If you’re anything like Chase Jarvis, who has a penchant for finding himself in some of the most inhospitable places for photography on the face of the earth, then you should take a few pointers from the man himself. Bad weather may be great for photography, but it’s not ideal for your equipment. Dust, dirt, water—none of these go well with your camera and lens:
1. Get Pro Quality Equipment
As the old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. There’s no better way to prevent damage to your equipment than to actually buy equipment that’s capable of withstanding the vagaries of Mother Nature. There’s more than one reason why professionals prefer the bigger, more expensive equipment. One of them is they are weather sealed.
Jarvis’s D4S absolutely drenched in water and still shooting!
2. Use a Shower Cap
But wait, isn’t professional equipment super expensive? Yes, it is, and not many can afford it. Here are a couple of cheap hacks from Jarvis for those who have prosumer or anything that’s less than pro-grade cameras and lenses. The first one’s easy and you can pick one up from the motel where you’re probably staying during your travels: a shower cap! Just wrap one around your camera and voila! You have yourself a perfect water proofing solution. It may even work better than a fancy water sealed housing.
Shower caps make great camera covers!
3. Find a Wiping Solution for Your Lens When It’s Super Wet
A problem that you’re likely to face in bad weather, even if you have pro grade equipment, is wiping your lens clean when it is super wet.
How do you clean this?
Fancy lens cloths will do. But they’ll probably ruin it for the remainder of the session. What you need to do is find a shammy cloth. You don’t need to wipe all the water off the lens.
Use something like this for blotting the water off your lens.
Just blot the lens, allow the cloth to absorb all the water, and then give the front element a good wipe with the fancy lens cloth.
Now give it a good wipe with the lens cloth.
These tips might just save you from some very uncomfortable situations and streaky pictures.
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