Dear Canon, back to the drawing board re Lens Caps.

Well, the price is sure right on those rubber hoods but I like to set the lens down by standing it on the hood. I've long done that with the 70-200 and it works great with the 300.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19486575
Well, the price is sure right on those rubber hoods but I like to set the lens down by standing it on the hood. I've long done that with the 70-200 and it works great with the 300.

I'd say stand the lens by the widest and heaviest end, keeping the center of gravity low for stability.

Since you can't stand a 70-200 2.8 on its petal hood, I assume you mean the EF ƒ4. Maybe, but although its wider, I'd bet the center of gravity is nearer the mount. The 300ƒ4 I had once might go either way.

What I mean is that with the lens on the camera, if I need to set it down while I do something (change a battery, dig something out of a pocket) I will stand the whole shebang on the hood end to free up my hands. Even the 70-200 2.8 (I wouldn't leave it like that forever, but it works well enough for what I need). Switching lenses I will often stand it up this way and turn the camera off it as the first step. For any of this, collapsible hoods would not work unless I collapsed them and then the front element would be right there by the ground. OK in a gym, but I wouldn't want to do it on a tennis court or on the sideline of a grass field. And I'm not 100% sure what you mean but even though the lens end may be heavier it's nowhere near wide enough to stand the lenses I mentioned on, even if there wasn't a camera there.

On a related note, I've been trying a Spider Holster and will probably find that I can leave the big lenses hanging from my belt most of the time now.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19486770
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What I mean is that with the lens on the camera, if I need to set it down while I do something (change a battery, dig something out of a pocket) I will stand the whole shebang on the hood end to free up my hands.
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You must be shooting inside or something, to have flat, level surfaces that will allow a lens/camera to stand up that way. . I just can't think of anywhere in any of the places I shoot where there is a surface that would be flat and level enough ... and even so, there are usually significant winds that could and would blow the thing over. . It'd be really unusual to be shooting in a place where there are manmade objects and surfaces nearby to set a lens down like that.

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I guess it shows how much we all think of what we do as typical, right? Floors, bleachers, rubber outdoor track, it's really rare that I'm not on a man-made surface. Sidelines of a pitch, maybe not stable enough for the 70-200 but still precisely leveled and the 300 would stand solidly on it.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19486848
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I guess it shows how much we all think of what we do as typical, right? Floors, bleachers, rubber outdoor track, it's really rare that I'm not on a man-made surface. Sidelines of a pitch, maybe not stable enough for the 70-200 but still precisely leveled and the 300 would stand solidly on it.
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What does "sidelines of a pitch" mean?


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Just over the playing border on a soccer/football/lacros​se field.

EDIT: even at the high school level a lot of fields are synthetic now, so they are basically soft but extremely flat engineered surfaces with exactly a certain grade, exactly a certain density underneath, controlled drainage, etc. But some of them are still plain ol' grass.

Wilt wrote in post #19484973
Interesting...with the EF mount lenses, I purchased aftermarket center-pinch caps for all my lenses, as I preferred center pinch over edge pinch caps, having Tamron (center pinch) and Canon lenses to compare directly. In hearing the complaints about Canon center pinch, I decided I should compare aftermarket center-pinch vs. Canon edge-pinch caps. Side-by-side of Canon (left) and aftermarket (right). Note that the aftermarket caps have a very broad outer edge that might cause it to release inadvertantly. Yet I have never had a complaint about the aftermarket caps being more prone to coming off the lens, due to the wide outer diameter rim protrustion.

Interestingly, looking at the depth of the threads protruding into the lens from the rim of the cap, the Canon thread measures to about 3.5mm while the aftermarket thread measures to about 2.5mm. Yet I have also not had complaint about the aftermarket caps coming off because there was not as deep thread protrusion.

I have center pinch cap provided by Tamron, and I have not found any difference in use between the Tamron and the aftermarket center-pinch.

