The Holdland Iris puts a Stargate-style iris on the end of your lens
Apr 19, 2024
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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Lens and camera body caps are pretty basic accessories. There’s very little room for innovation, and they all follow the same general design. Sure, some might have a slot for a memory card or an air tag, but they’re all basically the same.
Holdland is taking a new direction with its Iris lens cap (buy here). As the name suggests, it’s a lens cap that adds an iris over the end of your lens. This allows you to quickly and easily uncover or protect the lens without the risk of losing your lens cap.
Holdland Iris Lens Cap
The Holdland Iris essentially works the same way as the diaphragm blades inside the lens, controlling its aperture. The only difference is the minimum aperture on the lens cap is much higher. In fact, it’s pretty much zero because this has to protect your lens elements.
It screws onto your lens like a filter rather than having clips that lock into the threads like typical lens caps. And once it’s fully screwed in, it’s just a quick flick of the wrist to open or close the iris lens cap.
It’s a great idea. Of course, you will need to buy one for each lens you own. For those with large lens collections, that will get very expensive very quickly.
Who’s it for?
Obviously, this lens cap isn’t targeted towards every camera owner. Most of us typically have the time available to put a lens cap on or take it off if it’s that big of a deal.
But if you’re a photographer for a living who regularly needs to switch between multiple cameras or lenses, they’re ideal. You can have your 24-70 on one camera and a 70-200 on another, with Iris lens caps on them both.
Swapping between them becomes as quick and easy as not having to deal with lens caps at all. But whichever one you’re not using is fully protected.
I have to say, though, it’s going to be difficult to use one of these without hearing General Hammon’s voice sternly saying, “Open the iris!” or “Close the iris!” each time I use it.
Price and Availability
The Holdland Iris lens cap is available to buy now for $100- $149 in 67mm, 77mm, and 82mm threads. The company says they’re in talks with Fujifilm to create a 49mm version for the Fuji X100 series.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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