That Oly 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro lens hood

I obtained my Oly 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro not long after it was released. I've had no problems with the lens hood while all the time reading sad stories about its disintegrating and losing the ball bearings. Now I have my own sad story and want to know how you folks resolved the situation. Did you:

• Find all the parts and successfully re-assemble the lens hood? (I do not have all the ball bearings)
• Purchase an OEM replacement, about $48 USD?
• Purchase a third party replacement, such as B+W, Heliopan, generic screw-in aluminum? (any vignetting issues?)
• You don't bother with a lens hood on your 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro any longer?
• You sold all your µ4/3 equipment and bought Sony?

HAND.

I have likely shot more than 100 000 images with that lens. (youth hockey!) I love the hood. If it broke, I would buy another. Not a doubt in my mind about replacing it with a generic hood.

Andrew

When Olympus first announced that they were selling their camera business to OMDS, the first thing that I did was to order a backup 40-150mm f/2.8 lens hood from Olympus. After 7 years heavy usage I haven't yet needed to switch to the replacement.

In contrast, both the hood and the lens cap of my 12-40mm f/2.8 have exploded into ball bearings, and I have replaced both with third party equivalents which work fine. You can't get a third party replacement retracting lens hood for the 40-150mm!

I have also experienced that infamous lens hood explosion.
My solution was changing to the other original Oly/OM lens hood type LH-76D that comes with the 100-400mm lens. This hood is firstly a very cheap, relatively speaking, solution, secondly it is of a simple design that will not fall apart. It is attached onto the bayonet on the 50-150 lens and it can also be turned backward when not in use.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I am going to order an OEM replacement, and also purchase the LH-76D for comparison.