El Cheapo Lens Caps

[dave lackey]

The cost of lens caps is expensive...and the thought of losing one or more is not a good one. So, I thought it would be fun to start a list of cheap lens caps that can be used on various lenses!!!

My first discovery is the black snap-on cap for my Summarit 50mm 1.5 lens....a black Play-Doh cap! Available in various colors like: hot pink, yellow, red, orange, green, blue....

Any one have other suggestions for various lenses?

M3 w/ Summarit lens and cheapo lens cap:

 

[kermaier]

I've found that vintage Minolta 42mm push-on plastic lens caps fit perfectly on most Leica lenses with 39mm filter threads; on Canon lenses with 40mm filter threads; and on Nikkor lenses with 40.5mm filter threads. They' not always readily available, but when they are they're usually $10 or less.
::Ari

 

[David William White]

Lens caps prevent photography from taking place...therefore, they are evil.

 

[aaron.tam]

Lens caps prevent photography from taking place...therefore, they are evil.

I second that.

 

[David William White]

Caps on an SLR I can deal with, but on a rangefinder they can allow you to burn through an entire roll with nothing to show for it. Not that it has happened to me, oh no, not me...it's just something I've heard from...complete strangers.

 

[laptoprob]

soft flexible milk bottle caps fit 39mm upto Summitar filter sizes.

 

[Al Kaplan]

All the milk bottles I've seen for at least 25 years are plastic and have screw on...excuse me...THREAD MOUNT caps.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The 'junk drawers' in old-fashioned camera stores or at camera fairs supply most of my needs -- though I once had a leather cap made to measure (during lunch!) in India when I lost a 72mm Vivitar Series 1 cap. About $2 as I recall.

Actually, here are my favourites for RF cameras:

http://www.rogerandfrances.com/photoschool/review optech shower cap.html

Not cheap, but cheaper than OEM caps, and better. Frances and I lose about one a year between us. They offer excellent protection too.

At the other extreme, my Thambar cap never leaves the house. Nor does the centre spot, because I find the effect hideous. A Thambar without either is as much as $1000 less than one with both.

Tashi delek,

R.

 

[KenD]

Screw top lids for all sorts of bottles - vitamin pills, fruit drink bottles, etc., etc., sometimes fit right on, and sometimes fit with minimal fiddling - like running an exacto knife or a Dremel tool around the inside. If you want the deluxe fancy version, a blast of back spray paint spiffies them right up.

 

[ruben]

Hi Dave,

I am not a hundred percent sure about what exactly are you displaying in your picture. But whatever it be the first problem I see is that it is not attached to the lens by any thread, nor there is any kind of warning color saying you "cap attached-don't shoot".

The best way to solve both problems in a single strike is to look for an elastic thick red thread. You can perforate a border of the cap with a heated nail and make the knot at the inside part.

The thread being elastic guarantees it could be attached to the lens at minimun free space - a great feature for the time you will be shooting and the cap pending. Being the thread red, will highly help to identify where the cap is.

As for the cheapo side I will be disappointing. Nowadays there is a new type of caps, which for opening/closing you press the center area. Their greater advantage is that they offer an unprecedented area of pressure at each side.

They are not expensive at all, but once you get one attached to your lens, or your hood, you will find hard to stop the desire to buy one per each active lens.

However give a good look at the eBay pictures as only some of them come with a nice external ear for your thread. The others, the bad new ones, enable to connect only a thin and long thread.

The red elastic thread is to be dismounted from any Chinese rain coat, or go specially for it at a threads' store.

Cheers
Ruben

PS
In case you reject at all the possibility of a pending cap, no matter how short the elastic thread will be - then you have the great alternative of a screw in metal cap. Good for lenses, you hear it when it falls, but unable to engage hoods.

 

[charjohncarter]

This almost worked:

 

[b.espahbod]

I second that.

So whats the UVa for? Protection? so why carry extra useless caps. I have one in each leica lens box 😀 they worth a fortune i guess 😎

 

[mojobebop]

i don't use them.
with rangefinders it's easy to forget.

 

[KenD]

As to no lens cap... an RF lens facing the sun, with no lens cap, focused at infinity, can burn a hole in the shutter cloth in short time.

 

[mojobebop]

As to no lens cap... an RF lens facing the sun, with no lens cap, focused at infinity, can burn a hole in the shutter cloth in short time.

yea, i know.
you have to carry camera a certain way
and be aware.
generally i carry it w/a wrist strap in any case.

 

[dfoo]

Lens caps prevent photography from taking place...therefore, they are evil.

I third that. I went out for a night of long exposure photography, and came home only to discover I had left the cap on the entire time. 4 hours down the tubes! Lens caps on TLRs and RF cameras are the spawn of the devil!

 

[Al Kaplan]

Infinity isn't the place to focus if you want the sun to burn holes in the shutter curtain. The curtain is a couple of millimeters in front of the film, and the point of focus at infinity. On a 50mm lens try focusing at about 5 meters for optimum shutter curtain destruction. ;-)

 

[laptoprob]

burns

burns

As to no lens cap... an RF lens facing the sun, with no lens cap, focused at infinity, can burn a hole in the shutter cloth in short time.

check earlier topics: close focused is worse!