DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

The “Ultimate Lens Hood” is… the ultimate lens hood?

Jul 25, 2018 by John Aldred 5 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

One would think that a lens hood is a simple and straightforward sort of thing. We’ve all got them for our various lenses to help prevent the sun from flaring into the front element. But flare isn’t the only thing that lens hoods can be good for, as The Ultimate Lens Hood is out to prove.

The Ultimate Lens Hood (we’ll call it ULH from now on) is basically a black stretchy silicone cone that goes over the end of your lens. It serves the purpose of a regular lens hood (to a degree), but also allows you to eliminate unwanted reflections, and protect your gear from the elements.

It’s being funded through Kickstarter and has a rather modest goal of £8,000. It’s only a couple of days in so far and it’s already over halfway there. I’m dubious of many Kickstarter campaigns these days, but this one looks like it’ll be a pretty safe bet. It’s an inexpensive item that’s priced realistically and it’s probably not that difficult to manufacture (and they already have the tooling). This is basically just a pre-order phase.

The ULH comes in two sizes. There’s the regular sized ULH, designed for typical DSLR & larger mirrorless lenses with a diameter of 60mm or larger. In the video above, they show it stretching over the 115mm diameter Canon 100-400mm with no issue.

The other size is the ULH Mini designed for smaller mirrorless lenses, phone lenses like Moment and ExoLens.

Its primary function is to act as a way to shoot against glass while eliminating reflections. This allows you to get the camera up to a window to shoot outside without seeing everything inside the room.

It’s similar in function to the Lenskirt, but with one big difference. The ULH attaches to your lens, not the window, allowing you to be mobile, and easily shoot handheld against the glass. Very handy if you’re photographing scrub pythons or water monitors at the local zoo.

But that’s not its only function. Because it’s made from silicone, it can be bent, pushed, pulled and twisted. If you mount it on backwards, it can work to act as protection for your camera against the elements. And with certain brands, you need all the help you can get if you want to shoot when it rains.

It’s one of those items that I think only a handful of people will ever actually use regularly. But it’s such a super useful and inexpensive tool that everybody should probably have something like this in their bags for those times they face a problem that it can solve. Yeah, I think I’ll have to put a couple of these on my list.

As mentioned, there are two sizes; The ULH and ULH Mini, priced at £30 and £20 respectively. For early birds, there’s a £5 discount on each. It’s £45 if you want to get one of each, and £56 for two of the large ones. These prices are plus shipping, so if you’re in the USA, it may get expensive (never mind, it’s £5 flat-rate to wherever!). If you want to pre-order yours, head on over to their Kickstarter. Shipping is expected to begin in October.

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

The Ultimate Lens Hood is back with a new smaller “ULHmobile” version for smartphones Watch this hockey photographer’s lens hood fall onto the ice and get mistaken for a puck Canon has filed a patent for barndoor style lens caps you can’t lose that double up as a hood Photographers are going crazy over Universal Lens Hood; over $170,000 raised on Kickstarter

Filed Under: news Tagged With: kickstarter, reflections, Shooting through a window, Ultimate Lens Hood

John Aldred: from diyphotography.net

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« Woman accidentally finds an image of her late mother while browsing through Google Street View
How to create full colour photographs with only black & white film »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Learn photography

Recent Posts

  • Nikon announces Zf shortage (Surprise!)
  • Finally! Sennheiser EW-DP SKP plug-on transmitter offers 32-bit float recording
  • Photographing an abandoned Italian villa: A time capsule of history and mystery
  • The Tascam DR-10L Pro is an unclippable 32-bit float personal audio recorder
  • This year’s Nature TTL POTY winner puts global warming right in our faces

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

Alex Baker: from diyphotography.netAlex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

David Williams: from diyphotography.netDave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred: from diyphotography.netJohn Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic: from diyphotography.netDunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy