<<<-- Originally posted by Tom Hardwick : In other words the hood is only an efficient hood at the wide-angle end of the zoom. -->>>

That's a very good observation Tom. And notice that the Cavision mattebox Blip is using was designed for cameras with a much wider lens, so it would be even less effecient using your criterion. This sounds like a good argument for a bellows style matte box where you could extend it further for medium or telephoto shots. Of course you would need to do this cautiously if not using a field monitor since the LCD and viewfinder overscan and you would run the risk of getting the mattebox in the frame.

Very true Boyd. With any new hood you need to do some tests, shooting footage and then seeing the whole frame in your edit program's window. Remember a few pointers:

1) shooting at small apertures (f11 ish) will show up any hood vignetting more clearly.

2) If you've attached the hood to the filter thread and then fit a filter with the hood screwed into that - you're more likely to get vignetting.

3) I use a collapsible Hoya hood, but I've done tests to see at what focal lengths it's 'safe'.

4) Remember that the PDX's and the 950's supplied hood is designed to let you shoot in 16:9 and shoot stills to memory stick. In other words it's not as efficient as it could be (by quite a long shot) if you only intend using the 12x zoom in the 4:3 mode.

Going from 4:3 to 16:9 on the PDX10 is the same as staying in the 4:3 mode with a 0.8x wide-angle converter in place.

5) When you shoot 16:9 remember that you should use a 16:9 aspect ratio hood. Any squarer than this and it's less efficient; you risk the dreaded flare and smear.

tom.