How to make a hood for your lens

Lens hood prevents light from hitting the front lens element from the sides there by reducing contrast in the image and also reducing the chances of such light creating flare. Pictures taken with a lens hood installed will generally have richer colors, deeper saturation. Lens hood also offer some physical protection for the lens due to the hood extending farther than the lens itself. Lens hoods are more prominent in long focus lenses because the field of view of tele lenses has a smaller viewing angle than of wide-angle lenses. For wide angle lenses, the length of the hood cannot be as long as the hood for telephoto lenses because of the wider viewing angle.

In this article we would like to discuss a certain issue, remember the crop factor that modern digital cameras have, so if you are a digital slr camera that is not a full frame camera you should pay attention to this article. Due to the crop factor (say for example for canons that have 1.6) a standard 50mm prime lens on a dslr will be roughly equivalent to 80mm so ideally you should be using hood designed for the 80mm lens on your 50mm lens inorder to achieve the best results.

For our hood we selected a plastic cup which is roughly the shape we had in mind and costs Rs 10/- or 25 cents.

Tools we will need for the job.

• Driller
  
• Mini hacksaw blade
  
• Knife
  
• File
  
• Sand paper
  
• Adhesive
  
• Filter ring
  
• Hacksaw

We will first place the filter ring on top of the cup and draw the cirlce with a marker the line will be helpful to cut the lid.

Drill a hole so that we could insert the mini hacksaw blade to cut.

Cut through the line to make the cirular opening.

Now we have our round hole on the bottom of the cup.

You may finish the edge of the cut with the knife if needed.

Take a pice of sand paper, roll it on a steel glass or any other tapered surface.

Now you can grind the edges to a smooth finish with it.

Checking the fit.

Its time now to cut the top of the cup away. We used the measuring tape to draw the line to cut. Rememeber although we are making hood for the 50mm lens we are actually making it to the specifications of 80mm.

Using hacksaw cut away the top portion of the cup.

Now we have the top portion off.

File the top of the cup to make the surface even and smooth.

Once you are done with the file you may rub it on a sandpaper for an even better finish.

Now it is time to attach the filter ring. since we are going to glue the ring to the cup, it will be better if we had more surface of contact between the cup and the ring so file the ring so as to make the edge broader.

Rub the filter on a piece of sand paper inorder to make the surface even.

It is time now to fix the filter ring on to our hood. Mix the glue and the hardner thoroughly.

Applying the glue to the hood.

Attaching the filter ring to the hood.

Before proceeding further attach the filter to your lens and check for any signs of vignetting.

The Finished product after we painted it black. Remember paint does not work on all kinds of plastic, especially the cheaper ones like the cup we used will cause the paint to react. So we first applied a coat of surfacer before we spray painted it with matt finish black paint.

It not only looks cool but it is a very functional lens hood for your beloved lens.

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