When is a compendium shade better than my hat?

[RichSBV]

"So where's the hat-holdin' hand?"

That's what a head is for ;-)

[Dave Henry]

Efficient lens shades have long been the pursuit of upper-end 35mm camera manufacturers. Look at the odd-shaped shades offered by Canon for their wide-angle lenses dating from the 1980s. Nikon followed with the same design in the 1990s. These shades sought to minimize the amount of exteraneous light that the lens see's on its blind sides primarily on the top and bottom of the 35mm frame.

But, the originator of the efficient lens shade concept was Leitz. In the early 1970s, Leitz designed efficient shades for their SLR wide angle lenses. The Leitz design was a hooded bayonet concept that used a registration pin that insurred that the hood would be positioned correctly each time. This allowed the engineers to develop a hood that actually covers the top and bottom edge of the lens glass only millimeters in front of the front element. By actually covering the glass itself, you transmit the least amount of extraneous image degridation (flair) light.

Eliminating flair is a huge step in producing an image with more contrast. Next time your'e in a camera shop that sell Leicas, look at the shades. Specifically the 28mm f:2.8. I know of no other lens shades that actually crop off glass.

Masking off the long proportions of cinema lenses (covering glass) has been done for a long time in the movie industry.

[Paul Metcalf]

The dead horse is down and ready for more beating.

I believe in every picture I've seen of Ansel Adams out and about taking pictures with his 8x10 I haven't notice a compendium lens shade installed on his camera. I'll have to dig through my library and verify. Maybe he hadn't got around to putting it on his camera yet when the picture of him was taken, or maybe there wasn't any snow close by (but a lot of his taken pictures have snow in them). And by my standards, his pictures have enough/sufficient/plenty of contrast, and he's kind of famous. And a lot were taken in the '40's with most likely uncoated lens.

Is this a mountain out of mole hill issue if one is careful to keep the major (sun) light off of the lens? BTW, the body works well for blocking the sun especially since we're all suppose to be taking pictures when the sun is low on the horizon, right? Does anyone have data to show what percentage of light reaching the film is extraneous light that has not been absorbed within the camera (on a percentage basis of the non-extraneous light that enters the lens)?

My ancient Linhof compendium lens shade also includes a filter holder. Wonder what came first in its design evolution, the filter holder or the large shade extension?

Ok, have at it with me!

[Dominique Labrosse]

I do recall seeing a picture of AA shading his lens with his hat though :-)

[Ellis Vener]

AA did that 40, 50 & 60 years ago? I guess there is no reason to improve our tools beyond that is there?