(Nikon Df with Nikkor 50mm, f/7.1, 1/25 sec, ISO 100)

Newton would have seen the apple but had he seen the photographers of today, he would have discovered Gravity on seeing the lens caps fall. Countless lens caps have been lost and still continue to do so. The most commonly misplaced item that photographers unanimously agree on is again lens caps. Yes, these little creeps do keep getting lost.

After loosing many caps and also frantically searching for them has taught me many things.

My story with the lens caps began with my first camera. It had a soft cap which snugly fit on the lens. It was a ‘push-on’ kind of cap. The problem was that it always came off on its own whenever I opened the leather case that covered the camera. So, every time, I wanted to take a picture, I had to carefully unbutton the front cover, lower it down, take the cap out and then let the front cover hang all the way out attached to the back part of the leather cover at the base.Securing storing the lens cap was another problem.

Next came the lens cap of the rangefinder. It had a different thread size and had a snap-on kind of cap. I dropped it a few times but always managed to find it back. Later I started keeping it in a small sleeve in the leather camera case. These leather camera cases were all the rage then and every serious camera came with one. Luckily this one had a small sleeve which I started using for storing the lens cap.

When I carried a 50mm Nikkor lens, I must have dropped the lens cap at least a dozen times. Once it fell down from a high cliff. I could see it and I had to go all the way down to salvage it. Spare caps were not easily available. No internet shops existed then.

I experimented with metallic clips that attached the lens caps to camera strap. I even tried magnetic stickers and a metal plate to hold them on the side of my camera bag. I was planning on threading them when I saw a photographer using that method and struggling to manage the hanging thread.

I have been able to reduce the numbers of times I search for lens caps, by fixing a place where I keep them. I have also made it a point to take the lens cap off while standing and while looking at the lens cap. No more adventures for me. Trust me when I say that it is important to have a fixed place to keep the lens cap and it is also important to have a habit of securely removing it from the lens and keeping it in that place.

To cut the long story short, the lens caps still remind me of gravity and they still have a mind of their own. They love to kiss the land whenever they can. I have now developed a habit of keeping them in the rear pocket of my jeans and on the right side. At least now they don’t go missing. Don’t remind me of that moment though, when I sat on a rock trying to capture the image that I have inserted in the beginning of this write-up, and totally forgot about the lens cap in my rear pocket.