Cameras

You’ll Never Lose This Automatic Camera Lens Cap

One of the biggest disadvantages to using a big, honking DSLR is that you constantly have to take off that lens cap. What makes it worse is that you’re exponentially inclined to lose it every time you slip it into your back pocket, throw it into your bag, or pop it into your mouth to hold it.

A Chinese hobbyist came up with a novel idea to design a removable lens cap with an opening that automatically opens and closes like the lens iris on a point-and-shoot camera. This way, the lens cap has an opening that big enough to let you shoot regularly and snaps shut whenever the camera is off.

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The creator demonstrated their X-Cap on a Panasonic Lumix GF3 equipped with a Lumix GX 14-42-mm lens. So it seems like the X-Cap will be tailor-made for Micro Four-Thirds cameras with retracting camera lenses, although it would be a simple task to implement some kind of manual iris trigger for other lenses.

I’m also not entirely sure that these fancy lens caps will work with full-sized DSLR lenses. The actual glass part of that Lumix lens is incredibly small; meanwhile, DSLR lenses have much bigger optics that require a larger window for light to enter through.

Although there aren’t any details on price and compatibility, the creator says it will be available sometime soon by next month. Be sure to check out Engadget Chinese for the interview with the X-Cap creator.

[Webhop.org (Translated) via Engadget and Engadget Chinese]