My fellow Fujifilm shooter The Overrated Photographer (ORP), gifted me with a small accessory for my Fujifilm X70. He is a generous fellow so I agreed to write up a small review for both our blog sites about this tiny product. You can take a look at his site here. Having owned the Fujifilm X70 for some time now I have become well aware of the range of Fujifilm and third party accessories that are available. Mostly leather cases and straps but also lens hoods. For those not in the know, a lens hood it attached to the end of a lens and provides a level of shade for the lens to prevent light flare bouncing off the glass. For the most part I tend to shoot without them on any of my lenses. In fact I tend to keep them on if I am shooting in the raining, versus a sunny day, as they help keep drips off the front glass of the lens.

The official Fujifilm one is fully metal and actually made of two parts.  The first is a mount adapter that screws onto the front of the lens barrel. Then you have the option to fit a filter to the lens. Then this is followed by the lens hood being screwed on. It comes in both silver and black and can be fitted to either the Fujifilm X70 or the Fujifilm X100. It is metal and very well manufactured but it does result in the lens hood sticking out a fair bit.  It certainly makes it no longer pocketable – which is an aspect of this camera that I love so more often than not I will not use any form of lens hood.

The Square Hood branded product is quite a different design and is made solely in black. It is made from fairly strong plastic and does not actually feature a thread of any kind. The idea is to simply push it on to the front of the Fujifilm X70 lens barrel. It is a snug fit with a good level of tolerance and will not easily fall off even if knocked a little. Its tapered design has the effect of making it feel much slimmer than the Fujifilm branded hood I mentioned earlier. From a profile view, this hood only adds another 8-9mm to the front of the camera. But it does not come with a lens cap and given its unique square shape it would be impossible to find one that fits.  Now the Fujifilm branded one did not come with a cap for the hood either – but at least you could purchase a third party cap that fits snugly into the round hood space.  As you can see, neither are ideal solutions and I am surprised that Fujifilm has not included a Fujifilm cap with the lens hood accessory.

As for the design and function, there is not really much more that could be said.  From a manufacturing standpoint I would imagine that these Square Hood hoods have been injection moulded.  It has a 1-2mm wall thickness. However, this could just as easily have been 3D printed by someone with a little knowhow and the right gear. And that in itself raises an interesting point about how much easier it is now for people to simply design and print their own solutions – especially with something as simple as a lens hood. This would be a great use of that technology to really customise your camera. But sadly I don’t have the know how or the technology to make that a reality.

The most shocking part of this product is the cost. The hood itself costs around AUD$53 for the hood alone, plus a further AUD$10 for international shipping. So AUD$63 in total for what is essentially a pretty basic piece of plastic. There is a version that also comes with a mount ring so you can attach a filter, but that costs an extra AUD$10. Granted the Fujifilm X70 lens hood (LH-X70) costs around AUD$90.  But that is a two-part metal lens hood with precision threads that is never going to come off unless you actually want it to. I am sorry but when I looked up the product on the Square Hood site, which you can check out here, I was seriously shocked. It is certainly not worth that amount of money. To some money is no objet, but for me this is a big turn off from this kind of product. Let me know your thoughts on the cost of accessories. Happy Shooting.