> "ALWAYS use a hood" is sound advice.
Or, you could never use a hood. I've done both over the years. Generally, the flare performance of a lens is determined by its coatings. The better the coatings, the less necessary a hood becomes. The worse the coatings, the less a lens hood is going to be able to eliminate flare anyway. The percentage of shots that are affected by a hood at all is quite low. That's not to say that they're useless. They're not, always, and with some lenses they're needed more than with others. But their importance is often overrated. Another option is to just use your hand, when you're in a situation where strong light is hitting the lens and you're able to shade the lens without getting your hand in the picture. (View camera photographers often use the dark slide.) Another option when shooting against the light is to position the front of the camera in a little sliver of shade, say from a tree branch. In any event, flare is like any other of the many visual qualities of pixtures (motion blur, film grain, odd drawing, distortion, etc.)--it can sometimes be used to good aesthetic effect. So a final option is to remain aware, take reasonable steps to reduce flare, and, when it happens anyway, enjoy it. --Mike
