To be more precise, this should be called a lens cover instead of a lens cap. One of the advantages of this kind of cover is that I would not forget to take it off when shooting, which always bothers me when using a rangefinder or an external viewfinder with which I don’t see through the lens to compose.
This idea was from a friend of mine, and I actually bought some Leica lenses from him. He used to use bow covers, but they are no longer available or at least hard to find. Now he found these headphone covers to put on his Fujifilm XF lenses. The covers come in two different sizes. The large ones would fit Fujifilm XF lenses just fine, if not too big, but are definitely too big for my Leica lenses. So I decided to buy some small ones, which fit perfectly on the lens hood as you can see in the photo.
Other advantages?
- Easy to take off and put back on
- Easy to carry in the pocket
- Less worry to lose a lens cap
- Lightweight