9/05/2010
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This page has some overlap
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recommended reading to
recognize the usefulness of a
lens hood as well as the
danger of overdoing it.
Size matters.
toothwalker.org/optics/lenshood.html
Lens hoods
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Lens hoods
The purpose of a lens hood is to prevent flare, which c an seriously degrade the image
quality of photographic lenses. A longer hood offers better flare protection than a short
hood, but when the hood exceeds a critical length vignetting sets in. Therefore, a lens hood
needs to be carefully chosen. The optimum hood depends on the philosophy behind the
hood, with the shape and size as the key parameters, and on the lens aperture and subject
matter. Several lens hood c onsiderations will pass in review in this article. I will not disc uss
issues such as choice of material—I leave it to the imagination of the reader that an
effec tively blackened hood is more useful than one whose interior shines as a mirror. Rather,
I concentrate on size and shapes. Although I am the first to admit that the contents are
partly of an ac ademic nature, the material could be vital for those readers who strive after
the best possible image quality.
Size of the hood
A wide, long hood is a better choice than a narrow, short hood. Figure 1 exemplifies this
statement for the Sonnar 135/2.8. The imageforming light collected by the lens is indicated
with the gray beam that strikes the front element at the lens field angle. Vignetting sets in
when a lens hood penetrates into this beam. Both indicated lens hoods, the short, built-in
hood and the larger Contax metal hood #5, just clear the front element, i.e. they do not
obstruct the gray beam and hence do not cause vignetting. However, the small hood allows
the slanting black ray to hit the front element whereas the large hood bloc ks this ray,
preventing it from contributing to lens flare (indicated by the reflections in red).
Figure 1. Two lens hoods on the Sonnar 135/2.8. The larger hood is the better
choice as it blocks more nonimageforming light.
Influence of hood length on vignetting
Vignetting by a lens hood is called mec hanical vignetting. It is usually assoc iated with blac k
image corners and an abrupt transition from bright to blac k. However, a lens hood c an also
give rise to a gradual corner darkening in a similar fashion as natural and optical vignetting.
The influence of a lens hood on vignetting will be illustrated with a series of sketches with
an increasing hood length.
Figure 2 shows the Planar 50/1.4 as is, without lens hood. The green part denotes the rim
surrounding the front element. The red bars mark the lens Figures 1–7 are based on C arl Zeiss
lenses for Yashica/C ontax and their corresponding hoods, but the principles apply to any lens/hood
combination. entrance pupil, which is the image of the aperture stop (the blac k bars) seen by
an observer looking into the lens from the front. Finally, the purple bars correspond to the
image of the rim around the rear element. Each of these elements is a circle and the clear
aperture is given by their common area. The circle plot at the right of the lens is the
situation relevant for the image corner. A corner object point at infinity sees the circles in
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these mutual positions and is confronted with a clear aperture marked by the orange area,
viz., the common area of all circles. There are also more complicated lens designs which
require the inclusion of internal rims to determine the clear aperture, but the principle of the
common area remains the same. For the image center all circles are concentric and the
smallest one defines the entrance pupil, which is round.

Figure 2. The Planar 50/1.4 without lens hood at full

aperture.

At full aperture the lens accepts a broad light beam. For the image center this beam is
colored yellow. For the image corner the ac cepted beam is narrower. The darker orange
beam is the beam that would be ac cepted by the entrance pupil if the lens barrel weren't
present and if the lens elements were larger. The brighter orange beam is the part of the
darker orange beam that is not obstructed by the lens barrel. It is delimited by the common
area of the green and red c ircles in the equivalent circle plot. Further clipping of the oblique
beam oc curs by the rear rim and what remains is a clear aperture that is substantially
smaller than the aperture for the image center (optical vignetting).

Figure 3. The Planar 50/1.4 without hood at f/11.

When the lens is closed down to f/11, the entrance pupil becomes small. Figure 3 shows
that optical vignetting is no longer a concern: the oblique beam ac cepted by the entrance
pupil is narrow and no longer clipped by the lens barrel.

