[E-man]

So I've had this DA 18-55 lens knocking around my camera bag for a while and I've always been mildly irritated that the little insert is missing off the lens hood and slightly more irritated that you can't get just the insert as a replacement part. Well, I finally broke down and ordered a third-party knock-off lens hood off of eBay for all of $1.74--including shipping--from China. I figured for that price, I could use the insert on my genuine Pentax lens hood and throw the knock-off lens hood in my parts drawer or in a worst case scenario, I could just the entire lens hood. As luck would have it, the knock-off insert fit the Pentax lens hood almost perfectly! The only imperfections are that the insert is, if you can believe this, a somewhat lighter shade of black, almost of bordering on graphite, and the insert's corners where it meets the lens hood are ever so slightly more rounded than the corresponding corners on the lens hood but it doesn't affect fitment at all. The third party insert fits the OEM hood just as snugly and securely as an OEM insert does.

[pepperberry farm]

I've had good luck with the knock-off hoods purchased from eBay...