[BarryE]

Shows what I don't know. Didn't think it mattered, but obviously it does.

Imagine the frustration. The UK is about to go into lockdown, so my autumn plans for the leaf colour in November have been squeezed into one day. Today. A 5am start. Location, scouted. Wet at first, but then the glorious light that occurs after rain when the sun breaks free. A few risk free shots with usual lens. Then swapped to my planned experiment with my ultra wide (Irix 15mm). All was going well, on this one-day-only chance this year. After about an hour I was 'in-the-zone', snapping away, feeling all sort of creative, when I noticed the petal hood was not 100% in position. Yep, you guessed it. On the diagonals the hood was showing in all the frames.

The penny dropped after a few moments. Rectangular sensor. Round lens. I now appreciate why the position of the hood makes a difference. I knew it had to be in the right(ish) position, but I did not realise it needed to be 100% in the right position. The hood was almost in its correct place, but I hadn't twisted it fully so it wasn't properly clicked into position.

I can crop out the few rows at the top and bottom, but that's not what I was framing for.

I hadn't used this lens outside before, as so far its use has only been for a few interior real estate shots and I didn't use the hood.

Lesson learnt. I wonder how absolutely critical the hood position is with my other lenses? Never had this problem before, but I guess I'd always engaged the hoods fully. I was rushing to try and squeeze a month's photography in a few hours.

I won't make that mistake again

[jatrax]

Sorry to hear that. I've learned from sad experience to always shoot just a bit wider than my composition really is. That way I have a bit to crop away if I need to straighten or whatever. I give up a few pixels but it has saved many a shot that I normally would have shot just a tad tight in the field.

I've never had hood issues like yours but I am always careful to firmly lock the hood in place. That after not doing it once while on a small site seeing boat and watching as the hood dropped off and rolled across the deck into the water. No more hood.....

[stevebrot]

Lesson learnt. I wonder how absolutely critical the hood position is with my other lenses?

If a rectangular hood is properly sized, position is critical. The same is true of tulip-hoods, though it may depend on focal length when applied to zooms.


Steve

(...generally uses round hoods or dedicated bayonet type...)

[McCMac]

Wear a big hat instead 😊

[BigMackCam]

I know it's not quite the same, but some years back I went out for the day with my son, and we each took a Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim point-and-shoot 35mm film camera with us - a model that neither of us had previously used. The weather was great, we visited lots of locations and each took a good number of photos. A week later, we received our developed films and prints in the mail, only to find that 90% of the shots had one or more fingers in the frame, captured by the 22mm lens which sits flush to the camera body. The sad thing was we could tell that - aside from our fingers - many of the photos looked great... there were plenty of potential keepers

[Paul the Sunman]

The penny dropped after a few moments. Rectangular sensor. Round lens. I now appreciate why the position of the hood makes a difference.

I asked the question on PF years ago "Why not a round sensor?", but nobody thought it was practical. However, it would offer the maximal artistic scope for cropping, and make portrait camera orientation redundant. Of course, hoods would need to be round too (e.g., DA 55-300, DA 70 Limited).

[UncleVanya]

At least you didn't spend an hour with a borrowed lens taking pictures of captive eagles only to realize there was no film in the camera... Sigh. I was only 14 but I was borrowing a 300mm ED IF Nikon lens from the rep...

[Apet-Sure]

You don't mention what camera you were using. Not all viewfinders are created equal. My K-5IIs and KP have viewfinders that show 100% of the captured image. Some camera models may show a smaller percentage, and if so, the hood vignetting may not have been visible in the viewfinder. OR...

There is a difference between 'looking' and 'seeing'. Many times I've taken a shot that looked good in the viewfinder. However, once the shot is up on my computer monitor I see things I didn't notice when taking the picture. That may have happened to you. The hood vignetting may have actually been 'see-able' in the viewfinder, but your eyes were looking at the main subject, and didn't notice what was at the edge of the frame. I've been trying to train my eyes to see everything in the viewfinder.

[tvdtvdtvd]

I asked the question on PF years ago "Why not a round sensor?", but nobody thought it was practical. However, it would offer the maximal artistic scope for cropping, and make portrait camera orientation redundant. Of course, hoods would need to be round too (e.g., DA 55-300, DA 70 Limited).

The biggest argument against a round sensor is that it circles don't fill the plane, ie, lots of waste on the wafer when the sensor is printed. However,
square sensors >do< fill the plane. I am very much in favor of a square sensor; no need to worry about landscape vs portrait orientation unless you
later decide to crop other than square. I was always a big fan of the 6x6 format.

[BarryE]

You don't mention what camera you were using. Not all viewfinders are created equal. My K-5IIs and KP have viewfinders that show 100% of the captured image. Some camera models may show a smaller percentage, and if so, the hood vignetting may not have been visible in the viewfinder. OR...

There is a difference between 'looking' and 'seeing'. Many times I've taken a shot that looked good in the viewfinder. However, once the shot is up on my computer monitor I see things I didn't notice when taking the picture. That may have happened to you. The hood vignetting may have actually been 'see-able' in the viewfinder, but your eyes were looking at the main subject, and didn't notice what was at the edge of the frame. I've been trying to train my eyes to see everything in the viewfinder.

K-1. I doubt it would be a problem on APSC.

The looking and seeing thing is indeed an issue, so is checking the LCD screen. I often use a Hoodman to sample check frames, but I'd squeezed as much kit in my backpack to get the most out of this final day and the Hoodman had been left behind. Using a loupe is, I find, the best way to confirm a shot, as somehow the action of viewing it this way makes me look more carefully.

[tibbitts]

I won't make that mistake again

Yes you will. Hundreds of times. Like forgetting to rotate the polarizer. Or having your finger in the corner of the image because you were too lazy to install the square filter holder. Or forgetting your memory card, or battery. The worst for me was hiking 2mi - in sand - before realizing I had my tripod, filters, and 4 lenses... but no camera body.

[torashi]

Yes you will. Hundreds of times. Like forgetting to rotate the polarizer. Or having your finger in the corner of the image because you were too lazy to install the square filter holder. Or forgetting your memory card, or battery. The worst for me was hiking 2mi - in sand - before realizing I had my tripod, filters, and 4 lenses... but no camera body.

Oh, Gawd.

I reckon I've used hyperfocal distance only to find later badly focused shots because I inadvertently moved the focus ring somehow.

[DWS1]

At least you didn't spend an hour with a borrowed lens taking pictures of captive eagles only to realize there was no film in the camera... Sigh. I was only 14 but I was borrowing a 300mm ED IF Nikon lens from the rep...

I did that once, Was excited I got 42 exp. out of a 36 exp. roll. When I opened the camera I saw why.

[UncleVanya]

I did that once, Was excited I got 42 exp. out of a 36 exp. roll. When I opened the camera I saw why.

I was shooting a Nikon F2a at the time so I was actually 15. The counter stopped and I thought I had torn the film out of the cannister. I found a dark closet and opened the back in the dark with an opaque film cannister but there was no film inside at all.

[Apet-Sure]

The year was 2000. We were in Washington state to celebrate my aunt & uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. We drove up to Mount St. Helens. I was literally stunned at the jaw-dropping vistas of devastation still evident 20 years after the eruption. Words can't describe. I was shooting film, thrilled to capture this once-in-a-lifetime experience, on a bright sunny day. The Johnston Ridge observatory was at some elevation; around 6000 feet I think. Later on, when I got the prints back, every shot at MSH was badly fogged. I had forgotten to use a UV filter.