Cat Labs Focus Tab

I bought my Laowa 10mm F 4.0 lens for use as a compact backup lens. But with its compact size and wide field of view came came some handling problems. My modestly sized fingers would occasionally "photo bomb" my images. The situation was made worse when I added a 55mm polarizing filter and requisite 39mm - 55mm step up ring. The additional diameter of the filter created a trough that made it even more difficult to access the already narrow focusing ring.

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A company called CatLABS offers its Lens Focus Tab, a rubber focusing ring with a raised finger hold. It comes in three diameters to accommodate lens focusing rings As it turned out, the 1.5" size fits the Laowa perfectly, the internal "teeth" engaging the focusing rings knurling to assure good traction between the ring and the lens.

The raised focusing tab isn't a new idea. It is featured prominently on many of the Leitz lenses where a little extra gripping surface would be helpful. In keeping with the whole rangefinder vibe that permeates the Fuji world, this product was a natural. While lacking the traditional metal construction, its stretchy rubber composition makes it adaptable to a wide variety of lens focusing rings.

Laowa lens without (left), and with (right) the focusing ring installed.

I've used this tab for several weeks, and can report it has been very helpful. Unfortunately, when used on the Laowa, it completely covers the distance scale. That might not matter, were it not for a problem specific to this Laowa lens: The infinity stop is not properly adjusted, allowing the user to potentially focus past infinity. The image at the upper left shows where the lens physically stops when the infinity symbol is past. In the few situations when I don't verify focus using the viewfinder, I simply rotate the focusing ring as far as it will go, and then back off a bit. which allows me to take advantage of the broad depth of field. It hasn't eliminated my finger's tendency to intrude into the frame, but has reduced its frequency.

All in all, I'm happy with this accessory. Its rubber construction is easily detected when my fingers wander about this compact lens, and if I'm completely lost, the raised thumb tab stands very proud to the focusing ring. And to prevent finger intrusions, I always do a final viewfinder check before pressing the shutter release. It's a pretty simple solution.