Changing Lenses On Location

Here are a few tips to help you make the swap safely, without getting junk on your camera’s sensor: (1) Turn your camera off before you change lenses. That way, the sensor isn’t “charged” and won’t be as likely to have dust or junk attach to it. (2) Anytime you’re swapping lenses outdoors, to avoid dust falling into your body, do this quickly—the less time with your body cap off, the better. (3) Before you change lenses, take a few seconds to decide if you’re in an environment where this makes sense. If it’s sprinkling, dusty, or windy, with stuff blowing around, maybe head back to your car or somewhere indoors first. (4) Take the back cap off the lens you’re swapping to, so it’s ready to attach before you take your current lens off. (5) Turn your camera body downward, so the open hole is facing down when you’re changing lenses and there’s less chance of anything falling into your body opening (how I have it above is okay, but it’s better facing down). Lastly, (6) this is one of those times where you need one more hand—you need one to hold the body, one to hold the lens you’re about to attach, and a third to hold the lens you’re taking off. Don’t be tempted to stick the lens you just took off under your arm—that’s a surefire recipe for dropping it. Since we’re a hand short, here are a few safe ways to handle the swap: (a) After you remove your current lens, put both caps on, then set this lens somewhere safe for a moment. (b) Put this lens in an empty slot in your camera bag (maybe where the lens you just took out was). Or my favorite, (c) hand it to a friend. That way, they can put the caps on while you’re attaching the other lens to your body (they become “the third hand,” which would actually make a great name for a horror movie).