A Word or Two About Lens Hoods

12/12/2024

You’ll find when you go to purchase a lens for your camera that many lenses come with a contraption that is designed to be attached to the front of the lens. That is the lens hood. (Some lenses, especially if the lens needs to meet a lower price point, do not have it included anymore. Which may go to show that you get what you pay for.)

I frequently get asked by my students when they should use a lens hood. The answer is simple: Always! Let me explain.

If you shoot in an environment where you have full control over light and lighting, a lens hood might not be vital. But it’s rare to encounter such a highly controlled situation, and  when you don’t have full control, the lens hood can be your best friend.  Lens flare — which is what it’s called when you see multiple reflections of a light source repeated over your image — can ruin a photo. Because it prevents stray light from entering your lens,  a lens hood helps with that. 

If a light source is close to the field of view — that is, the area where you are pointing your camera — stray light can make your photo look washed out. A lens hood helps with that. 

Unless the light source is right behind you and there are no reflective surfaces in front of you, it is a good idea to have the hood on your lens.

But wait, there's more. The lens hood will also protect the front end of the lens from scratches and mechanical encounters. Some stores will try to sell you a UV filter for lens protection, and that works somewhat. I find that the hood is a much better protector and often a lot less money. On modern cameras, a UV filter has very little impact on the image quality, while a properly used lens hood can definitely improve your photo quality.

Sometimes people get overwhelmed by the many different styles of lens hoods that are available and wonder which one to choose. The answer here is also pretty simple. Choose the hood your lens manufacturer recommends for your particular lens. Unless the hood you are using is tested with your lens, you may not be happy with the results you get. An inappropriate lens hood can do one of two things: 

1) It can restrict the field of view and turn the corners of your photo dark. This is called vignetting. 

2) It can fail to block the light entering your lens enough, making the hood ineffective.

If you do opt for (or already own) a lens that doesn’t come with a lens hood, I strongly recommend buying one. You can probably  figure out what to buy by harnessing the power of the internet. Go to the lens manufacturer’s web site and find your lens. In the technical data section, they often mention the type and number for the perfect lens hood to use with your lens. Then it is just a question of contacting your preferred camera gear vendor. They should be able to help you from there.

Who would have thought that the innocent-looking lens hood would have such profound effects? But then, if it were not necessary, the lens manufacturers would not spend the money and include them with most of the lenses you can buy. Right?

And there’s one more little tip that may make your use of a lens hood less cumbersome. I’ve sometimes found that people object to using one because having it attached to the camera makes the lens longer and therefore harder to store in your camera bag. Here’s the solution to that dilemma:

When you are through shooting, you can pop the lens hood off, flip it over, and put it back over your lens for storage. Now it doesn’t take up any additional room, and, as a bonus, it will always be right there for you the next time you use your camera.

When (and Why) to Try Auto-Exposure Compensation

12/11/2024

One of the things we talk about a lot in photography is exposure — that is, how light or dark your photo is. The camera’s shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings are all factors in how bright your photo will be. When you use your camera in manual mode, you can adjust all those settings yourself. That gives you a great deal of control, but it also takes time and practice to get really good at managing all of that, and so sometimes other modes of the camera are more convenient.

When you use your camera in program, shutter priority or aperture priority modes, or even in manual mode with auto-ISO, it typically does a pretty decent job of reading the light and metering accordingly to give you a properly exposed photo. One that is not too dark, not too light, but just right. 

There are some lighting situations, though, where your artistic vision and your camera's directive to meter every scene to a happy medium might be at odds. Think about a snowy winter scene, for example -- or a lovely white-sand beach, if you aren't quite ready for wintery thoughts. Chances are, if that's what you're photographing, you want to capture the brilliance of the sun on the reflective foreground. Your camera, however, will read that light as too bright and meter down. And the resulting image will be disappointingly dark. 

What can be done? The answer is Auto Exposure Compensation -- aka AEC. AEC allows you to push the exposure based on the camera's metering, making things brighter or darker. You can adjust the exposure in 1/3 f-stops up to +3 or down to -3.

Let's look at an example to give you an idea of when (and why) you might want to use AEC:

Here is an image from our Xtreme Wildlife Photography field trip to Africa a few years ago. I would call this overexposed. The grassland in the foreground looks OK, but the sky is blown out. Most of the detail in the clouds is lost. 

Below we have the same scene metered appropriately -- at least according to the camera. By appropriately, I mean that the camera's light meter was at 0. The camera read the whole scene, decided which of those colors should be the median value, and metered accordingly.

Better! The grassland may look a little dark, but the sky isn't so blindingly white that you lose the details, and the drama of the dark clouds is more prominent. The viewer's eye is drawn into the scene, right to that gap in the clouds, which is probably the most interesting part of the photo, anyway. You could call it a day here and be pretty happy with the image you captured. 

I don't think it's gone far enough, though, if what you really wanted to show was the gorgeous rays of sunshine pouring out of that gap in the threateningly dark clouds. So let's see what happens when you use AEC to force the camera to underexpose the scene:

Well! Now you've really got something. Lots of drama, lots more detail in the clouds, and the crepuscular rays of sun are visible all the way across the image. To me, this image truly captures the vastness of the plain, the oppressive heaviness of the storm clouds, and the awe of seeing the sun break through. And it would not have been captured if not for using AEC to override the camera's exposure setting. 

Hopefully, you can begin to see how exposure setting can be an artistic choice and why you might want to use AEC sometimes to get the effect you’re hoping for in a photo.

If you'd like to learn more about Auto Exposure compensation -- among many other things -- we go into it in depth in the second class of our Photography 3 course.

How to Use Auto-Exposure Lock

09/12/2024

Your camera probably has built-in light metering, and that's awesome. Except when it isn't. Let's say you want to photograph a scene like the one below, with this quintessentially New England rock wall stretching across a sunlit field. Your camera, in its infinite wisdom, will adjust exposure to accommodate the bright sky, and your result will look something like this. 

If a silhouette is what you were going for -- you've done the thing. But if you wanted your photo to look more like what your eye sees, you might be pretty disappointed. 

Here's a tip that can help. On the back of your camera, you will find a button labeled AEL. This stands for auto exposure lock, and it is the solution to your conundrum. If the object in the foreground is lit to your liking, and you want to keep it that way, follow these steps:

Point your camera directly at the foreground object 

Press and hold that AEL button. 

Still holding the AEL button, raise your camera and frame your shot as you like

Take your photo -- still holding the AEL button

And there you go! 

What camera to buy ...

09/12/2024

Whether you're brand new to photography or looking to deepen your practice of a hobby you already enjoy, you might be looking for a new camera.

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me what camera they should buy, I could buy a camera. It's a common question, and I understand why. There are many options and many opinions on what is best.

When you think of cameras, you probably think of the big 3 -- Sony, Nikon, and Canon. All of them make high-quality cameras with a ton of features. So, how to choose? I've used all three, and I believe Canon is the way to go. Every SLR camera will have a learning curve. After all, every feature added to a camera means one more thing to learn. Of the three manufacturers I named above, only Canon seems to have tried to make their menus user-friendly.

Of course, there is still a learning curve. (Hey, that's why I do what I do in the first place!) In my experience, both as a Canon user and as an educator who has helped hundreds of people get comfortable with their SLR cameras, Canon's learning curve is a little less steep. And that means a quicker, easier path to capturing the stunning images you've dreamed of.

TL;DR:  A Canon Rebel is a great place to start. It has plenty of capabilities and a decent price point. 

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Walter Schnecker