Of course Skip and other's advice to do controlled testing is a good
plan, But.......
First of all, get the correct lens hood. The hood you are using is for a
35mm lens. As is the case with the vast majority of zooms (excluding the
35-70/3.6 and a couple of specific Tamron and Tokina lenses), the front
element of the lens either doesn't move with zooming or carries the hood
with it as it zooms. Thus, they must have a hood that doesn't vignette
at the widest setting and becomes less and less effective as the focal
length increases. Getting the correct hood for your longer lens should
improve flare.
Another problem the correct hood should correct is the one you raise.
Many of the Oly hoods for wide angle through medium tele lenses use a
design where the side of the hood goes straight from the lens edge to
the outer diameter. This means possible reflection from the inside of
the hood at shallow angles into the lens. The simple black rubber that
can get shiny with use and age doesn't help. The hoods which don't have
this problem are those where the hood flares out to its maximun diameter
very quickly, then goes forward parallel to the lens body. This is a
much better shape for minimizing internal reflections. Among the hoods
made this way are the 35-70/3.6, the hood that fits the 35/2.8,
50/1/8/1.4/1.2 and 40/2 and the one that fits, are you ready, the 90/2
and 135/4.5. I don't have a 90/2, but have that hood for my 135/4.5, and
I can tell you that it creates a deep dark place compared to the hood
for the 35-105.
Treating the rubber may help, but if you look out through one of those
rubber hoods, you will see that the ridges are designed to protect from
reflections from the viewpoint of the lens, not a person looking down at
the hood from the front. If you really have to do something, I believe
that one can get black flock spray paint at craft stores.
Another interesting hood design is the Hoya Multi Lens Hood, which folds
to 3 different lengths to accomodate the AOVs of different focal length
lenses.
Moose
Skip Williams wrote:
You could glue black felt on the inside.
Have you tried to run some tests to see if the hood is contributing to flare?
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