If you’d like a cheap and simple way to protect your camera lenses from rain and from drops, you can make a makeshift lens case using ordinary plastic bottles (e.g. water bottles, soda bottles). Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do so.
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If you want to protect your pricey camera gear from burglars, one of the safest places in your house (besides a safe, of course) is one that might not be very obvious to you: your kid’s room. The Readers Digest published a simple slideshow containing home-proofing tips gleaned from the minds of convicted burglars. One interesting tip is that burglars generally don’t go into children’s rooms when hunting for valuables to steal.
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Watermarks are a popular way of “signing” photographs and deterring theft, but having a giant logo overlaid on your images can ruin the viewing experience. Photographer Klaus Herrmann has one solution: integrated watermarks. He writes,
[Watermarking] seems to be a viable way of protecting your images from online theft, but a watermark can ruin a photo if placed carelessly. Indeed, with a semi-transparent giant piece of text (and maybe Comic Sans as a font) written straight across the image, many people won’t bother looking at the image for more than a second. I have been applying watermarks (or, to be more precise, signatures) to my images for some time now, but I use a different philosophy by making it an integral part of each image, almost as if it was there in the original scene.
He has written up a tutorial on how you can make your watermark look like part of your photo. It’s a pretty time-intensive process, but could be useful for sharing fine-art photography online.
Creative Watermarking – How to Integrate Your Signature into Your Photos [Farbspiel Photography]
Image credit: Photograph by Klaus Herrmann
Here’s a short video tutorial on how you can make a cozy for lens protection using some fleece and some velcro. It’s a simple wrap that allows you to keep your lens safe when transporting it in something other than a camera bag. Simply measure out a piece of fleece that’s the appropriate size and sew some velcro onto the ends. The project takes about 30 minutes and costs a buck or two for each cozy.
(via Being Geek Chic)
Now here’s a bizarre fusion of photography, food, and functionality: the Photorito Lens Wrap is a new protective lens wrap that’s not just inspired by the burrito — it looks like one too! The one-size-fits-all wrap can help you safely transport lenses from 24mm to 200mm, and is made from waterproof Tyvek and neoprene. They cost $15 $20 each over at Photojojo.
Photorito Lens Wrap [Photojojo]
You probably already know that it’s not a good idea to include your expensive camera gear with check in luggage, but what if you have no choice? If you must, then putting your gear inside a hard-sided “spinner” suitcase with four wheels is your best bet. The Huffington Post has published an interesting interview with an anonymous baggage handler, who gives the following advice:
Hard-sided suitcases will get less damage, but also look for well-designed handles that are attached with rivets and some sort of protection around the wheels. Speaking of wheels, the best bags to get are the “spinners” with four wheels on the bottom. We like these because we don’t have to throw them when loading. We just roll them down the belly of the plane so your bag and its contents will suffer much less damage.
The handler reveals that bags are commonly subjected to all kinds of abuse due to the strict schedules the handlers must abide by.
Confessions of An Airline Baggage ‘Thrower’ (via Lifehacker)
Ross Technology Corp. has developed an amazing silicon-based spray-on coating called NeverWet that can make almost anything completely waterproof. An iPhone sprayed with NeverWet still functions perfectly after being submerged underwater for half an hour. Spraying the coating on clothes causes liquids (e.g. water, oil, chocolate syrup) to slide right off.
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If you have a GoPro or any other compact camera with a constantly exposed lens, you can protect the lens from scratches when it’s not in use by making a cheap DIY lens cap out of a ping pong ball and a rubber band.
Protection for GoPro Camera Lens [Instructables]
Pose is a camera case that doubles as a simple stand. Designed to replace the little bean bags or mini-tripods that many people carry around separately, Pose has an attachment mount built in, and can either be propped up by itself on flat surfaces or wrapped around poles and curved surfaces. The $24 accessory is available for pre-order over at quirky, and will be manufactured if at least 1,000 people join in.
Yes, it looks like some kind of futuristic spaceship fuel cell, but it’s actually the Alpinist camera case by BetaShell. As you might remember, BetaShell sells a line of lens cases that guard against extreme environments, and the Alpinist offers the same kind of protection for people looking to bring compact cameras into extreme environments (rock climbing or extreme skiing, for example). They’re made out of aircraft-grade aluminum, and come in a few different sizes priced between $60 and $120 over on the BetaShell website.
Alpinist Camera Cases (via Gizmodo)
