You know those handle-equipped glasses called ‘lorgnettes’ that were popular among fashionable women in the 19th century? Instead of being fixed to your face, the spectacles were simply held up to your eyes with one hand, and were used mainly for style rather than vision correction. Kenko’s new Filter Stick is kinda like that, except for camera lenses instead of booshie eyeballs.
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Alongside the 24-70mm f/4 IS and 35mm f/2 IS lenses Canon announced today was an interesting tidbit that hasn’t gotten that much press: Canon is refreshing its lens cap design. Canon’s ‘Mark II’ lens caps feature a pinch-style design that’s pretty standard in the industry.
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Underwater housings for DSLR cameras usually aren’t the cheapest accessory. Professional ones often cost as much as the cameras they house. If you’d like to add a simple layer of waterproofing to your DSLR without shelling out big bucks, check out this camera case dry bag. It’s a thick, durable, and watertight plastic case that comes with transparent sections on both sides for your lens and LCD screen.
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Forget DIY camera mods for keeping your sensor cool: Nikon has a much fancier solution. A recently published patent by the company (No. 2012-198447) shows a camera attachment that’s specifically designed to prevent sensors from overheating. It attaches to the bottom of the camera and blows cool air into the body through the tripod mount underneath. If computers have dedicated cooling fans, why can’t compact cameras?
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Joby sent out a press release today warning consumers that there are counterfeit versions of its popular GorillaPod flexible tripod floating around in the wild. While that isn’t too newsworthy in itself — what gear isn’t being counterfeited these days? — it’s the juicy details surrounding the release that are quite interesting. Apparently the company directly confronted companies involved in making imitations during Photokina 2012 in Cologne, Germany last month.
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Spinlight 360 is a relatively young startup company that makes modular flash modifier systems for speed lights. Its products are based around a ring assembly attached on the head of flash units that various modifiers can be mounted to, allowing it to be a “jack of all trades” of sorts when it comes to controlling light and shadows.
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Rumors of a soon-to-arrive iPad Mini are heating up, but one photo gear company has beaten Apple to the “mini” game: Custom SLR announced its new M-Plate Mini today. It’s the smaller sibling of the company’s M-Plate Pro, which takes up more space because it includes a couple of extra connection points for attaching accessories (e.g. the company’s strap and hand-grap strap mount).
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Photographer Preston Turk has an idea for how to best store lens caps when they’re not attached to lenses. Called the Stow-Away, it a universal lens cap holder that can hold most of the standard lens diameters (AKA filter sizes): 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, and 72mm. Turk designed the accessory to attach to the underside of cameras via the standard tripod mount. Giving your lens cap a quick shove underneath your camera will click it securely into place.
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We’ve seen ring flash units that redirect light from a DSLR’s pop-up camera and a hot shoe-mounted flash, but never from a compact camera’s built-in flash. Based on a patent filing published earlier this month and uncovered by Egami, that’s what Nikon appears to be in the process of building.
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Lens caps are often cast aside in favor of lens hoods, but what if you could have both in one accessory? That’s what the Hoocap does. It’s not as fancy as the blooming lens hood concept we featured a year ago, but it seems pretty well thought out. Extend the cap/hood out from your camera, and the two “curtains” open up, allowing the camera to “see” and blocking errant light from causing flares. Close it, twist it, and push it into your lens, and it locks into its closed position for protecting your glass.
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