The title says it all really…I just cured Lens Mounting Disability! You are welcome world! I know, completely silly, but hey, gotta have some fun! For years I have suffered from Lens Mounting Disability. I have this strange problem with mounting lenses, even in daylight. And I shoot primes, you would think I would get better, but noooooo. Now, you take this disability into a dark concert or night club and try swapping lenses being completely blind. I am talking environments where it is so dark you simply cannot see how to line up that little red dot on the lens with the camera body to properly mount it. It does not help that the Fujinon lenses on the Fujifilm cameras actually can be mounted (almost) in 2 ways. At least there are 2 points on the lens where the lens will slide into the body (with the red dot aligned + 180 degrees opposite of the red dot), but of course only one of them will click in place. As with USB cables, Murphy’s law dictates that it is not a 50/50 but you will always always get it wrong the first time! There is a scene near the end of our Dual Vision movie where Charlene and I swapped lenses between my X-T2 and her X-Pro2 and you would not believe how many takes that took to get right as I kept messing it up!
Yeah yeah you laugh but try it out! Grab a Fujifilm camera body + a lens in each hand, and close your eyes. Rotate the lens a bit so you have no idea where that pesky red dot is. Now, with closed eyes, mount it on the camera (hey I am not liable if you break shit!). Not easy is it? Really? OK, not easy for me anyway! This is why after years of being around a lot of duct tape it finally struck me….heureka….I can use neon duct tape! It turns out to work perfectly, even when it is so dark the neon tape does not light up, I can feel the tape so I know how to mount the lens. Genius, pure genius!
Above is a picture of my cameras and lenses with Neon Duct Tape for Improved Lens Mounting ™. Below is a crappy phone picture at a recent event where you can see how well the tape works. You can also see neon duct tape on the edge of the stage, so really, one wonders why it took me years to come up with this idea!
PS. If anyone wants to try this out, I have about 9 meters and 90 centimeters Neon Duct Tape left and I am selling it cheap by the centimeter!
Neon Duct Tape for Improved Lens Mounting ™.