How to Choose a Lens Hood for Canon

This is a helpful guide discussing how to choose a lens hood for Canon.

How to Choose a Lens Hood for Canon?

Whatever you do, make sure you buy a lens hood that will be compatible with your specific camera lenses. Camera lenses will vary by manufacturer (Canon, Sony, Nikon, etc.) so ensure you’re getting a lens hood that will work with your Canon camera specifically.

What’s the point of a lens hood and is it worth the investment? What if you’re just starting out in photography?

These questions all have their answers.

But first, let’s explore what a lens hood is, what it does to improve your photography and most importantly, which ones you should buy once you’ve been convinced to get one.

Once you’re well-informed, you can easily figure out how to choose a lens hood for Canon all by yourself.

Let’s dive right in:

What is a Lens Hood?

Before you understand how to choose a lens hood for Canon, you need to understand the fundamental purpose of a lens hood.

A lens hood is a piece of protective plastic (a hood) that extends beyond your camera’s lens.

They come in many shapes and sizes.

With that said, they also come in at many different price points.

Depending on the quality of your equipment and your shooting conditions, you’ll want to choose a specific style of lens hood over the other.

Like any camera accessory, you can get a cheap one that’ll do its job, more-or-less even if it doesn’t look or feel as durable as a more expensive one.

However, if you’ve already invested deeply in your gear, then a proper lens hood is just a few dollars more and can make a world of difference.

Do You Really Need a Lens Hood?

The short answer to the question, “do I really need a lens hood” is “no.”

But if that’s where the answer ends, then it wouldn’t be so important to understand how to choose a lens hood for Canon.

A lens hood is largely a cosmetic accessory that adds a negligible amount of improvement to your photography.

However, that doesn’t mean you should not invest in a lens hood for every single one of your camera lenses.

You may think this advice is counter-intuitive, but you’ve probably found that the photography business, like it or not, is largely about perception.

Lens hoods add a certain level of professionalism to your setup.

When clients see a hood, they get the impression that you’ve invested wisely in your business.

A good looking lens hood can make even a stock camera lens look high end to most people who aren’t well acquainted with the photography world.

While a lens hood’s effects on your photography are largely negligible, you may still be wondering what the heck it actually does for you.

How do You Put a Canon Lens Hood On?

Installing a lens hood couldn’t be easier.

A lens hood is typically threaded at the end that is affixed to your lens.

It should connect to the end of the lens in the same manner that your camera lens connects to the camera body.

Most lens hoods have markers on the threaded lip that makes it simple to line up with the markings on your lens.

Once properly aligned, a half-turn is all you should need to affix your lens hood to your canon lens.

However, there are a few considerations to make when using a lens hood:

• Ensure your lens hood doesn’t interrupt your flash; if it does, remember to remove the hood if you’re using your flash.
• Ensure the lens hood is completely connected to the lens or you can risk damaging the lens threads or having the lens hood appear in your photograph.
• Some lens hoods will allow you to connect them to your lens while flipped for the purposes of compact storage.

What is the Point of a Lens Hood?

The primary purpose of a lens hood is to reduce or entirely block “lens flare”, which is when light bounces in at the sides of your lens.

While lens flare is a minor issue that requires specific circumstances to even occur, it can certainly detract from the dynamic color range of your photos or even overpower your subject with unwanted flare.

To put it simply, most types of lens hoods will extend beyond the lens of your camera (while not following into its field of view) to block light from coming into your shot from the sides.

While lens flare is the official purpose of a lens hood, most industry experts agree that they serve a better purpose, even if that purpose may be inadvertent.

If you’ve been in the photography long enough then you know your camera lenses are a major investment to your photography.

Sure, the upfront expense of a good camera body is large but once you have a camera you shouldn’t need to upgrade it any time soon.

However, camera lenses are another thing entirely.

Lenses will completely change the look of your subject—they’re the true eyes of the camera.

As you gain experience in the field, you’ll soon find that your stock camera lens simply doesn’t cut it.

Shortly after, the itch to upgrade your lens will be too urgent to ignore. Once you buy one lens, you’ll quickly realize just how addicted you are to the world of camera glass.

But good lenses are not cheap.

Therefore, a lens hood is the thing that gets in the way between an immovable object and your camera.

For instance, if you were to drop your camera onto the hard ground you can say goodbye to your lens—it will more than likely take the brunt of the impact.

If the lens was a good one, then you can also say goodbye to a large investment.

However, if you were to affix a lens hood to your lens, it will be sufficiently protected from most drops.

Breaking a plastic lens hood that costs you less will always be preferable to smashing a piece of equipment that you might’ve even taken a bank loan out on!

To summarize—yeah, a lens hood will reduce lens flare (when or if it occurs) but it mostly does a great job of protecting your camera lens from breakage.

Best Lens Hoods for Canon Lenses

You’re probably asking yourself, “what kind of lens hood should I get?”

Camera lenses come in a variety of diameters.

The best types of lens hoods for a Canon camera will serve you well and go a long way to protect your camera. Here are 4 of the best:

Canon EW-73D

In the photography world, you often pay a premium when you buy equipment made by the camera manufacturer.

The same is true for the EW-73D lens hood manufactured by Canon.

This hood will fit most Canon lenses without a problem and comes with clear markers for aligning the hood to your camera lens.

JJC EW-73C

JJC scratches the same itch as Fotasy—they’re a knock-off brand that replaces an existing product.

JJC even includes the lens hood item number that it’s meant to replace—the Canon EW-73C. The “bayonet” style lens hood manufactured by JJC is a great accessory to your Canon lens and one you won’t regret!

Fotodiox Lens Hood Replacement for ET-65B

Fotodiox has more or less imitated the Insignia lens hood while offering an efficient replacement for the Canon ET-65B lens hoods.

It features deep, plastic walls that’ll offer your camera plenty of protection from excessive glare as well as drop damage.

It easy for you to buy a handful to affix to all of your nice lenses without breaking the bank further.

Concluding Remarks

We hope you learned something new about lens hoods!

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