A Feather in His Double Lens Cap
Photographer, drafts person, designer and inventor, Scott Krebs started his career taking photos. Photoshop classes at his local art college opened doors to learning drafting software while later working for an engineering firm, where he found a good fit for his talents and workflow. Soon, he was running the electrical design department using things like AutoCAD, MicroStation and lighting photometric software like AGI32 and Visual. On his own, Krebs has designed several lighting products to solve problems as a photographer and started a company called Saberstrip to market some of them. Krebs has made a career in engineering, but photography has remained a large part of his life.
Krebs found Ashlar-Vellum Xenon™ CAD and 3D modeling software when he was looking for design software for the Mac. He found that it had all the functionality that he expected from the “big-name” software, he liked the intuitive interface and the Design Explorer. He especially liked the fact that he could rent it on a monthly basis. Even after using it for a couple of months, Krebs tells us:
I felt a little suspect that I was going to want to be using something like SolidWorks later, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I like the way the software works.
Always on the leading edge of innovation, Krebs recently changed from his digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera to the smaller, lighter mirrorless camera and lenses of the Fujifilm X Compact Systems Camera (CSC). Originally wanting lighter weight gear for hiking and travel, Krebs found that the quality was high enough to match his professional Nikon equipment and decided to do a total switch over.
Like many photographers, Krebs is always juggling between lenses. A double-ended lens cap makes it easier for photographers to change lenses with one hand without worrying about dropping their valuable equipment. Unfortunately, since the Fujifilm X CSC was so new, it wasn’t likely one was available. Krebs saw this as an excellent opportunity to model something and upload it to Shapeways for a one-off 3D print. It was only after he’d quickly modeled the lens cap in Xenon and got a price from Shapeways that he searched the web and confirm that indeed a double-ended lens cap was not available from anyone for the more compact camera.
He’s since started offering the lens cap for sale on Shapeways.com to other photographs for a minimal markup over the 3D printing price.
Krebs also uses Xenon to prototype parts for Saberstrip. He’s been pleased with his experience using Ashlar-Vellum Xenon and has recently converted from a monthly rental to a permanent license. He tells us:
Actually having the product and using it, and using your customer service…I’ve been most impressed with the company as a whole and the software.