Good if you need one...

[rpcrowe]

Several years ago, I was shooting the Canyon Country of the State of Utah. There was one shot that I wanted to get but it was shooting almost directly into the sun which caused lens flare, even with the lens hood on my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens. I ended up using my hat to shade my lens from the glare of the sun. That worked but, if I was not tripod mounted, I would have had a hard time managing my camera/lens with one hand and my hat with another...

About a year ago, I purchased my 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II lens from Adorama. They included a bag of goodies for no extra price! Really - I could have had the lens with or without the goodies for the same price and at the time, that was the best price available to me.

The goodies included a 77mm Filter Kit of "el-cheapo" UV, ND and CPL filters which I immediately unloaded for twenty dollars on craigslist.com. That reduced the price of the lens. The goodies also included a "cleaning kit" which is a little pouch with a blower-brush, lens cleaning fluid and lens tissue. I threw that in my camera bag and occasionally use it. The free goodies also included a Flex Lens Shade...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMiOwsef95U

Flash to the present... I had not paid any attention to the Flex Lens Shade until yesterday afternoon when I was shooting one of my rescue dogs outside. The heat had been fierce all day so, I had waited until early evening to shoot. The sun was very low and I was having some flare problems when shooting side or backlit... I remembered the Flex Lens Shade and broke it out.

The darn thing works very well. It is well made and stays in place on a lens. I used this in conjunction with a lens hood and was able to get the shots that I needed. Another use for this piece of gear might be shooting in the rain or snow. It would add just a bit more shelter to the front element than is provided by a lens hood alone. Additionally, this unit might work when you want to use a CPL on a lens. Many lens hoods restrict the access to rotating the CPL. Using the Flex Hood instead of a "normal" lens hood might be handy. At an once and a half, the Flex Lens Shade has found a place in my camera bag.

HOWEVER... I went to the Adorama site and priced this shade.

https://www.adorama.com/flsa001.html

I am happy that I have one but, I am not at all sure that I would spend forty U.S. Dollars on this item. If it had become more popular (If it had, Adorama would not have been giving them away with the purchase of a lens), I am sure that the Chinese would have come up with a copy selling for under ten U.S. Dollars.

[Mike Buckley]

Anyone that has some matte black aluminum foil for use in tabletop photography can combine that with a rubber band to quickly and easily devise a shade that is flexible yet sturdy enough to retain whatever shape the foil is bent into.

[Manfred M]

You have pointed out a well established issue with the fixed lens shades that ship with the lenses; especially zoom lenses.

They are designed to minimize vignetting at the shortest focal length that the lens is capable of shooting at, which means as we increase the focal length, the lens hood is not doing as good a job as it might. This was never an issue with fixed focal length lenses as the hood could be optimized for the specific focal length.

I use two different solutions, and if my camera were not in the shop right now, I could take some shots.

I use a Lee hood (not cheap).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...de.html?sts=pi


I also have a cheap piece of black foam from a hobby store (it cost less than a dollar) that I have cut to size attach it to the existing lens hood with an elastic. I use a similar approach to flag my speedlight when I use on-camera flash.

[rpcrowe]

Manfred wrote:

"You have pointed out a well established issue with the fixed lens shades that ship with the lenses; especially zoom lenses."

There is another issue with most lens hoods. When combining many lens hoods with a CPL filter, you need fingers like the Grinch to be able to rotate the CPL with hood attached.




The 300mm f/4L IS and 400mm f/5.6L lenses had an elegant solution to this problem. A sliding hood that could easily be retracted to allow you to rotate the CPL and then extended out again to shoot. That is one (and only one) reason that I kept this pair of lenses and never purchased the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS Mark-I lens.

My 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS Mark-II lens hood has a slot with a sliding door to allow access to the edge of the filter for rotation when the hood is mounted and the door is open. Close the door and you can shoot. Not as neat as the retracting hood but, there could be arguments about weight and price.



This solution has been available for years in select lenses from other manufacturers such as Minolta and later, with Fuji. I am happy that Canon has finally adopted it just like they finally adopted center pinch lens caps which are, IMO, easier to use. However, I wish that Canon had adopted the integral, retracting lens hood for the 100-400mm II lens.

I think the final question is: would I buy one? The answer is no! Unless I had a specific need like boxing photography. Then it might be worthwhile just because of ease of setup. And of course then, my equipment would be tax deductible! Will I use the one that I have? Certainly