How can you protect your camera in different environments?

I was asked this question by a listener (thank you) who is planning an exciting trip to see gorillas (and other animals). So what can you do to protect your camera in different environments?
 
 To protect my lenses, I do a couple of things:

1.  Buy a good quality UV filter to protect the glass at the end of the lens. While I've never scratched a lens, I would far rather replace a UV filter than have to look at an expensive repair or even scrap a good lens.
2.  Use the lens hood. If you're moving around and the lens swings unexpectedly, the chances are that the lens hood will absorb the impact and protect the lens itself.

 
 For the lens and body, I have invested in a splash cover from Aquatech. This has an elasticated opening at one end (that I put around the lens hood) and an opening at the other that allows access to the camera controls. A clear window at the back of the hood lets me see the camera screen.
 This is great in wet environments and dusty environments and minimises the chances of water and dust getting into the camera or lens.
 
 Other hacks:

•  Keep the lens cap on until you need to use the camera.
•  If it rains, wear a good rain jacket (I recommend gore-tex as it breathes) and push your camera inside.
•  You can use a plastic bag to keep water off too.
•  Buy a backpack with hip straps and a rain cover (usually in a compartment at the bottom of the backpack).
•  Consider a camera mount you can clip to the shoulder strap of your backpack. Peak Design offer these clips.
•  Dedicated underwater housings if you need one (you can get these for smartphones too).
•  A small hand towel to wrap around the camera/lens for general protection.
•  In cold conditions keep a spare battery in your clothing close to your body (to take advantage of body heat) - battery performance drops in the cold.
•  Silica gel desiccant dehumidifiers for very wet environments. 

I hope you find this useful.

It's time for another podcast...

