Why no hot shoe cover for my Canon 50D?

Why is it that my Canon 50D (or any Canon for that matter) doesn't come with a plastic hot shoe cover like so many other camera brands do? I want to get one. Any idea where I can buy one? Any help would be deeply appreciated.

Take Care and May God Bless!

Ed

'Cause most people lose them almost immediately anyway.

You can get them from porters cameras or on ebay. I bought 4 of them for my cameras

I think it maybe a cost thing whilst being minimal.I'm glad in a way it means Canon are spending their money on better products.

I have just converted from Pentax and they have a hot shoe cover on their DSLR's but their cameras are nowhere near as good.

There is a more practical reason I found when I used an old one I had from a film camera. With it fitted the built-in flash will not pop-up (on my 450d). I guess it is to stop it hitting a flash mounted on the hotshoe.

Exactly. You can't use such covers on Canon's modern cameras, as the hot shoe has a little sensor inside itself, to feel if there's anything mounted in the hot shoe or not. The other manufacturers are probably not that advanced as far as the hot shoe goes, or they have some other solution.

Well there are the 5D and 1D cameras and they can use them no hidden switch to worry about . although I got a chuckle out from my friend who thought the hot shoe was broken when he could not see the silver contacts

apersson850 wrote in post #8510203
Exactly. You can't use such covers on Canon's modern cameras, as the hot shoe has a little sensor inside itself, to feel if there's anything mounted in the hot shoe or not. The other manufacturers are probably not that advanced as far as the hot shoe goes, or they have some other solution.

ugh -_- that's "!#$%"
If the pop-up flash don't pop up just because of that... sigh
I always feed unsecured when i don't have the hotshoe covered.

There are other things on your camera that are more vulnerable than the hot shoe.

kohr2000 wrote in post #8511075
Well there are the 5D and 1D cameras and they can use them no hidden switch to worry about . although I got a chuckle out from my friend who thought the hot shoe was broken when he could not see the silver contacts

Yea but, don't they not have pop up flash?
Viz - no contact switch.

I fail to see the benefit of one. I've never had one on any of my cameras over the last number of decades.

i bought mine for $2.5, i bought 3

apersson850 wrote in post #8510203
Exactly. You can't use such covers on Canon's modern cameras, as the hot shoe has a little sensor inside itself, to feel if there's anything mounted in the hot shoe or not. The other manufacturers are probably not that advanced as far as the hot shoe goes, or they have some other solution.

In addition I can't imagine many camera hot shoes ever being permanently harmed.

If you put one on the Canon cameras it disables the pop-up flash of cheaper cameras and when i put one on a hired 1Ds it was tricked into thinking it was a speedlite and resulted in pitch black shots.

Mine works fine with both the 1Ds and the 1D Mark II