hood has to stay firmly in place (yes,I already thought about not full-screwing it as to be able to rotate by hand...tried it and,as expected,it compromises focusing).The only "sort of adjustment" I can think of is switching to MF and rotating the barrel/hood manually until the vignetting dissapears...but this means you'll lose focus in the 18-20mm range.

Once the hood is screwed onto the filter threads, you use the lock ring to lock it into the correct orientation. By "adjustment", I meant you could loosen the lock ring, re-orientate the hood and lock it again. You could also just leave it loose so you could make a quick adjustment while shooting at 18mm and close focus.

As I said earlier, the vignetting is only visible when TWO conditions are met:

1) you are shooting at 18-19mm
2) you are shooting at close focus distances which causes the front element to rotate a considerable amount.

At all other focal lengths and focus distances, there is not much movement of the front element and little concern about the petals moving into sight or "vignetting".

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The bayonet-mount Oly shade can be mounted loose so you can "adjust" it a bit as needed...or snug-"locked" tight if you don't need to adjust it for the 2 conditions Mike listed...re #2: "close" focusing distance would be within arm's length...

Mike & kitacanon,
Thanks a lot for the hints!
I wasn't aware at all about the lock ring on the DC-SN58,I thought it's just a profile used for a better grip when mounting the hood!
WIth a little fiddling,I managed to get a "vignetting-free" image even in the 18-20mm focal range....so yes,it's doable.
One more question (just for the sake of a better understanding of what's going on):from the Oly's pictures I see that the petals are longer than DC-SN58.Does this imply some benefits about flare rejection or contrast? (GregoryF's comment sounds like a general rule but how about a direct comparison between DC-SN58 and Oly,at least ona theoretical basis?)
Thank you!
Best regards,

J.Doe wrote in post #12101130
Mike & kitacanon,
Thanks a lot for the hints!
I wasn't aware at all about the lock ring on the DC-SN58,I thought it's just a profile used for a better grip when mounting the hood!
WIth a little fiddling,I managed to get a "vignetting-free" image even in the 18-20mm focal range....so yes,it's doable.
One more question (just for the sake of a better understanding of what's going on):from the Oly's pictures I see that the petals are longer than DC-SN58.Does this imply some benefits about flare rejection or contrast? (GregoryF's comment sounds like a general rule but how about a direct comparison between DC-SN58 and Oly,at least ona theoretical basis?)
Thank you!
Best regards,

Neither the Oly hood or the ebay hood are actually designed for the 18-55. In general, any hood is better than no hood, and the bigger the better, as long as it doesn't show up in the photo.

I no longer have the Oly hood and 18-55, and have never tried an ebay hood so I can't do a comparison, but I would think they would be similar in size and effectiveness.

msowsun wrote in post #7963194
I just received my Olympus LH-61 lens hood. It does work as advertised. It should provide better protection from flare, and just looks better as well.

It does have one drawback though. It will vignette at 18mm if it is not correctly orientated on the lens. This can be a little difficult to control because it will rotate with the front of the lens as you focus. At normal distances it is not a problem because there is not much movement. But this lens will also focus very close and that is where you will see the front of the lens rotate quite a bit. Not a problem though because the hood has some rotational play on the lens, and you can move it back to the correct orientation easily.

The vignetting only happens at 18mm, and only if you focus close, so most of the time you will never see it.

I made 2 short videos that show how the Olympus hood looks on the Canon 18-55. I had to cut them short to keep them under 100MB. The 2 videos are similar but you can view each one:

YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=dXbtr5uRdUA

Photobucket video:

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Thanks for the reply with this - looks like this may be a way better option then the canon lens. Does it still work with a UV filter attached?

adgjqetuo wrote in post #12534281
Thanks for the reply with this - looks like this may be a way better option then the canon lens. Does it still work with a UV filter attached?

Yes, it will work with a filter, because the hood goes on the outside of the lens barrel.