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:17

A short time ago I was contacted by a listener to the podcast. And the first thing I want to say is thank you very much for that because it's always good to get feedback. Otherwise it's just me sitting here on my own talking to myself. So it was really good to get the feedback. And in fact the question that was asked was, in relation to a trip that was being planned, which sounded actually very exciting to visit gorillas, among other things. So that's a great thing to do. And I'm glad that you're enjoying the podcast now. that the question that was raised though was about protecting your camera gear. And this is something that I've touched on as part of other podcasts. But I thought I would do a specific podcast to talk about protecting your gear and what you can do. So the kind of protection that you will need obviously depends upon where you're going to go and the kind of environment that you're taking your gear into. But for most of us, certainly financially, once we get into photography, we tend to start spending a lot more money on gear. And in fact, if you were listening to me chatting to, Colin, in a, couple of podcasts ago, we, were actually joking about the kind of money we spend on camera, ah, gear. But it is a significant factor. So you definitely want to protect your investment. And while you can get insurance and you can get specific camera insurance, your home insurance might even cover your camera while you're away or you've got travel insurance, you have all of those options. It is certainly a major inconvenience if you do have to replace gear on insurance. And if your gear gets damaged while you're away or while you've taken a lot of photographs, you might lose what you've taken already. you know, that's not a place you want to go to. So with prevention being better than cure, I thought I'd just talk about a few things that I think about and steps I've taken to protect my gear. And certainly I am in environments where I've done a lot of photography on boats. Obviously they're very wet and my cameras have on occasion had a good dousing in water. So I have that, really not useful superpower. I've been able to find the wettest place on the boat without really thinking about it. And therefore I've definitely had my share of being showered with water. particularly in smaller boats when we've hit a bit of a wave. And, on occasion my camera suffered a bit. Now, I've been lucky. I've never lost a camera that way. But, it. So there are steps I take though, as a result of that experience. so there's obviously water is one. You might be in a situation where it can rain. So what do you do? you might be in a place where it's very dusty, it might be very hot. So there are all these kinds of things to think about. So I'm going to go through each one in turn and you can obviously decide which apply to you. The other thing I want to mention because, this lady was talking about actually going to see gorillas. Now I've done that. And you have to hike quite a long way. So whatever you're doing to protect your camera, you need to also think about that in the context of what you might also be carrying. And are you carrying all of your gear? Are you being a bit selective about what you take and then what measures can you take to protect it? So without more ado, let me jump in. So I'm going to talk first of all, just generally, and then we'll dive back into specifics. So one of the things I've done for a very long time is to use a UV filter and just screw that into, the front of the lens. Because as I've said regularly, your lenses can end up being the most expensive part as a component of your photographic kit. If you're using, been using DSLR a while, or if you've moved into mirrorless, it's certainly very easy to spend a lot of money on the lens. And what you don't want to do is scratch it and certainly scratch the lens itself because that may. You're either looking at a very expensive repair or you're looking at replacing the lens. Either way, it's not a place you want to go. So I use a UV filter. Now, some people argue against them, but, you know, in terms of loss of quality and all of that kind of thing, I've not experienced that. I buy usually good, quality, UV filters. I say usually because I actually found myself in, Namibia not long ago and found that one of my lenses, for some reason there wasn't a UV filter on it. And I have no idea what happened to that filter because, as I say, I put those on my lenses as a matter of course. Normally when I buy the lens, I buy a good quality filter to go with it. So I just had sort of run around because I only had a Morning because I was heading off, upcountry, later that day and I was lucky enough to find a store that had a decent UV filter. that said, that's what I do because if anything's going to get scratched, I'd much rather it was the filter, which is very easy to replace, than it being the lens of, of the glass on the lens itself. So that's, I guess tip number one, do have a good quality filter just screwed in to protect any accident that might involve in the glass getting scratched. Also related to that, something I do now out of habit is I always use the lens hood. So pretty much every lens I've got has come with a lens hood except the very wide angle things. But, the other lenses, certainly the lenses that I use use day, to day it come with a lens hood. And when I'm using them, I always put the lens hood on. And it doesn't matter, what, whether it's dark or if I'm inside or whatever. And the reason is very simply that if I should accidentally bump the camera and lens against something, the thing that's most likely to hit whatever I bumped against, the thing that's most likely to hit that object first is the lansuit. And certainly when I was doing photography, when I've been on boats taking photographs, if I'm moving around the boat, I might be going up and down ladders or just moving around by the edge of the boat. Obviously, on a boat you can get unexpected movement. And that has definitely happened to me on a number of occasions. And what's happened is as the camera swung, but it's the lens hood that's taken the impact and not the lens. And because they're made of plastic, they're actually reasonably good at absorbing a small amount of force and typically the kind of force that you would, you would experience in that situation. So they're really the two tips that I recommend, for lenses. And in terms, more general terms of if you are in environments where it's very dusty or it's wet or definitely not good places to be. The other thing to do is just keep the lens cap on until you are actually going to use the