Homemade Lens Cap

How I made a push-on lens cap for an older collapsable lens. This will work great for just about any size and type of lens. The lens I made one for is a russian built Industar-10. Like other russian lens's made around the same period not that many lens caps were made for them and most of those have long since been misplaced or cast aside. Leica made quite a few in the same diameter, but their most popular lens's were a bit larger and the caps that can fit the plentiful russian lens's can be a bit pricy. So, this is a solution. They're easy to make and extremely cheap, so you don't have to worry about dropping it or setting it down and forgetting about it - no more retracing your steps for an hour searching for that shiny little cap with the word Leica on the front. While mine certainly does not look like much, that can be improved upon. One simple and effective way is to cover it with leatherette, the same stuff on camera bodies. Or just go crazy on the paint job, make something unique to you.

website where I took the idea from: http://jay.fedka.com/index_files/Page413.htm

- If you do have an older press on lens and you find that it's not fitting very tightly it's probablly just that the felt around the inside is worn down or damaged. Since that's all there is to hold the cap onto the lens, simply replace it and you should be fine.

Step 1 Materials

All you need is:

thin cardboard - the back of a spiral notebook works great

felt

brown wrapping paper

paint - black is standard

scissors

ruler - camera lens's come in metric, this instructable does too, so equip accordingly.

Comments

[susanrm]

Thanks, this was helpful. It would have been great to break this down into more steps, but having the link you adapted helped too. I made a lens cover using this technique for a Nikon DSLR I got from ebay that came with a great lens but no cap. I used some scrap velour for the inside lining. It fits great now, though it took several tries to get a cap just the right size.

[liam01]

is that a FED 2? if so how would you rate it. As I am thinking of getting one soon, so would you recommend them? If i do get one i will certainly be making a lens cap for it. Such a good idea.

[notjustsomeone]

yes, it's a Fed 2a. So far my experiences with the Fed 2 have been 50/50. I'm kind of a gear nut so when I wanted to try a rangefinder I bought two of these off ebay. Both prices were fair, one around $20 and the other $35. However the first one I got was frankensteined with another model's shutter so the speed dial and the shutter speeds were way off, so it's essentially useless until I get it fixed. The other however, I got from a collecter and functions very well. Overall they're quiet and, with a collapsible lens, very small. Perferct for introducing yourself into the rangefinder experience,though I would suggest not buying one of these from within the US.