Petal hood puzzle

[Theo Sulphate]

Canon often sells its lens hoods separately from its lenses and often they are very expensive. One lens I would like a hood for is my new 35/2 EF IS lens. Canon specifies a plastic petal hood for it. Looking at petal hoods in general, I notice they're designed with the upper and lower petals extending out much further than the petals on the sides. Why is that? If the longer petals don't interfere with the image, why shorten them on the sides? Why not just have a common conical style hood instead of the petals?

The reason I ask that is because I believe a common plastic conical style hood, maybe for an old Canon 35mm FD lens, would be less expensive than the $50 Canon is asking for this hood.

Although this is a new 35/2 EF IS lens, I intend to use it on an old EOS500N.

What say you?

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

The image on a 35mm film camera or a Canon D-SLR is rectangular. The hood can stick out more on the top and bottom because that part of the image circle is cropped off by the rectangular shape of the film or sensor.

The petal hoods are more efficient at stopping flare than round conical hoods are.

 

[MattKing]

35mm and most digital formats are quite rectangular.

The lenses need to see "wider" in one orientation than they do in the other. And of course, flare is often more problematic from sources above a landscape oriented camera.

Thus the need for non-symmetrical hoods in order to maximize their effectiveness.

EDIT: great minds think alike!

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Yeah... that's right. I guess I'm not used to thinking in a rectangular format.

Ok, thanks - it looks like I'm going to have to buy that hood because the front element is right at the front edge of the lens body; it's not set back as on some lenses.

 

[paul_c5x4]

Canon often sells its lens hoods separately from its lenses and often they are very expensive. One lens I would like a hood for is my new 35/2 EF IS lens.

Rather than paying through the nose for a lump of plastic, have a go at making your own: http://www.lenshoods.co.uk/hoods/Canon-EF-35mm-f-2.php

 

[EdSawyer]

There are also chinese clones of the Canon hoods available on Ebay for less than the price of the Canon versions.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Thank you all for the good advice; I appreciate it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

There are also chinese clones of the Canon hoods available on Ebay for less than the price of the Canon versions.

The same goes for Hasselblad and I would think many other cameras such as Leicas.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

The same goes for Hasselblad and I would think many other cameras such as Leicas.

The Chinese have cloned just about everything, including but not limited to, the petal hood on my prized SMC Pentax 67 75mm f2.8L; the genwine article is about $160 — it won't fall off and will have the POL adjustment trapdoor in its base. The Chinese are flogging off "identicalised camera lenses copy" (and other classic mangled Chinglish descriptons) for about $20. Can't stand their utter crap choking FleaBay one bit.