camera. So, that adds another layer of protection. It helps to keep things clean. And what I will do when I get to where I'm going to be taking the photographs, I like to take a test shot first of all, anyway, just to make sure my settings are kind of about right. And if they're not make any corrections that I might need to make. So it generally isn't so much the exposure that's off, although occasionally it will be. But it's also things like making sure I haven't set exposure compensation accidentally or my AF point. It's somewhere I wasn't expecting those kind of things. I've found them more likely to happen. And if you're not looking for them you might miss them and therefore you might end up with shots that are out of focus or not correctly exposed. And it's only sort of later on you realize that you had a setting in there you weren't looking for. So always do that but do a test shot, have a look at the settings, make sure everything is right, but keep that until you're close to where you're going to be using the camera. If you're in a very dusty or wet environment, so maybe in rainforest where it might rain, that kind of thing. Okay. Now if you do want to add further protection to your kit there are certainly things you can do. And I was having a quick look on the web, just to see what was out there and you get things like lens bumpers, ring bands you can put on the lens. Now I've never done that. however you might decide that it's worth the investment for where you're going so it becomes a obviously personal choice. The thing that I do use a lot and I have spoken about before and if you've been on any of the webinars where I cover this kind of stuff, you'll have seen photographs of it. I use a ah, rain cover or a rain shield perhaps. I think they've got different names. Basically what I'm talking about is something that is a waterproof as in a splash proof cover. so one end of it is open and it fits around. In fact I use it on the lens hood and it's elasticated so it will snap around there and then it basically covers the whole lens and the camera body. there is ah a window in the back so you can see what your settings are. You can see the back of the camera. So if that's where your screen is, if you're using a mirrorless camera you can still see what's going on and you can put your hands. There are sort of open ends either side so you can get your hands around the camera and make adjustments. while your hands and the camera itself are all covered by this cover. So I use one from Aquatech there are others out there. And where I found that really useful though, I need. I actually bought it for use on boats because, as I say, I have got a good dousing every now and again. And the camera suffered. So I sort of primarily bought it for that. But in fact, where I've used it most is in the offset environment where it's been very dusty. And the reason that I used it is a few years ago I was taking some photographs in Tanzania. Now, luckily this was at the end of the trip. I gone over there to climb Kilimanjaro and had done all of that. And I'll talk about aspects of that actually, because there are aspects of things, to think about in that environment which was particularly cold. but having done that trip, I had added on a few days to go to the Serengeti and do some wildlife photography. And while I was doing. While I was on that part of the trip, one of the things that kind of characterizes where I was is there was a very fine dust. In fact, I've had this in Namibia where I was recently. And one of the problems with fine dust is it can kind of work its way between the lens and the camera body. And that's what happened. And it started getting into the electronics a little bit. And I was getting ready to take photographs. And instead of, being able to take photographs, I had an error message come up on the display on the back of the camera. This is on one of my canons. And it came up with a communications error, between the camera and the lens. So I had just had to take a chance basically and take the lens off, clean the contacts on both the camera body and the lens, put everything back together again. Trying to, I created a sort of COVID with my, rain, jacket that I had with me luckily, so I could limit the amount of dust where I was, doing this. And I did get the camera to work, but it would. But the fault kept reoccurring and luckily I was able to take the photographs that I wanted to take. But I was constantly having to do this. And fortunately only happened on the final day of the trip. And then I had the camera and lens stripped down and cleaned when I got back to Sydney, where I was living at the time. But that got me thinking about how to just protect the camera from something that wasn't actually obvious. Because the obvious thing about dust is that you keep the lens clean and you know, perhaps the camera body as clean as you can. But I hadn't Thought about it being able to work its way between the lens and the body because I wasn't particularly changing the lenses very often or I don't think even very much because that I'm pretty sure on that trip I had two cameras with me. And what I typically will do is have a telephoto on one and then a wide angle zoom on another. So I've got a Telephoto zoom on 100, 400 on one body and it would be the primary. So typically is my EOS5 and then I have the wide angle zoom on my backup body which is neos7. and that way I don't have to take the lenses off at all. I can just quickly switch from one camera to another. So I can work that way. If I'm in a vehicle, I just have a camera bag. so one lens is covered now with that splash cover. the other camera sits in a camera bag. I've got that I can stick on the floor if I'm in a vehicle. And there's a zip in the top of the bag so I can just drop things in and out and keep that bag zipped up or at least the opening covered while I'm not using it. So that way it absolutely minimizes dust getting in. But obviously if you're in a wet environment, if you've got that sort of option, you can do that too. So that is really the only bit of gear I've specifically invested in to protect the camera from water and from dust and to, to some extent from heat as well. and I guess also cold because you've got a layer of air between the camera and the COVID there. So it is something worth thinking about though. And they're not well they're not that expensive to buy. If you start looking at what you would pay for lenses and bodies and that sort of stuff, what it costs to have a lens or a body or both cleaned and serviced, that can get quite expensive too. So that is the one bit of kit that I have invested in, I do use regularly when I'm away. Now I mentioned