Rudimentary lens hoods on box cameras?

Is some rudimentary lens hood (ring, card stock flap, or hand shading!) worth it on a box camera?

Possible exposure improvement, beyond flare reduction?

I do not remember reading much on the subject, may be looking in the wrong places.

Early box cameras had a hole behind which was the shutter, aperture stop and then a meniscus lens - concave side to the stop. The lens shade was inherent to the camera. Cameras with multi-element lenses had the stop in the middle of the lens and so a convex lens surface was prominent. Then marketing got involved ... and the box camera lens was flipped around and moved to the front of the camera where it gave the camera an up-market appearance.

A single element exposed meniscus lens isn't going to have much flare. Assuming it is kept free of fingerprints and scratches.

But heck, experiment and make your own conclusions. We would be interested in the results.

Some box cameras had a finder lens which provided image in waist level viewfinder, with a separate lens for exposure....a form of TLR. A hood for viewfinder does NOTHING for the exposure...a separte optical system from the one forming an image on the film!.



A lens hood has the potential of blocking the view of the viewfinder lens. General practice was to hold your hand to block direct sun from falling on the taking lens, since there was no means of mounting something to block the sun.