Thanks to the blight blessing of crowdfunding, the internet has more product concepts and design ideas and badly-rendered napkin sketches than ever before. But despite the seemingly endless number of people willing to give money to hastily-thought-out sketches, some legitimately great ideas have never seen the light of day.
My nomination goes to the Flower lens hood/cap you can see above, which gives you a protective lens cap that you don’t have to take off every time you want a photo — twist the dial, and the cap expands out to become a lens hood. In the past year, I’ve lost three lens caps, and with glove season back with a vengeance, that number will probably be going up.
Sadly, the Flower was designed in 2011, before Kickstarter had completely taken over the internet, so the concept was left as just that. But I probably stumble back over the renderings every year or so, and it’s a painful reminder of how the internet has failed me.
But in the grand scheme of things, a camera accessory probably isn’t the greatest loss. What do you think is the greatest design that was never made?