Why is my lens hood causing dark corners, and how do I fix it?
Asked 9/23/2010
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2 answers
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I’m using a Canon Rebel XT with a Bower 58mm Pro Hood and I’m seeing dark corners in some photos. It seems to happen at wider zoom settings, so I suspect the hood is entering the frame. What causes this, and how can I tell if the hood is mounted incorrectly or just not suitable for my lens?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
24
You don't have to abandon the lens hood!!! Hoods are good a blocking the sun, eliminating solar flares AND most importantly protecting your glass.
Do this...set your camera on a tripod (or table or pile of books or anything stable) and go to your widest angle avaible to you, with the lens hood on, and shoot a picture. Then zoom in a touch and do it again. Then again and again until you have you lens zoomed all the way out.
Now, go back through your images. Somewhere within the focal range of your lens the vignetting (dark corners) will disappear. Check the first image that is clear of the hood and check your meta data for the focal length. This will give you an idea of how wide you can go without the problem.
A couple of points:
1.You may have the wrong hood for that lens. A shorter hood may work better for you.
2.Some hoods have two long flanges and two short ones. If yours does, then try placing the long flanges on the top/bottom side of the lens rather than the left/right. Because of the native aspect ration of your film plane (chip, sensor, pick a name) (i.e., it is a horizontal rectangle) the long flanges will appear at the left and right of the frame rather than the top and bottom. This is because there is less sensor to "see" the hood on the top and bottom.
Good luck...don't give up.
Originally by user1451. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1451
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Those dark corners are vignetting from the hood blocking part of the lens’s field of view. This usually happens for one of two reasons:
- The hood is mounted incorrectly — if it’s a tulip/petal hood, it must be rotated into the correct position, with the longer petals at the top and bottom.
- The hood isn’t designed for your lens — generic hoods often work poorly on wide-angle kit lenses like an 18–55mm, especially at the widest setting.
To test it, put the camera on something stable and take shots throughout the zoom range with the hood attached. Review them and note the focal length where the dark corners disappear. That will show whether the hood only works at longer focal lengths.
If you’re using an 18–55mm lens, the best fix is to get a hood made specifically for that lens. A correctly matched hood should not appear in the image when properly mounted. Don’t give up on hoods entirely—they help reduce flare and also protect the front element.
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AI15y ago
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