the Kilimanjaro climb and the thing about that was it was cold, but there was the threat of rain. I got really lucky. It didn't rain when I was there, but the threat was there. And what I did when I was doing that climb was I invested in a clip from Peak Design. And it was basically how the tripod mounts, on it as in the attachment to the camera but the clip itself clipped across one of my shoulder straps on my backpack. So that meant I could basically mount the camera on the strap of my backpack rather than the handle. I also had the loop thing around my neck. Crikey, I've got a complete blank there on what you call those things. But the camera strap, let's get really technical here. so I had that loop around my neck but it meant that the weight of the camera was actually supported and the camera wasn't swinging. And that was my main thing because I was doing a little bit of climbing. Not very much but occasionally you're clambering over boulders and things or up banks. So I wanted my hands free but I didn't want the camera swinging. So that was one thing. But because it was a cold environment. The thing to remember with cold, particularly if you have a mirrorless camera is it does degrade the performance of the batteries. Once the batteries start to get cold they won't perform as well. So I did a couple of things. One is I normally have what I have on my camera bodies is the body extension that allows you to fit two batteries. And the reason I use that is that first of all I find the handling is better because it's got a larger grip on in the case of the Canon units that I use the grips on the right hand side. And I find that a much more comfortable grip to use particularly when I've got the 100-400mm lens on. And also because you've added a little bit of weight to the camera itself, the primary bit being the second battery, it just shifts the center of gravity back a tiny bit towards you. But I've just noticed a big difference and it's that combination of having the grip and the center of gravity being slightly towards me. I just find that a really comfortable way to use the camera with a long lens. If you're using a more standard lens or a wide angle zoom it won't make much difference. But that's just my personal preference and why I tend to buy that bolt on unit for the bottom of the body when I buy a new body. So what I did though for that particular climb was I removed that bolt on body. So I only had the one camera, the one battery in the camera, but it made the camera body and because I was using a wide angle zoom, it made that whole unit if you like, that I had on my strap, made It a bit lighter and it meant the second battery. In fact I had a couple of batteries. I would put them in my clothing so that they were pretty close to my body. So normally in a pocket, in my shirt I had some shirts with kind ah, of clip but a pocket up there which meant that my spare battery, if I did have to change it quickly was already warmed by my body heat. So that would give me at least initially a higher performing battery. And also in that situation I didn't really have the option to recharge the batteries on the move. I didn't have a solar powered unit. and I think they got a lot better because this was going back what was it? 2017. So yeah, you know that kind of technology has moved on quite a lot. So you may well find that you've got more option. More option, Crikey, I can't even say options. So you've got more options for charging your batteries using solar power or charging a booster of some sort using solar power. I've seen that as well. Now. Okay, so back to protection. so I've spoken about this splash cover. Another thing that I tend to do when I'm buying a backpack is first of all I'll get one with hip straps because you want to think about how much gear you're carrying and how far you've got to carry it. And going back to the gorillas I would had to hike three hours each way on one occasion. And so there was, and I actually put quite a lot of camera, quite a lot of gear in my backpack initially because I wasn't sure which lens I'd need and all that sort of thing. In the end I did use, I did tape my zoom, the telephoto zoom. But I kind of got mixed results with it because it was quite dark, it was overcast a lot of the time. And we're also in forest, fairly dense forest. It's bamboo forest because the gorillas had come m down to eat bamboo shoots. So it was actually fairly dark. And that meant that I was having to shoot at quite a high speed. Again bearing in mind that I'm using a long telephoto and I'm hand holding, I'm kind of squatting a lot of the time to try and get down low. So I've got a good angle on the gorillas. but when you're hand holding a long lens like that, you need to be shooting at ah, quite a high shutter speed. So Maybe a thousandth of a second or higher. And in low light with a long telephoto doesn't give you a big aperture to play with. so it means you're having to compensate with a higher ISO. So that can be a trade off. And in fact I found it easier to use my wide angle zoom and that's a 28 to 135 and that could get me in a little bit closer. I'm using the Canon EOS 5DS, so I've got a big RAW file to work with as well. So although my optical zoom was limited by the zoom lens I was using, I've still got digital zoom I can use in post processing. And because I'm shooting a big RAW file, it means I can actually zoom in to a fairly high degree. So this comes down to knowing. So the reason I'm mentioning this is knowing what your camera gear is capable of and what options you have when it comes to zooming in. If you've got a compromise to get a better aperture, range available and in order to lower the ISO in the situation you're in, again, practice with your camera gear and get to know what you can do with it. So this is an important aspect of knowing your gear and why you need to be, you know, practice as much as you can before you go. So using that wide angle lens that made what I was carrying a bit lighter if I didn't take my big lens. But you do need to think about how far you're carrying things. So that's tip number one on camera bags. Use one that's got hip straps, because that way the weight is on your hips and not in your back and your shoulders and that's much more comfortable, particularly if you're having to hike over a long distance. The other thing to look out for on the bag is to see if it's got a rain cover. So this is usually a plastic cover that is in a compartment on the bottom of the bag. And basically you unzip it, it's elasticated and it will pull right over the top of the camera bag. Now what I've found with these is they don't always work terribly well with the camera straps. so