I know, I know. This Earth-shattering piece of news is going to keep you up all night. But while searching for a Nikon-branded baseball cap, body caps popped up and what did I find? The words “discontinued by Nikon” beneath a photo of a BF-1A. And internally I said to myself, “WTF!”.
Doesn’t Nikon have better things to do than to reinvent their lens cap? I just can’t see tooling up for a new design of such a utilitarian piece of gear. Not that a good body cap isn’t important, but honestly, what was wrong with the old one? Does the new one have rubber seals or something? A locking mechanism perhaps? Is it made of titanium? Does it have a built-in mount lubricator? Does it double as a viewfinder cover? Can it store an SD card? Any of these things would have been innovations. But, I’m pretty sure it’s a just a plain ol’ “digital-ready” body cap.
Not long ago, I couldn’t resist buying a couple of cheesy knockoffs at a ridiculously low price. They came as a set; a body cap and a rear lens cap. I bought them mostly for the rear lens cap. You’d think it would be a simple matter to counterfeit a plastic body cap, wouldn’t you? But no. Not only didn’t they fit snugly, the index mark didn’t even line up on the camera, so it’s difficult to mount and when you do the logo is crooked! WTF!
The new cap is OK, but the good thing about the old cap is that you can glue a 46-52mm step up ring to it, and the threads fit perfectly inside the ridge around the cap. This makes it perfect for creating pinhole body caps with an attachment point for a filter, or more importantly, a 52mm cap. This filter or cap will prevent any dust from entering the pinhole. The new design doesn’t look filter-friendly at all.
I haven’t tried yet, but I’m thinking that a knock-off cap won’t have the same light-sealing abilities as the genuine article.
So, if a pinhole body cap is in your plans, or you just have an eye for quality, Get them while you can. Just don’t bother trying B&H.
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