In my most recent trip around BC, I was amazed to see how many people do not attach the hood to their lens. On most point and shoot cameras this is not an option, but on a DSLR I consider it a necessity.

The lens hood (sometimes called a lens shade) is the plastic tube that attaches to the front of your lens. It is designed to keep the front of the lens shaded from direct sunlight, minimizing flare. In many of todays short zoom lenses there are four cutouts that keep the hood from causing vignetting at wider angles, while still providing some shade at the smaller angles.

When light hits the lens directly, it can reflect around inside the lens creating flare as in the photos on the left. It looks like the colours are all washed out, often with a colourful, rainbow like splotch on the photo. If you are using filters on your lens this effect can be really strong as there is more glass for the light to bounce through.

What can you do? Firstly, if your lens has a lens hood, use it, that is why it came with your lens. If you don't have one, I would suggest you go get it. You may find you can get away with an inexpensive ($15), generic, soft rubber one that screws into the front of your lens. Before buying one of these check to make sure it does not cause vignetting (darkening) at the four corners of your photos. This is quite common with the newer, wider range zooms. That is the reason to buy a lens shade made specifically for your lens, and why many of them have those funny looking cutouts on them.

Another trick to try is to use your hand or hat to shield the lens from direct sunlight. Takes a bit of practice not to get your hat in the photo, but it works very well. Sometimes I still have to use my hat even with the lens hood on.

You can also change the camera angle a little each way until you no longer see the flare in the viewfinder.

There is one other reason I like lens hoods, they protect my lens. I can't count the amount of times I have had a branch or rock deflected by the hood instead of scratching my lens. Saved me hundreds of times.

People tell me all the time how they find hoods to be big and clumbersome and I don't disagree. You can usually mount the shade backwards on the lens when you are not using it. Makes it a lot smaller for your camera bag. After using your lens shade for a while, most people get used to them and no longer find them a hassle.

You will always find a shade on my lenses (except when I am shooting from an open window of a moving vehicle), and you will rarely find a photo of mine that has flare.

Happy Shooting!