"Where the hell is my lens cap," is a phrase that we've all uttered at varying volumes and intensity at many different times in our filmmaking careers. For being such a necessary part of lens care, lens caps are notoriously easy to lose and don't offer much in the way of protection if you ever drop your lens.
However, there's a really interesting product on Kickstarter that aims to address these issues while reinventing the lens cap altogether. It's called the KUVRD Universal Lens Cap, or ULC for short, and it's a waterproof and dustproof lens cap made of silicone that stretches to fit over just about any DSLR lens you've got in your camera bag.
Technically the ULC isn't entirely a universal lens cap, but it will fit any front and rear lens between 60mm-150mm in diameter. KUVRD is considering making ULCs for smaller, vintage lenses in the future. It not only protects your lens from water and dust but also from shock. In fact, you can stack multiple ULCs onto a single lens to make it even more shock absorbent.
So, that's great. The ULC can stretch to fit just about any lens, but what keeps the actual silicone material from touching the glass itself? This is an issue KUVRD anticipated, and they addressed it in their Kickstarter campaign:
We purposefully included an exterior-protruding circle in the middle of the ULC, acting as a shock-absorbent barrier in case the lens falls glass first onto concrete. We intentionally created the ULC to be only millimeters away from the front glass and included 8 bumpers and the protruding circle to act as a ‘cushion’ for the shape and glass of any lens.
Source: Kickstarter
