The Ultimate Lens Hood Lets You Shoot Reflection-Free Through Glass

The Ultimate Lens Hood is a new camera accessory that helps you shoot through glass without reflections. It’s a versatile collapsing silicone cone that can stretch to fit all kinds of camera lenses.

Creator Josh Smith says he got the idea for the ULH during a trip to Japan back in 2015 when he found that the photos he had taken from inside the many observation decks and towers he had visited had been ruined by reflections.

So, he created a silicone product to help block light from bouncing off windows.

Here’s what he view through the camera as you press the ULH against the glass to block off surrounding light rays:

The standard ULH was designed for DSLR and mirrorless camera lenses, stretching to fit the barrels of even large telephoto lenses (60mm diameter and up). There’s also a ULHmini that’s designed for smartphone lenses and smaller digital cameras (30mm to 60mm).

The flexible nature of the ULH allows you to move the camera around and shoot at different angles while the lens hood is pressed firmly against the glass you’re shooting through.

Here’s are some examples of what the ULH can help you shoot:

Attaching the ULH backward onto your lens allows it to serve as lens protection, keeping things like water, snow, mud, sand, dirt, and dust from hitting your lens body.

An existing competitor to the ULH is the LENSKIRT flexible lens hood, which uses a non-silicone material and has suction cups for mounting to glass. Since it’s more rigid, the ULH doesn’t need to be mounted to glass, allowing photographers more freedom of movement while using it.

Here’s an introduction to the Ultimate Lens Hood by Josh Smith:

Smith is crowdfunding the Ultimate Lens Hood on Kickstarter, where it blew past its initial ~$10,000 goal in just a few days and currently sits at nearly $40,000 raised from nearly 800 backers at the time of this writing. A pledge of ~$20 and up can earn you one of the first ULHminis, and a pledge of about $40 can score you a full-sized ULH if/when the product successfully ships (Smith is aiming for October 2018).