Perhaps someone could try to assess the thread depth dimension of the Canon RF cap, to compare to what I have shown on both Canon and aftermarket EF caps.

As to the alignment of the rear lens cap, I have always marked the Canon EF rear cap's indentation with a white dot or silver dot of paint to facilitate initial alignment with the lens mount dot, but when I just checked all my lenses (5 of them) and I was surprised to discover I had not bothered with alignment when putting the rear cap in place for any of them! So I can now better understand the annoyance of having to align the RF rear cap to the single orientation that works.

In my initial post, I place the blame solely on the design of the lens, not the cap. At the time I only had two examples, but now I have more and the issue remains consistent. No cap can hold as solidly to a new EF or RF as well as they did to older EF designs.

tempting to put a velcro spot in the middle of the lens and one on the back of the cap, it might hold it a bit better!


[caution - not to be used for actual advice]

joeseph wrote in post #19487015
tempting to put a velcro spot in the middle of the lens and one on the back of the cap, it might hold it a bit better!


[caution - not to be used for actual advice]

I've used the string-like "lens keepers" and they all break within the first few hours of use. They totally suck. Your idea of using Velcro is very similar, but employs a much more durable material. I bet it'd work pretty well!

Unless I’m in a studio, I change lenses in the air— maybe a skill I learned doing PGA. The idea of setting either lens down to flip one out is pretty foreign to me. Maybe I have big hands.

Wow, and you turn it off. I don’t even turn it off to change batteries or cards. You’re a saint.

Actually I often change in the air, too. All of that was really about when I need to set it down for some reason I stand them upright. But sometimes that is for changing big lenses. If I'm sitting on the ground and want to switch out the 70-200 for something small, I might stand it up, dig out the other lens, and then take the camera off the 70-200 and put the other lens on.

That last bit you misread; I said "turn the camera off the lens" as in leave the lens standing there while I remove the camera from it. Then I'll put the end cap from the new lens on the 70-200 and maybe just leave it there while I shoot with the other one. Or maybe not. But on a tennis court, for instance, it's stable enough to stand there which was the real point of that discussion.

BUT... with some lenses when using IS it seems you should turn the camera or IS off before removing to let the IS element park itself. I have not been paying attention to that but with the 300 now I probably will.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19488574
BUT... with some lenses when using IS it seems you should turn the camera or IS off before removing to let the IS element park itself. I have not been paying attention to that but with the 300 now I probably will.

When I had DSLRs, I just waited a couple of seconds for the IS to audibly stop before changing lenses. Now with mirrorless, IS is always running if the power is on, so I turn off the camera before changing lenses. I don't want to risk having an unlocked IS mechanism banging around and getting damaged.

There is nothing worse than what happened to me, I was stepping from the dock onto a Coast Guard boat, bumped the camera with my arm and the lens cap sailed off into the water between the boat and the dock. The swimmer didn't think it was funny when I suggested he jump in and get it.

Jeff USN Photog 72-76 wrote in post #19488705
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There is nothing worse than what happened to me, I was stepping from the dock onto a Coast Guard boat, bumped the camera with my arm and the lens cap sailed off into the water between the boat and the dock. The swimmer didn't think it was funny when I suggested he jump in and get it.
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Hmmmmmm.

If losing a lens cap is the worst thing that can happen, then wow. . Just wow.

I got a call this week saying that my $8,000* Sigma 300-800mm cannot be repaired and is pretty much only good as a paperweight ..... and there are many things that could be much worse than that.

Fortunately, Jeff, the 60-600mm that you sold me is working well, and allows me to keep shooting even though my main lens is dead forevermore.

Somehow I just don't see how losing a lens cap is so bad.

*$8,000 is what they retailed for new. I got mine used several years ago for $5555, and the current resale value would be about $2,700 if it was in good working condition. I got a lot of use out of it so having it be useless isn't really a big blow - I certainly got my money's worth out of it over the last 9 years.

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