When using the lens hood that came with the 18-105mm lens there is a half circle shadow at the bottom of each photo. This is cause by the hood. When I take it off it is no longer a problem.

The solution is to not use the lens hood but I am curious as to why using what is provided with the lens would produce a problem such as this. I assume the lens is seeing the bottom part of the hood. I have checked and the hood is on property as far as I can tell.

Ben

PS: Not sure if this should be in the D7000 forum or the Nikon lens forum. This is the lens that came with the D7000.

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Howdy, Ben. I'm guessing that the shadow is only present when you are using the built-in flash? This is actually normal on most lenses. You should remove the hood when using the built-in flash as a general rule.

If its not the flash shadow then make sure you have the correct hood. It should be an HB-32. I don't think there's a way you could mount it incorrectly and have a shadow present without the flash firing. But if you had the wrong hood installed that could be the cause of the problem.

Dean
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Hello Ben,

The hood also attends to keeping lens flare (sun glint or refraction on surfaces of the lens elements).

Even with the hood, sometimes a hat or flag is required to shade the lens outdoors and indoors.

Rob

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The hood tends to block the built-in flash (vignetting effect), especially at the wider end of the focal length range. Solution is to remove the hood when shooting with flash (you still might get vignetting if the flash is not rated to cover down to the widest focal length the lens is capable of) or use an external Speedlight such as the SB-400 or the SB-700. The Speedlight moves the flash higher off the lens axis and will clear the lens hood even at the widest setting.

Note that even an external Speedlight will vignette because it likely can only cover down to say, 14mm. Most Speedlights have special adapters that snap down to force the flash pattern to cover that length, so if you're using an ultrawide like an 8mm, 11 or 12mm lens, the hood can still block the light.

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See page 271 of the manual.

If it were the built in flash being shaded, wouldn't Ben be seeing this shadow at the top of the image, and not at the bottom as he is reporting?

Peter

The flash is above the lens hood (at least in landscape orientation), so the shadow would be cast on the bottom of the image.

Peter, I've done it myself. The area where the flash can't reach is shaded by the top petal of the hood which casts a shadow that appears on the bottom part of the image. The flash has no trouble illuminating the top part of the scene. If you zoom in with the lens in question the shadow is gone by about 28mm.

Dean
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You guys have solved my problem. I never realized it only happened when I was using the flash. Also as Sparky pointed out it does mention this in the manual (page 271), guess I never got that far.

Thanks for everyones help.


Ben

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Yes it's a classic mistake ... It will Also happen with studio lights ..if you try to use a shutter reales faster then what the light can sync this also can happen ...the only way around it is use a sb-800 or 900 and set it to FP high sync on the flash .. And set the camera to the high flash setting above 250

My god bless you and your camera

>It will Also happen with studio lights ..if you try to use a
>shutter reales faster then what the light can sync this also
>can happen

That's an entirely different effect. What we're talking about here is shading caused by the lens/hood.

Brian
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>>It will Also happen with studio lights ..if you try to
>use a
>>shutter reales faster then what the light can sync this
>also
>>can happen
>
>That's an entirely different effect. What we're talking about
>here is shading caused by the lens/hood.

it still clips the light... one is caused buy the hood and one is caused buy the shutter ..

My god bless you and your camera

>it still clips the light...

To be accurate, using a too-fast shutter speed does not affect the light from the flash hitting the subject. It just means that the shutter is not fully open when the flash fires.

Please stick to the topic being discussed.

Thanks!

Brian
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Thanks - I see it now. Indeed the flash would be unable to light the bottom of the image. Got that backwards Peter