JJC Lens Hoods

Buy your OEM hood here.

OEM = OMG! Lens hoods are a necessity when working outdoors in the presence of other sticky fingers. While their effectiveness in blocking stray light can be problematic, they are very effective in keeping errant digits off the front element of your camera's lens. Depend on it, sooner or later a big, juicy thumb print will find its way onto the front element of your lens, so anything you can do to prevent this should be considered. And if you add the protection provided by a glass UV filter, so much the better.

When the Fuji X100 was first introduced in 2010, it was universally hailed as a contender for the Greatest Camera In The World award, and rightfully so. But one thing did not sit well with most photographers: the inordinately expensive lens hood. Retailing for about $70.00, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) hood was considered far too expensive for what it did, although I never heard anybody criticize the overall quality of the product. As a former film photographer, I had already acclimated myself to the astronomical prices commanded by genuine Leica accessories, But $70.00 for a newly manufactured Japanese product? I don't think so.

There was another issue that may have added to the manufacturing cost of a suitable lens hood. For whatever reason, the 49 mm filter threads, hidden beneath a protective bezel ring, are male (external), the exact opposite of the nearly universal female (internal) threads normally encountered. This means that if you want to mount a filter, you needed some kind of adapter that would have female threads on the camera side AND the filter side, something the Fuji hood addressed. A sticky wicket, none the less.

Get your hood here.

Enter JJC. This Chinese manufacturer makes a close copy (cheap knockoff) of the hood for under $15.00 through several EBay vendors. Workmanship? The hood feels a little gritty when installed, but other than that, it's perfectly serviceable.  And with the money you save you can afford a first-rate UV filter. Just be sure you buy the hood that includes the phrase "filter adapter" in the description.

You may notice the slots cut into the hood. This feature dates back to the original lens hoods designed for use on rangefinder cameras where the slots would allow you to see "through" the hood when using the camera's viewfinder window.

Order your hood here.

Hood For The X70: The OEM hood for the X70 does not have the ability to take a filter. The hood itself looks a little like an inverted bowl with a hole that matches the angle of view of the lens' 28mm equivalent angle of acceptance. Perhaps the designers felt the added protection provided by the hood would make a protective filter unnecessary. However, the JJC designers felt otherwise and included a filter adapter similar to the one on their X100 model. The final product is a real winner in my book.

You will notice that the slots have been omitted. Since the X70 does not have a viewfinder, there is no need to provide the see-through cutouts.

Photo source here.

Dedicated Hoods For Specific Lenses: My final JJC purchase was thus rectangular lens hood for my 56 mm F 1.2 lens. In this case, the OEM hood is a simple plastic tube that attaches to the lens' bayonet mounting flange. JJC has copied the rectangular hood format used on some of the Fuji primes, and also copies the snap-on cover in lieu of a lens cap. You can still install a protective filter on the lens, but you cannot install a center-pinch lens cap when this hood is in place.

One might argue that the shallow design of the JJC hood wouldn't shield the lens as well as the deeper "soup can" OEM version, since the hood can also be used on the Fuji 23mm F 1.4 lens. Even if it didn't, the compact design still provides sufficient protection from fingerprints, a hazard I consider far more real than a beam of errant light. And I simply like the way the hood looks. After all, you can never have too many style points.

You can order yours here. Price should be under $40.00.

Playing With A "Toy" Camera

Buy one here.

Busman's Holiday: Sometimes it is nice to shake off the constraints associated with making a photograph. Composition, ISO selection, lens focal length, and color balance all contribute to the making of a good image, but may just get in the way when all you want is a simple "in the moment" image. I remember when I brought my first digital camera, a 3 megapixel, $300.00 Pentax Point and Shoot, to a Rendezvous* more than ten years ago. With no manual controls, I was pretty much at the mercy of the tiny computer chip that governed focus and exposure, and yet these images have become treasured keepsakes of my adventures in "the high lonesome".

Rendezvous Season Arrives: For a lark, I chose my Fuji X70 to be this year's companion camera. It has face detection autofocus, a compact design, and was fully adjustable should the situation dictate. It also has an APS sensor, a reticulated LCD display for waist level and overhead shots, and a native lens that was the full frame equivalent of a 28mm 2.8 lens. In nearly all respects, it's the camera I hoped my Nikon Cool Pix A would have been, but wasn't. While equally compact, the Nikon just didn't have the feature set I have come to expect from a camera, and its quirky performance became something of an annoyance throughout the years I owned it. Luckily, I didn't pay full price for it, as it was obscenely expensive when it first came out.

View photo source here.

Eye Level Viewfinder: I have plenty of experience with waist level and over-the-head perspectives, courtesy of  the Mamaya twin lens reflex (TLR)  that was my first serious film camera. What the TLR camera lacks is a convenient eye level viewing option. For a generation of photographers holding their camera phones at arms length between the photographer and the subject, the need for an eye level optical viewfinder might seem a quaint throwback, I beg to differ, as some photos demand the immediacy provided by this "you were there" perspective. Also, making "on your face" contact with the camera helps to steady things when shooting indoors with longer exposure times. So in spite of the pundits screaming "Don't waste your money" I decided to buy a dedicated Fuji optical finder. I found one on EBay. I paid about 60% of the retail price, and while expensive, it is bright, clear, and had frame lines for the native lens and for the wider (21mm equivalent) view afforded by the Fuji dedicated wide angle adapter, which I also bought.

Built-in flash used. Auto exposure mode, with both flash and ambient exposures set to minus 1/3 stop.

Rendezvous At Mary Hill: This shot was taken using the reticulated display, affording me a waist-level perspective that would minimize the distraction of a 21st Century background while emphasizing the fluffy clouds in the sky. 

Built-in flash used. Auto exposure mode, with both flash and ambient exposures set to minus 1/3 stop.

Larry's Primitive Camp: In keeping with the 1830's theme, ones campsite should reflect the technology of the period. No pop-tents here, just a simple canvas lean-to held up with wooden poles and natural fiber rope. A single blanket would have been all the bedding available to a woodsman of the time. Since there were restrictions on open fires, Larry didn't dig a traditional fire pit, and didn't unpack any period correct cooking implements. His primitive camp won the Best Primitive Camp Award, but there wasn't any competition, since nobody else took the time to set one up.

Built-in flash used. Auto exposure mode, with both flash and ambient exposures set to minus 1/3 stop.

Shooting Flintlocks: Modern firearms produced very little "gunsmoke" but in the 19th century, there was plenty of it. Unfortunately, the lovely clouds in the background hide the smoke and flash associated with shooting a traditional flintlock long rifle. This photo was the best compromise of composition and light placement, and overall, not a bad image.

0.6 second, ISO 200, F 5.6, exposure adjusted in post production

Tom's Camp: My idea of "roughing it" is a bathroom without a tub. This is the view from in front of my room. The photo was made with the camera resting on the open door of my car. Again, the exposure was determined by the camera, and once again, the Fuji  appears to have made a good call regarding exposure and white balance. The evening moon can be seen peeking out from behind the low cloud cover.

As you can tell, I do love the outdoor life, and I'm falling more in love with my Fuji X70.


*"Rendezvous" is a re-enactment set in the heyday of the fur trade prior to 1838. With beaver pelts in high demand for felt hats, adventurers would venture into the mountains for months at a time, trapping the wily beaver, and bringing their pelts to an annual "rendezvous" with traders from the east for the purpose of exchanging them for essential items like flour, traps, and of course, whiskey. Unlike Civil War reenactments, this is not a spectator sport, and is not based on a specific historical event.