A Lesson Learned

Roger Hicks said:
OK.

Now get up an hour or two before dawn, in order to be able to walk from a remote country inn to a ruined part of the Great Wall of China for sunrise.

Choice: camera in bag, cap on, fully protected and inaccessible OR camera around neck, walking on stony, rough path, chance of stumbling/tripping, no protection.

As I said in an earlier post, OpTech.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...
no caps needed for that rocky climb, just keep camera and lens ready to go in this:
acam1100-open.jpg
 
So, what does the ZI do when the cap is on and you press the shutter ?

Caps help against shutter burn on Leicas. I usually see that there is a cap when I set the aperture 🙂
 
quote
I had to laugh at myself when while explained to my wife why I was taking all the caps off. She knows I baby my gear.

don`t ever lose this ability!
 
I have filters on nearly all my non-collapsible lenses so I tend not to use a cap - the camera is likely to be in a bag anyway so no worries on sun-burnt shutters. On collapsibles I tend to have a cap but pulling the barrel out always reminds me to un-cap, before I even get to setting the aperture!
 
scorpius73 said:
I was in Italy for 11 days on my honeymoon. I went to Rome and Florence. I took my 2 favorite cameras, a Zeiss Ikon ZI and a Leica M6. I had so much fun shooting. My photography mentor at work told me once how to tell the difference between a pro photographer and an amateur. The amateur always has lens caps on his lenses. :bang: By the 5th day of switching between the 2 cameras and leaving the caps on the lenses when shooting. I finally just look all the lens caps off. I have 20 rolls of film to develop. I'm wondering about the percentage of shots I missed because of the lens caps. I had to laugh at myself when while explained to my wife why I was taking all the caps off. She knows I baby my gear.
How many of you just keeps the caps off?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wondered about that one too. I'm not sure I could find ANY pics from EITHER honeymoon (Cath Milne 1977, Frances Schultz 1982). I was distracted...

Cheers,

R.
 
Amazing to see how many expouse filters considering how many have talked about never using filters on expensive lenses. Now mind you, I haven't gone to some of those threads on filters use to see if any posters are the same. I am sure they would not be. Just interesting to see filters recommended here. For the record, although I don't have them for my Kiev lenses, I do for my Super Press 23 except for the 250mm F/5. That size is expensive and I just haven't gotten around to it. Most of my SLR lenses also have them.

To Scorpius73, congratulations on your marraige! I hope it is long and enjoyable for both of you.
 
I always have a cap on the lens when camera/lens is in the bag. otherwise it's guaranteed that I have fingerprints on the front lens when get something from the bag.

I the days when I had a M6 I forgot the cap too sometimes, but I always noticed the blinking meter before taking a photo.
 
^^ me too.

Cap usually comes off and goes into a pocket when the camera comes out of the bag. If I am carrying the camera without a bag, the cap stays off unless I am in a crowd or something. The usual steps to take a picture are "remove cap, check aperture/shutter, bring camera to eye." That said, I have forgotten on a few shots, but those would have been blurry and poorly framed anyway 🙂
 
scorpius73 said:
I was in Italy for 11 days on my honeymoon. I went to Rome and Florence. I took my 2 favorite cameras, a Zeiss Ikon ZI and a Leica M6. I had so much fun shooting. My photography mentor at work told me once how to tell the difference between a pro photographer and an amateur. The amateur always has lens caps on his lenses. :bang: By the 5th day of switching between the 2 cameras and leaving the caps on the lenses when shooting. I finally just look all the lens caps off. I have 20 rolls of film to develop. I'm wondering about the percentage of shots I missed because of the lens caps. I had to laugh at myself when while explained to my wife why I was taking all the caps off. She knows I baby my gear.
How many of you just keeps the caps off?
Click to expand...

I keep the cap off the lens I am using. Usually if I switch lenses it's pretty instintive to take the cap off. I use a Tamrac camera bag, so the bag's padding protects the lens when I don't have the camera out.

I went through 17 rolls in 9 days in Rome & Florence last year.
 
I'm another who keeps caps on. Otherwise I'd thumb print every lens as I scrabbled in the bag & I seem to like dusty, windy, dirty environments too.
I used to put caps in my pocket, but I am blessed with large hands and it is now an automatic habit to hold caps in the palm of my left hand whilst shooting. My little, ring & middle fingers clamp the cap whilst the index finger & thumb manipulate aperture and focus rings. Usually the cap stays off until the lens or camera goes back in the bag or I need both hands free. I didn't consciously develop this routine, but as a mechanic, my hands & fingers have been trained to "multi-task" over many years of fiddly fitting jobs.
 
Last edited:
I usually leave mine off and if I am worried about sun burning the cloth shutter I just keep my hand over the lens. Besides the original Leitz caps are so damned expensive (and in the case of some older ones, practically unobtainable) that I do not wish to risk losing or damaging them. Besides it does help speed the photo taking process if you can just bring the finder to your eye and click (combined with zone focussing and pre setting exposure.)
 
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