Note that figures 2–6 do not show refrac tion of the yellow and orange beams. In this regard
it should be realized that the lens elements in the sketches merely serve as a guide to the
eye. Refrac tion is indirectly taken into ac count by the position and size of the entrance pupil
(Zeiss data) and the image of the rear rim (c alculated). The beams are c orrectly drawn up
to the point where they hit the front element, and should further only be considered relative
to the colored circles. In passing, figure 3 does away with the myth that a lens employed at
a small aperture uses only a small part of the front element. The intersection of the yellow
pencil with the front element marks the section needed for the image center, the
intersection of the orange pencil with the front element marks the section needed for the
image corner. So although eac h image point uses only a small part of the front element at a
small aperture, the image as a whole still relies on a large part of the front element.

The broc hure lens hood for the Planar 50/1.4 is metal hood #4. It is a wide hood which just
clears the front element: figure 4. Since the hood does not affect the clear aperture for
obliquely incident light (c f. figure 2) it does not lead to vignetting. Flare protection is offered
without the slightest compromise to the design whatsoever.

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Figure 4. The Planar 50/1.4 equipped with C ontax metal hood #4. Look here to
examine the real thing.

If the length of the hood is increased by 15 mm, the situation of figure 5 is established. At
full aperture the clear aperture for the oblique beam is reduced and the image corner
receives less light than it would in the absence of the hood. Mechanical vignetting sets in.
By contrast, the lens hood has no effec t at f/11. At this aperture the light beams accepted
by the lens are not hindered by the hood. Thus, figure 5 represents a situation where
mechanical vignetting is cured by stopping down the lens. An alternative view is given in
figure 7, which shows illumination curves for the scenarios sketched in figures 2–6. At f/1.4
mechanical vignetting manifests itself by a corner illumination that goes down from 30% to
20%. The dec line is gradual however and may not even be noticed in real-life images. As a
matter of fac t, depending on the application a small amount of (additional) vignetting may
even be tolerated in favor of a better flare prevention. The curve for f/11 is identical
between the upper-left and upper-right plots in figure 7: the hood has no effect on the
image illumination at small apertures.

Figure 5. The Planar 50/1.4 with a lens hood that is 15 mm longer than lens hood #4.
Vignetting now sets in at f/1.4.

When the length of the hood in figure 4 is increased by 30 mm (which happens to

correspond to metal hood #5), figure 6 results. At f/1.4 only a small area survives to
illuminate the image corner. The corner is dark but not blac k as it still rec eives some light.
However, at f/11 c orner blac kening is a fac t. Here, the lens hood completely obscures the
entrance pupil (the small circle in the circle plot) and no light is passed on to the image
corner. Where a small aperture cured the vignetting in figure 5, it worsens the vignetting in
figure 6. The lower left illumination charts in figure 7 c orroborate the corner blac kening at
f/11. The sharp kink in the f/11 curve implies an abrupt brightness transition from the image
towards the corners, which are completely blac k.

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Figure 6. The Planar 50/1.4 with a lens hood that is 30 mm longer than lens hood #4. Vignetting
is manifest at all apertures.

Still longer lens hoods lead to blac k corners at all apertures and the main effect of the f-
stop is found in the abruptness of the transition. This is illustrated by the fourth graph in
figure 7, which results from the addition of yet another 15 mm to the hood.

Figure 7. C alculated image illumination for the Planar 50/1.4 in combination

with several lens hood lengths.

From figures 4–6 it appears that the optimum length of a lens hood depends on the aperture.
When the chief ray (the ray that goes through the center of the aperture) is not obstructed
by the hood, stopping down the lens cures mechanical vignetting. When the chief ray is
clipped, a small aperture leads to black corners. Unfortunately it is quite cumbersome to put
this knowledge in prac tice. A lens that is regularly used at various apertures requires hood
adjustment each time another f-stop is chosen. Imprac tical, but it can be done with a
continuously variable, compendium type lens hood. A nice desc ription to figure out the
optimum length, by inspec tion of the exit pupil rather than the entrance pupil, is available as
a pdf file [1]. The author allows some 20% pupil area obscuration by the hood because he
considers protec tion against flare more important than a small, gradual decrease in corner
illumination which is normally not noticed in the image.

