How to Tell Which Kind of Lens Hood Fits Your Lens
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Vintage lens hoods look interchangeable in photos. They aren't. Before you can ask "will this one fit," you need to know which of three completely different ways your lens accepts a hood.
Short answer
There are three attachment types, and you can tell them apart by looking at the front of your lens:
- Screw-in — threads into the filter thread. Sized by your filter size.
- Bayonet — twists and locks onto tabs around the front of the barrel. Specific to that maker and that lens series.
- Clamp-on (slip-on) — grips the outside of the front ring. Sized by outside diameter.
If your lens has a filter thread, a screw-in hood is almost always the easiest answer. Its size is the same number as your filter size — which you can find using this guide.
1. Screw-in hoods
These have a male thread on the back that screws into the same place a filter goes. If it says ⌀52 on your lens, you want a 52mm screw-in hood.
They're the most flexible option because the thread is a standard, not a maker's design — a 52mm hood threads onto any 52mm lens, whatever the badge on the front says.
The trade-off: the hood and a filter compete for the same thread. Most hoods have a female thread on the front so you can still fit a filter, but not all do. If you use filters regularly, check that the hood has a front thread before you buy.
An adapter ring can also change which hood size you need — see how to choose a step-up or step-down ring.
2. Bayonet hoods
Look at the front rim of your lens. If you see small tabs, notches or a lipped ring outside the filter thread, your lens takes a bayonet hood: you push it on and twist a few degrees until it locks.
Bayonet mounts are quick, secure, and they don't use up the filter thread. The catch is that every maker designed their own, and often several different ones over the years. A bayonet hood from one manufacturer will not fit another's lens, and frequently won't fit a different lens from the same manufacturer.
So how do you know which one you have? Two things to check:
- The hood itself is usually marked. Vintage hoods commonly carry a model code stamped or printed inside the rim or on the side. That code is the identifier — note it down and search on it, rather than on the shape.
- The lens's own documentation. Manuals and catalogues for a given lens usually name its hood. This is far more reliable than matching by eye.
We deliberately don't publish "this hood fits that lens" tables. Bayonet fittings from the 1960s to 1980s are too varied, and the documentation that survives is inconsistent. A confident-looking chart that's wrong is worse than no chart at all. Check the marking on the hood, and check the lens's own literature.
3. Clamp-on and slip-on hoods
Some older lenses have no filter thread and no bayonet at all. Their hoods push over the outside of the front ring, sometimes with a small screw or a sprung band to grip.
These are sized by the outside diameter of the lens's front ring — a different measurement from any thread. Measure across the outside of the ring with a ruler or calipers, and match that number.
Don't assume a familiar-looking number means the same thing here. A 50mm clamp-on fits a barrel that's 50mm across the outside; it has nothing to do with a 50mm focal length or a 50mm thread.
Shape matters as much as fitting
A hood that physically attaches can still be the wrong hood. The depth of a hood is designed around the area a particular lens covers — so screwing on doesn't mean it belongs there.
Use a hood that suits your lens. Forcing a hood meant for a different lens into service can leave the barrel of the hood itself in the frame, darkening the corners of your photographs. That's vignetting.
If you're unsure, shoot one frame of something evenly bright — a clear sky works well — and check the corners.
Vintage hoods are usually round or rectangular. Rectangular ones are cut to the shape of the frame, so they shade more efficiently — but they must be mounted the right way up, which is why they're often found on bayonet fittings rather than screw-in ones. (A screw-in rectangular hood ends up at whatever angle the thread stops at.)
The petal or tulip shape common on modern zooms is rare on vintage glass.
Metal, rubber or plastic
- Metal — what most vintage hoods are. Durable, and it dents rather than cracks. Often the same finish as the lens.
- Rubber — usually collapsible, screw-in, and effectively universal for a given thread size. Convenient, but old rubber hardens, cracks and can go sticky.
- Plastic — light and cheap; check for cracks around the mount, which is where they fail.
Many metal and rubber hoods also reverse over the lens for storage, which is worth checking if you carry a camera in a bag.
What to look at when buying used
- Dents on the rim. A dented screw-in hood may not thread on straight; a dented bayonet may not lock.
- The threads or tabs. Chewed thread or worn bayonet tabs mean a hood that binds or falls off.
- The inside finish. The point of a hood is to kill stray light, so a matte black or flocked interior is doing its job. A shiny bare-metal interior is doing much less.
- Rubber condition. Squeeze it. Rubber that has gone hard or shows fine cracks won't get better.
- The marking. On bayonet hoods especially, a legible model code is worth a lot — it's how you'll confirm what it belongs to.