How to make lens switching in the dark easier

The problem

When photographing in the dark, you want to keep your night vision. That’s why you use that dim red headlamp. The red light doesn’t ruin your night vision and there is just enough of it so you can operate your camera gear and see where your stepping. All is well until you want to change your lens. Some lenses have very poor markings on the barrel for aligning your lens with the camera body. Small red dot is practically invisible in that dim red light and you don’t want to switch to white light, because it would ruin your night vision. What to do?

In white light everything is fine, but when switching to red light, the dot disappears.

The solution

No worries. There’s an easy fix for it. All you need is a basic label maker with black on white tape. Print one capital i and cut it smaller. Then just tape it so that the I is aligned with the red dot on your lens and voilà. Now you can easily see that new aligning mark even in that dim red light.

I’ve used Dymo LabelManager 160 and Dymo Permanent Polyester Tape on all of my lenses that I use in the dark, even if they have better markings than the one in this example. That polyester tape seems to hold very well and is quite reflective so its been a good choice for this purpose.

After this few minute mod I can change my lenses easier and faster, which also means less dust to my camera sensor.