you've got to kind of find a way of carrying it where the rain cover part is still covering the bag. but having said that, it's a great way if you're in heavy rain to just protect your bag and your camera gear and everything that's in it. Now, another option that you have and something that I do because the, I've got a waterproof, jacket that is, I'll keep wanting to say Kevlar on this stuff, and it will come back to me, but it's basically a breathable material. And, the reason I recommend that is I've used plastic raincoats. And if it's warm or you're moving a lot, what tends to happen is condensation, from your body that you're giving up through sweat and all of that. It will condense on the inside of the jacket and you can have water running down your arms. I've actually had that in training. So, get a good quality raincoat if you can, one that's breathable. and I almost had what the stuff was called there. it'll come back. And, the thing about that being a little bit big, and I deliberately bought a bigger jacket because I'd actually bought it for Kilimanjaro, so I knew I'd have several layers underneath. But, the benefit of that is I can quickly unzip it and just throw my camera inside the jacket and then zip it up again. So in worst case scenario, if you haven't got any specialized water protection, if you've got a reasonable waterproof jacket, which you probably want to carry with you anyway, if you're in a situation where you might have to deal with heavy rain just for your own comfort as well as anything else, just pop the camera in there. And if the camera's on a strap around your neck, it's very easy to do. Okay. I mean, other things you can think about, if you have gear in a bag and you're worried about condensation, you can use one of those silica gel, descant, things that work for dehumidifier. They'll absorb moisture, particularly if you're going in and out of hot and cold and it's quite humid. So you may well get a situation where you have condensation. So you can think about that. you can wrap your camera in a towel or, a small face cloth, something like that, to protect it and again, protect it from changes, in humidity and temperatures. So there are sort of hacks you can do to, get around there. And also, if you're in the heat, look at shade options. What options do you have? Because you probably look. Most cameras, I think these days will handle quite a lot of heat, but, on the whole, they're black, so they will tend to absorb heat and not reflect it. again, using the splash cover, I found that's actually really good for reflecting heat. My ones are kind of light grey. so that, that works quite well and it creates some level of shade. But you need to think about just protecting your gear and keeping it out of extremes of heat and cold. And you're gonna have to think about the best way to handle that in the situation you're in. Okay, so those are really the main tips I think I have for protecting your gear wherever you go. And as part of the planning process. It is something I've spoken about before and that you definitely need to think about. So you need to think about the kind of conditions that you and your camera gear are going to be in. Is it going to be very hot, very cold, is going to be very wet, very dusty? And what is, what are the steps you can take to protect your gear? What can you do with what you already have? Because I'm not, I'm not a big believer in investing in additional things unnecessarily. and I don't do it very often. I find with standard, what you get with the camera in most cases is good enough if you think about what you're doing to protect it. If not, you can come up with other, just solutions using what you've got on you. So it might be like using your rain jacket to just pop your camera inside your rain jacket to keep it dry if there's a heavy downpour. it can also keep it out of the dust. You probably have a camera bag anyway. But do give some thought or if you, if you haven't got one, give some thought into what you're buying. So hip straps and certainly a rain cover are useful things to have in the camera bag. And other than that, things that just invest in things that you would use day to day anyway, like a UV filter on the end of the lens. So I've, I do that with all of my lenses and I don't see any loss in quality at all. I've seen, some people will say that's what happens. It's not been my experience. Okay, so that is it for this one. I hope you found that useful. And yeah, you know, wherever you go and enjoy and make sure you're comfortable too. You want to be as comfortable as possible. You don't want to go and see something like gorillas and kind of half enjoy it because you're in such a lot of pain from having to carry really heavy bag on your shoulders. you want to be in a situation where you can enjoy your experience with wildlife or wherever you are. And whatever you're doing, you want to be able to enjoy it. And it doesn't want to be an ordeal that you've somehow managed to push yourself through. Okay, so again, thanks very much for listening. thank you very much for the questions and the comments that have come back. I really appreciate getting those. And I'll speak to you in the next podcast. So bye for now.

>> Speaker B: 27:24

Just before I go, I wanted to remind you that first, of all, I have an offer running, with, my free download. So if you go onto the website and there's a link at the bottom of the description of this particular podcast, and that will take you to a link, to where you can give me your email, I will send you, a PDF, which is 10 Simple Steps to improve your photography today. So it includes the kind of things that I talk about in the podcast. So it's all there in black and white with some examples. You can see what's going on. And also remember I offer, online photography courses. I do fine art. If you haven't checked out my galleries, please do. The links are, again, below the description of the podcast. And don't forget to help me out. So you're welcome to subscribe both to the podcast and you can become a member of my Patreon membership and, join me there. So in that membership you get, access to me, and also you get advance notice of things that are coming up. I'll tell you about other things that are going on that I don't share in my Facebook group or on Instagram.

>> Speaker A: 28:32

Or anywhere else, really.

>> Speaker B: 28:33

So it is, just a membership where if you like what I do and you just want to be a part of it, the subscriptions are really low. It's just a couple of a cup of coffee a month. So, how much better could I be than that? So please take a look and, I'll speak to you in the next podcast. So bye for now.