Marking Lens Caps for ID ... EF vs. EF-S ... Etc ... got ideas & methods ?

Have any of you marked your lens caps to tell one from the other in your bag or case? Like EF from EF-S or 85mm vs. 35mm, etc.. Even before getting the EOS R, I often found myself pulling several lenses to see what's what in my bag for focal length. Now I have EF and RF mounts. I'm thinking of marking my rear caps since I usually face front cap downward. Any ideas for marking that's not too messy looking?

As I begin to think about this, I'm wondering if swapping lenses and rear caps may make marking front caps better and facing the front of the lens upward.

Thanks

I don't have that many and can identify them by shape and length.

Not a bad idea if you have a boatload of similar lenses though.

As for actually doing it, you could get a stencil and white paint marker.

It would be useful to distinctly mark 'different mount'...R mount vs. EFS mount vs. EF mount, so that you do not pull a lens out which cannot be mounted on the body which you are using.

You could use gold Shapie to fill in the circular indentation on the lens and body cap of R mount, and silver Sharpie to fill in the circular indentation on the cap of EF mount
... which keeps the filled area edge well defined and neat.

Shopped Amazon for various labels last night. Today, in a local store called Bi Mart, I found a small package of reflective labels that gave me a head start. Rather than label every lens for focal length, I decided to identify things that confuse me most often. When I shoot from roads in the redwoods, I often have my Tamron 24-70 and 70-200 uncapped and on two bodies. So I marked one more broadly to ID its wide angle. Otherwise the long zoom can't get confused with anything. The other two Tamron, the 35mm and 85mm have interchangeable caps so no need to mark those.

I used orange to identify RF lense caps like the RF 50mm 1.2 and also the rear RF caps including for the EF > RF adapters. I marked yellow on a couple other Canon lens caps mostly to know they don't go on an RF lens.

There are also circular adhesive labels about 1/2 inch wide that could be written on and placed on every lens cap for focal length, but I think this two color label thing fine-tunes deciphering things for me when I have several lenses out, caps off, etc.. If I add a couple more lenses, I may put a 1/2 circle label on each lens cap. I see a good chance of getting the RF 24-105mm and maybe close to a Canon 24mm.

.
I don't do anything to mark my lenses.


I couldn't even imagine confusing one of my lenses with any of the others .... each one is so different.


.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18765896
.
I don't do anything to mark my lenses.


I couldn't even imagine confusing one of my lenses with any of the others .... each one is so different.


.

Yes .. I share equal mad skills too when it boils down to just the lens when enough is visible.

It's the caps all facing up, some lenses with padding beneath, that make every canon base cap look the same. When they go face down. And when I have 4 camera bodies mounted with lenses and several caps laying around, I find some very similar but not identical.

I had considered facing the lens end upward, but find the other end of the lens easier to grip.

What you can't tell them apart by the mount?

cdifoto wrote in post #18765906
What you can't tell them apart by the mount?

But the EF-M are pretty easy though. If I happen to get the Rokinon EF-M 12mm 2.0 it will stick out like a beacon with all the red color on it and narrow base.

The caps set aside used to baffle me for a moment previous, when several lenses were uncapped. But it's when I got the RF lens and RF adapters and started adding-in the RF rear caps near EF rear caps loose. That's when I felt the need to speed identification.

I wouldn't want to paint front lens caps, but I can imagine a smooth coat of color on the outside of the rear caps to color code RF from EF from EF-S

That's a nice problem to have Even with my diminishing eyesight, there is no way I can mistake one lens for another in my meager collection!

The little, Brother thermal label makers are great for this sort of thing.

Snydremark wrote in post #18766166
The little, Brother thermal label makers are great for this sort of thing.

Thanks for sharing. I saw those on Amazon but was unsure, and may not need text yet. But after your suggestion, then reading more, I noticed some provide for INDOOR and OUTDOOR label use. That suggests the labels would handle use for lens or camera gear and hold up to moist fingers etc.. handling.