Winsor wrote:
I don't really think Olympus takes hoods seriously, except for the
one on the 35-70/3.6 which adjusts the angle depending on the focal
length. If the hood is perfect on the 40/2, that is, it blocks all
light from outside the the diagonal angle(56 degees) of that lens
then it allows the 24 degree 100mm to be flooded with light outside
its field of view. The other thing that is half-a--ed in my opinion
is the variability of attachment including screw in(the wide
angles), clamp on(50/1.4), slide out(135/2.8) and
bayonet(35-80/2.8). My 1964 Leica M3 had bayonet hoods that
attached quickly and easily, the same way for all the lenses, and
each one seemed to be carefully designed for the focal length and
not to block the rangefinder windows. Maybe Mr. Maitani, realizing
that effectively shading the lens with a hood is a crapshoot anyway,
decided that it was better to shoot without one and pay attention to
the light falling on the lens with every shot than to spend a lot of
effort on something that even with the best design would not be
effective in every instance anyway. I know I paid more attention
when I shot without a hood than I do now. So you get afterthought
hoods for those, like me, who insist on them.
Hmmm, we disagree on just about everything here. I think the
accessory Oly hoods that I have (8 models) are well designed and
matched. Two of the lenses for my Texas Leicas (Mamiya 6) have
bayonet hoods and I find them significantly more fiddley to attach
than screw-on hoods. I'm not crazy about the clamp-style but, at
least for some w/a lenses, I can see how they were necessary to
prevent vignetting while remaining small. The fact that I can nest
several round hoods makes them a better option than rectangular hoods
with very little trade-off in performance.
The 40mm hood is what makes that lens a joy to use (*much* easier
adjusting f-stops). And they nest together, retaining the
compactness. However, I do find the 40mm suffers from flair when
shooting into the sun -- no hood can solve that -- so don't.
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