Re: [Leica] Lens Caps and Coupling Rings

["Bryan Caldwell" <bcaldwell@softcom.net>]

>>You have, say, two lenses attached by a coupling ring in your bag, and
another on the camera.  You remove the lens from your camera and swap it
onto the coupling ring for a lens there, which you then install on your
camera.  Why the need for this mixture of lens cap and coupling ring?<<

One reason is that not all lenses or lens combinations will work with the
coupling ring, but all the lenses will work with rear caps expoxied back to
back. The rear element on my 21mm pre-ASPH  protrudes more than half-way
through the coupling ring as does the current 28 Elmarit. I can use the ring
with my 28mm Elmarit (current) if I have a 50 or 90 on the other side, but I
can't pair the 28 with the 35mm ASPH. This means that if you're using the
coupling rings, you can't always swap the lens on your camera for one of the
lenses attached to the ring. And, if you remove one lens from the ring and
don't replace it with another, the rear element of the lens remaining
attached to the ring is unprotected.

If you take a few minutes and expoxy a couple rear caps together, you can
attach any lens to any other lens and not worry about it. For me, this is a
much easier alternative. And, I always seem to have extra rear caps lying
around.

If it doesn't make sense to you, don't do it. It's just not that big a deal.

Bryan


- ----- Original Message -----
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 1999 1:47 PM
Subject: [Leica] Lens Caps and Coupling Rings


> At 12:21 PM 7/21/99 -0700, Paul Chefurka wrote:
> >The coupling ring is good for precisely that one purpose - coupling (you
> >should pardon the inadvertant unseemliness), as it has no protective
> >partition between its two halves.  The device I described can be used as
a
> >cap *and* a coupler!
> >
>
> Leitz/Leica intended there to be two separate devices, a lens cap and a
> lens coupling ring.  Why try to combine them?  That is the most unseemly
of
> all possible things!
>
> You have, say, two lenses attached by a coupling ring in your bag, and
> another on the camera.  You remove the lens from your camera and swap it
> onto the coupling ring for a lens there, which you then install on your
> camera.  Why the need for this mixture of lens cap and coupling ring?
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>