Last weekend I went on the famous london duck tour (thank you vicky xxx). Incase you haven't heard of it, it's a bus tour of some of the most popular london sights. The unique thing about it though is the bus itself. You're driven around in a world war 2 DUKW amphibious truck. This allows the tour to go places that normal tour busses don't go, like in the Thames!
Anyway, it turns out that although they give a great view, the back seats aren't the best place to be once you get in the water. Thanks to the boarding steps, there's quite a lot of splashery.
I had two cameras with me on the tour, a 1DMkIII with a 100-400LIS, which was of course fine with getting splashed, given that it's fully weatherproofed. I also had my own 5D with a sigma 12-24.
Now, out of the box the 5D isn't weatherproofed but luckily mine was dressed in a Camera Armor rubber suit. I'd been trying this out for a week or so beforehand and liked the 'knock protection' it afforded but with all the water flying around it really started to show it's worth.
Don't get me wrong, Camera Armor won't make your camera waterproof, far from it. What it does do though is stop 80% of the water from touching the camera. It comes with a universal lens hood made from the same rubber which you have to stretch over the front of the lens. The hood will offer some impact protection, especially for the cheaper lenses that come in camera+lens kits. The 12-24 I was using had few moving parts (just the focus and zoom rings) so I wasn't too fussed about water ingress and it has a fixed metal petal shaped hood which protects the lens well on it's own so I didn't bother using the rubber one.
The Camera Armor has flaps and access holes so you can easily get to the battery and memory compartments. It also has copies of all the cameras buttons moulded onto it with raised lettering mirroring the cameras own printed labels. Of course, because you're pressing the buttons through a layer of rubber they do feel different, less positive, but you get used to this and just learn to press a bit harder (just a tiny bit, nothing serious).
One of the best parts is the clear plastic screen protector that fits over the LCD. This really does give good good protection to possibly the most vulnerable part of the camera. It's a separate, removable part, which is a good thing as I found (ironically) that it does scratch quite easily!
The rubbery feel of the skin actually made the camera feel more secure whilst holding it, but it does make the grip physically bigger (which suited me fine, but may not be so great if you don't have gorilla hands) in fact, this could be a very good thing on cameras such as the 400D which seem to be ergonomically designed for petite ladies and the Japanese (which makes sense really, as they are a Japanese company!).
All in all, I like Camera Armor skins and for DSLRs like the 350D which have a plastic body it seems like a no-brainer. £25 to £40 buys you great protection from knocks, splashes and grubby hands (did I forget to mention the incident involving a small child's lollypop covered fingers?).
Pros:
- Improved rubbery feel grip.
- LCD protector.
- protection from dings and scratches improves second hand value
- Improved ergonomics with smaller cameras and bigger hands.
Cons:
- Reduced 'feel' of the buttons (especially the shutter release)
- LCD protector scratches easily.
- Reduced ergonomics with larger cameras and smaller hands.
Place your order here, available for most current Canon and Nikon DSLRs.
