Lee Filters Wide Angle hood....opinions?

[Sergio Ortega]

Has anyone had an opportunity to use the Lee Wide Angle hood with wide angle LF lenses (specifically 75mm/90mm, with the 67mm Lee wide angle adapter ring)?

Will it vignette? How adjustable is it? Does it hold it's shape or position wh en compressed to size? Is it worth the rather hefty price, or should I just con tinue shading the lens/filter with my hat?

Many thanks, Sergio.

[Mike Kravit]

I use the Lee Wide Angle hood on my Canham DLC 4x5. I use it with my Schneider 210mm and 90mm lenses. It is very rigid, well made and holds it's shape well. I have the Lee red, orange, green, yellow, 81a, 81b, polarizer, and neutral density .6/.9 grads. It is a great system and a pleasure to use. The adapter rings screw on and the hood fits easily and securely.

I have adapters to use it on my Hasselblad as well.

I highly recommend it!

Mike

[Mike Kravit]

I use the Lee Wide Angle hood on my Canham DLC 4x5. I use it with my Schneider 210mm and 90mm lenses. It is very rigid, well made and holds it's shape well. I have the Lee red, orange, green, yellow, 81a, 81b, polarizer, and neutral density .6/.9 grads. It is a great system and a pleasure to use. The adapter rings screw on and the hood fits easily and securely.

It adjusts easily and will omly vignette if extended too far for the lens.

I have adapters to use it on my Hasselblad as well.

I highly recommend it!

Mike

[Masayoshi Hayashi]

I have tried one with LEE FK100 (Foundation Kit with 100mm diameter hole). I like the self supporting bellows when it's adjusted in any way. I'm not sure what you mean by "when compressed to size?" but the hood holds its shape once adjusted and allows more movements as you extend (of course). No movement is allowed when compressed fully. If you have the WA hood, you probably don't need the standard hood. One thing I don't like is that the opening shape of the bellows is proportional to 5x7 and 35mm (I use 4x5). The bellows is also bigger than I like for backpacking. There is a shiny big golden plate "LEE Filters" on the front frame. Remove it if possible. But from what's available currently, I think it's one of the best you can get. It comes with a nice padded case.

Have you looked at the compendium shade for your camera brand? It is obviously the best way for LF.

[Steve_571]

Yes... I have the Lee WA Hood and use it on all my lenses... Very stable and relatively easy to set-up. The widest lens I have attached is my 58mm (albeit shooting 6x12).

What is particularly neat is that you can pull a corner out keep adjusting it until it adequately shades the lens... you do not need to pull out all 4 corners equally. Haven't used a WA Ring... but it is on my x-mas list :)

My other wish is that B+W would start selling their 4x4 glass filters (Red, Orange, ND, Warming etc...) to use LF guys.

Steve

[Bruce Pollock]

For whatever it's worth, I bought the regular Lee filter lens hood (not the WA version) recently for my 4x5 system. It's great - I really like it. However, I've also got adaptors to make it fit my 35mm system and I've found that I can use the hood on a 24mm lens and it won't vignette as long as it's fully compressed.

This leads me to wonder whether the Lee WA hood would really be needed or whether you could get away with just the regular hood. I think you'd get better shading with the regular hood versus the WA hood.

I suppose that with very wide large format lenses (ie. shorter than 90mm on a 4x5) you might need the WA hood. But with the 90mm, you can get away with the regular hood.

[Larry Huppert]

It's tough to compare the use of a shade on a standard 35mm lens vs. a large format lens. With the large format setup, you have to also check to make sure your complete lens movements are possible with the shade you've chosen. For example, what may work for a 90mm f=8, may not work for a 90mm f=5.6. Not many shades for large format are really designed to easily account for lens movements; even the ones designed by the camera manufacturer for their own equipment (maybe Linhof has something which does it right?). I think a shade which can shift with the lens makes sense. With the Lee shades you can "point" them as you shift by pulling out one side while pushing in the other, but you'll give up some lens shading on the pulled in side.

The biggest problem with the Lee wide angle hood is that it won't work well with filters on the wider lenses (<75mm). If you get the version with a filter slot(s), the slots don't rotate independent of the shade. This can be problematic when using grad filters (for architecture in particular). I'd guess vignetting would be a problem while trying to use the shade with many center filters. Lee's solution to the rotating filter problem is to put a standard (rotating) adapter on the front of your lens, and then attach the shade to the adapter with a Lee tandem adapter. With this setup, all the pieces articulate as you need, but the shade is pushed so far forward from the lens that vignetting is a certainty. It is my opinion that Lee didn't really optimize the wide angle shade. It will work for some people in certain situations, but it isn't a complete solution.