Fuji x10/x20 lens hood

[William]

i'm interested in getting the lens hood for the x20. does anyone know how easy it is to take it on and off? or if someone has the x10 with the lens hood, can you you post a photo of what the lens hood looks like with a filter attached? i'm interested in how that works since i'll be backpacking through Europe with it. thanks!

 

[depscribe]

I have an X20 with one of the clone hoods that are, it seems, identical in every important way with the hugely expensive Fuji ones. They simply screw in, in the fashion of a filter. I also got a UV filter the diameter of the lens threads and have it on -- would recommend this rather than floating a 52mm thing out inside the hood, which to me seems just nutty. The filter I got for it is the Marumi 40mm that's made for it; I understand that there are now much cheaper ones also. I got the filter here: http://www.2filter.com/marumi/marumiuvfilters.html (No, I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the company.) They say they also now have a polarizer for it. The only other filter that would be likely to interest me is an infrared, and I've found that the X10, unlike the X100, isn't very good for infrared (maybe the X20 will be better; we'll find out.) Anyway, unless you just happen to have a stack of 52mm filters lying around, I'd advise against using 'em on the X10/20, when filters of the right size for conventional use and not the kludgy Fuji way of mounting are available.

 

[Joey Wilson]

I'd have to agree with depscribe.

I got the Fuji LH-X10 filter adaptor/lens hood combo, and a Hoya digital clear in 52mm (surely the most difficult to clean filter ever promulgated by Western man). Besides getting dust behind it and on the lens, it could be difficult to unscrew apart to clean the filter. Sheeesh . . . . As above, I got the Marumi digital clear in 40mm (and 2Filter is great to deal with) and run the lens hood 'empty', and it's MUCH better in that fashion. And the lens cap slips right over the seated 40mm no problem.

Interestingly, Fuji seem to have taken the hint: Forthcoming is the LHF-X20: Fuji's own EBC clear in 40mm, with male threads on the outside, onto which screws a derivation of the previous lens hood, complete with a 'squeeze-in' lenscap that goes into the assembly. No word when . . . . or how much.

I'd also like to play with infrared, but I wonder if a 52mm into the adapter/hood would let visible light in behind the IR filter because of the air gap? Oh well . . . .

 

[hellofromelo]

There's another reason to avoid using a 52mm UV filter with the original "vented" hood or one of the third party clones:

Try deploying the X10's popup onboard flash outdoors with the hood and "sandwiched" 52mm filter mounted on the lens. If you're attempting to do fill flash, there's a good chance your images will be ruined by light from the flash entering through the air holes in the hood and bouncing off the rear surface of the filter. Look for annoying reflections in the upper left hand corner of your pictures.