A simple, prac tical approach to determine whether a certain hood (or filters, or a
combination) causes vignetting on a certain lens consists of a series of test exposures. The
subject should be an evenly illuminated object at a large distance. Vignetting is less of a
problem at close range than it is at infinity, so when infinity poses no problems a nearby
subject is also safe. A brick wall on an overcast day will do fine. Four exposures are
required, two at the lens full aperture (with and without hood) and two at the smallest

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aperture (again with and without hood). If the pictures taken with the extension(s) show no
additional corner darkening in c omparison with the pictures taken without, you are
completely safe. If there is a slightly increased, gradual corner darkening at full aperture,
you probably won't notice the presence of the hood with other subjects than a brick wall or
a blue sky and you are also safe. Black corners however are generally considered gruesome
and the extension (or combination of extensions) is just not suited for the lens.

Shape of the hood

So far the disc ussion involved circular lens hoods. Indeed, a circular lens hood has the same
rotational symmetry as the lens and aesthetically matches the round image formed by a
photographic lens. However, the round image is not fully used as the presence of a field
stop, a 36×24 mm mask in case of a 35-mm camera, crops the image to a rectangular
section. This has important consequences for lens hood design and the optimum lens hood is
not round. The ac cepted light cone that is used to illuminate the frame is pyramidal. At full
aperture, going from the lens towards infinity, the cone starts out circular at the front
element and converts to a rectangular cross section at some distance. At small apertures,
and depending on the design, the cross section of the cone is already rectangular at the
position of the front element. The pyramidal cone is illustrated in figure 8.

Figure 8. No hood. Figure 9. A circular hood.

In the illustrations that follow a variety of hood shapes pass in review, designed not to
introduce additional vignetting. The length of the round hood in figure 9 is such that it
touches the light cone at four corner points. Voids in the plane of intersection evidence the
shortcoming of a round hood: there are gaps where nonimageforming light may enter the
system and introduce flare. One method to fill these holes is to extend the round hood to
create the hood in figure 10. This so-called tulip hood is shaped by the intersection of a
cylinder with a pyramid. Occasionally the designation butterfly hood is encountered.

Figure 10. Tulip-style hood. Figure 11. A rectangular hood.

Another strategy resorts to a rectangular shape. Figure 11 exhibits a rec tangular hood with
the same cross sectional area as the hoods in figures 9 and 10. Both the tulip hood and the
rectangular hood are more effective than the round hood. Not only bec ause they are longer,
but also bec ause their shape is matched to the pyramidal cone and leaves no holes. A
rectangular hood reduced to the same length as the round hood in figure 9 would still be
more effective.

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Figure 12. A chopped tulip hood. Figure 13. C hopped and capped tulip hood.

Although the tulip hood in figure 10 is very effective with respec t to flare prevention, it
won't win a compac tness popularity poll. To sacrifice some effectiveness for convenience,
the two longer butterfly wings may be clipped to yield the chopped tulip hood in figure 12,
which requires significantly less space in the camera bag. Some of the effectiveness may be
regained by filling the two gaps that arose in the clipping procedure. The 'chopped and
capped' hood in figure 13 is relatively c ompac t and still offers an excellent protection against
flare. Zoom lenses are often provided with a chopped tulip hood that offers reasonable
protection at the wide end, but which is inadequate at the tele end. It is better than
nothing though.

Final remarks
Lens hoods are often undervalued and c onsidered imprac tical bec ause of the space they
require in the camera bag. Too often I notice photographers with the best lenses money can
buy, but who employ them without lens hood—or tripod for that matter. They will either say
that a lens hood is imprac tical or that their lens is so good that it does not need a hood. As
to the last reason, that one is plainly wrong. There are many oc casions where a lens hood
does not add to the image quality, but there are also many occasions where it does—even
with the best lenses. A proper lens hood should be among the standard equipment of the
serious photographer. An adjustable bellows lens hood (c ompendium) is a flexible solution for
field work with a tripod, when prompt action is of no concern. One compendium hood serves
a battery of lenses. In a ready- to-shoot shoulder bag outfit eac h lens is best equipped with
an individual hood.

© Paul van Walree 2002–2010

References
[1] Erland Pettersson, The art of avoiding flare.

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