Is your lens hood making your winter wildlife photos soft?
posted Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 10:45 AM EST
Is your lens hood negatively impacting your cold-weather photography? Wildlife photographer Steve Perry was recently photographing snowy owls, and his photos were all soft. After ruling out an issue with his gear, he then contemplated the lens hood. His gear had been kept in a warm vehicle before heading out into frigid winter air, so maybe that was the problem? Read on to find out.
Surprisingly, before learning about what cold weather can do to your photos when using a lens hood, we must first understand heat distortion. Perry has previously released a video on the topic, which you can view below.
Alright, back to winter. Perry was recently out with his wife, and they were trying to capture photos of snowy owls. The ambient air temperature was down in the single digits (Fahrenheit), so it was well below freezing. They were driving around in a warm vehicle, finding an owl, and then getting out into the cold air. Perry, who was using a Nikon Z9 with a Nikon 600mm F4 lens, noticed that all his images were soft. Given the incredible quality of his gear, that's perplexing. The issue looked a lot like heat distortion.
The pair tried to solve the issue, and it occurred to Perry that the attached lens hood, which had been in the warm car, was causing warm air to mix with cold air just in front of the lens element. After removing the lens hood, voila, images were instantly crystal clear.
Perry wanted to do further testing. A few days later, the temperatures were even colder at his home, so he could test the lens hood issue more. Perry tested it with three different 600mm lenses from Canon, Nikon and Sony that had been kept inside the home at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In each case, when taking the lenses from the warm home to the cold outdoors, using the lens hood resulted in very soft photos. Perry also tested out the Sony 200-600mm lens with its smaller lens hood and smaller front element, and the same problem occurred.
Perry tried it again on a different day when it was 27 degrees. The same issue occurred. It's something to keep in mind when shooting in cold weather, especially if your gear was recently in a warm environment, such as a car or building. If you're shooting in cold weather and seeing soft photos, try removing the lens hood.
If you want to avoid the issue altogether, letting your gear cool down will help. If you can't afford to wait, remove your lens hood.
To see more videos from Steve Perry, head to his YouTube channel. You can also view his photos by visiting his website.
(Via Steve Perry)