Lens hood always necessary?
I'm setting out on a trip on foot tomorrow to hopefully get some shots of the European bison that were reintroduced to The Netherlands a few years ago. It will be an overcast day, which led me to the question if I could leave the rather bulky lens hood of my Nikkor 80-400 at home.
In my understanding, a lens hood is mainly used to reduce the chances of flares from bright sunlight, of which there is no chance on an overcast day. However, I read somewhere that the hood also protects from diffuse stray/indirect light that may compromise IQ, which would mean that I have to bring the hood anyway.
Is this true and do you have any experience that IQ is indeed compromised? I'm not a faithful user of lens hoods, but have never noticed any obvious IQ loss apart from flares from bright sunlight.