http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home;jsessionid=GX90G0k1Qp!1508707039?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=186095&is=REG&addedTroughType=search&BI=1824&KBID=2466 yeah. For a piece of plastic.
That's pretty funny. But I guess if you can afford $6500 for the lens it goes with, you can spend another $500 for the hood.
ladies and gentlemen, scott breaks his silence!! glad to see you again, scott. as far as the $500 piece of plastic... DOUBT IT!
welcome back! I guess $500 bucks for a replacement lens hood could be worth it. But I don't think the plastic really costs that much.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=Search&A=details&Q=&sku=186977&is=REG&addedTroughType=search&BI=1824&KBID=2466 Check that out. I've read before that for that model (it comes with the 600mm F4) they used carbon fiber instead of plastic. I can't find the reference now, I thought it was on a Canon site but I can't find it now. However I found a reference to the 500F4 using a carbon fiber hood as well. So there's your price explanation. I'm not saying it really costs that much to make something out of CF, I think carbon fiber has become a sort of designer material that manufacturers use to jack up the costs of things. It's great stuff, don't get me wrong.. I've been trying to figure out a way I can make things with it, I fly remote control airplanes and composite construction is.. well.. kind of like L glass to an RC pilot. I'm not joking, Canon users have their white lenses, RC people (RC cars, like real cars, use this too) have the black woven look of carbon fiber. There are some instances where manufacturers have covered non carbon fiber parts with a carbon fiber print, the look has become that much of a desire. But I'm not certain if it's the sort of thing one can cook up in the basement like fiberglass is, not without more specialized equipment, heated molds and such. The thing is.. CF shouldn't be lighter than plastic, just stronger, but it was mentioned along with the lightweight construction of the lens as a way to save weight. You use it for applications demanding strength. It's beyond me why Canon decided to use it to make a lens hood. It's not like the lens hood is meant to hold any weight. Or maybe it is. Maybe the intention was that the hood might take an accidental impact and protect the lens itself. With a lens that heavy the hood would have to take a lot of energy.. it's a weak guess, but it's all I have.
Okay okay it's carbon fiber. I stand corrected. Still that's expensive. I can't link directly to it, so you can search for it here: http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/came ... _lens.html Okay, so the hood protects the lens, and the lens protects the body. http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/511277/97 Second post, first is long.
I still think it's expensive too.. it's like they tried to make it more expensive so that it stayed a similar fraction of the cost of the lens. Kind of like how the wired remote for the 30D costs twice as much as the wireless remote for the Digital Rebel. More expensive product, arbitrarily more expensive accessories.
I think that if you have that expensive lens, you'll want the matching hood. ; Plus the official hoods are matched to the lens design.
The lens actually comes with the hood and a nice sturdy case for storage. Hopefully, I will never have to replace the hood on my 500. The case itself is also ~$500 to replace. The cost is probable due to that it is not mass produced, is aimed at the high end/pro market, and that camera accessories in general have large markups. Roger is correct that owners want the hood designed to match the lens. I never have even seen a third party hood for this lens, but I never looked much either.
I don't think I've seen 3rd party lens hoods for the high end telephoto lenses either. ; I don't think that they would have a large enough market for to justify making them for the big telephotos. ; Personally, I wouldn't buy an aftermarket hood for any of my lenses anyway since the one that came from the manufacturer was designed with scallops to match that particular lens. ;
Lens hoods in general are overpriced from Canon. I recently bought a beautiful new lens - the EF-S 18-200 IS - and like all Canon lenses, it came with no hood. But I really love having a petal hood on my lenses, not only to act as a sun shade, but to act as a front bumper to protect the glass itself. It also acts as a kick stand when I set the camera down. But the EW-78D lens hood that Canon makes for this lens is almost $40! So I bought a cheap $9 knock-off instead, and ya know what? It works great. And it's cheap enough that I can easily buy another if I ever crack it or lose it. EW-78D lens hood - $37.95+$4.95 shipping from B&H Cheapo knock-off version of the EW-78D - $8.89+free shipping from DealExtreme
I agree with the first part, that the economies of scale don't justify making the hood for most third parties. ; However, I don't agree with the second part. ; I would assume it's much easier to 'reverse engineer' a lens hood than it is a lens, yet many of us (myself included) are not at all reluctant to purchase third party lenses.
I agree that its not that hard to reverse engineer a lens hood. ; I was going to say that there can't be much of a market for exact replicas of the original lens hoods, but a quick search on B&H for Nikon Lens Hoods led me to a company called Pearstone, which makes replacement lens hoods for several Nikon lenses that appear to be near perfect matches to the originals. ; So there must be enough of a market or they wouldn't be doing it. ; However, in most cases, the difference in price was less than $10, and for me personally, for that small of a price difference, I'm going to get the original.
Yeah, well, L lenses aren't really lenses, per se. They're more like... cars that focus the light for your camera.
