| Skill Level: |
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| Cost: |
Approx £1.50 |
| Models: |
4900Z
6900Z
s602
s602 Pro
s5000
s5500
s7000
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Equipment
Needed: |
- A4 / Letter size Zippa Lock Plastic Bag
- 1 rubber glove (NOT flock lined)
- Rubber glue
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DISCLAIMER
! Note:
Anything you do to your camera is of your own volition. Don't come running
to me if you ruin a lens / filter / camera etc.
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Sometimes a good shower brings out the best photographs, with an increase
in colour saturation being the primary benefit from a good downpour (in
photographic terms). At other times you'll want to take photographs by
the sea, with sea spray blowing about in the wind.
Unfortunately, water and your camera won't mix very well, leaving you
with the possibility of a waterlogged camera should you try and take shots
during the rain / by the sea. Salty sea water, being corrosive may damage
your camera even further.
Lots of people advocate using a plastic bag or similar to cover the camera
when taking photographs in these conditions. However, if you don't cut
a hole in the bag, your shots may exhibit crinkles from the plastic, or
at the least have a slight shift in the colour balance. What you need
to do is make a hole in the bag, but make a water tight seal so you can
poke the lens through without water getting into the bag. However, salty
sea spray will probably damage the coating of your camera lens if you
just poke the lens through.
If you've already purchased the Fuji AR-FX9 filter adapter tube (or similar),
you can add shower protection to your camera in an inexpensive and easy
manner, and prevent the expensive lens' coating from being damaged, by
substituting an inexpensive sacrificial UV / skylight filter in its place.
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1. Gather together your Zippa bag (or similar), rubber glove
and rubber glue.
Note 1: The gloves must be unlined, ie not having a flock lining
as this will damage the integrity of the watertight seal we're going
to be making later on.
Note 2: The glue must be rubber glue. Don't try impact adhesive
as this attacks the rubber making the project useless.
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2. On the largest flat section of the glove, draw two circles
within each other.
First circle = 72mm diameter (approx - I just drew around a 72mm
filter)
Second inner circle = 50mm (must be smaller than your adapter tube's
diameter by approx 5mm)
You should end up with something similar to this diagram* ...
*which reminds me of my old engineering drawings of pipe cross
sections - Briggs' Rule for Pipe Design: Inside diameter is smaller
than outside diameter. Otherwise you've burst your pipe
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| 3. Carefully cut out
the circle, making sure there are no "sharp corners" which
make easy rip points when the circle is stretched. |
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4. Next draw a 55mm circle centered on the middle of the
width of the Zippa bag - I used a 55mm filter to help with this.
Aim to get the circle about 2/3 distance from the "zip"
section of the bag as shown here...
Cut out the circle so you have a "holey bag" (no Batman
puns).
Then turn your bag inside out. Trust me, it'll make the following
steps easier.
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5. Place the rubber ring over the hole in the bag so you
have an even amount of rubber overlapping the hole. Note how much
is overlapping the plastic bag - this is how far you can smear the
glue around the rubber ring without any appearing in the bag hole
area.
Smear a little glue around the outer edge of your rubber ring.
Make sure you have a continuous loop of glue around the edge to
make that seal watertight.
Place the rubber ring glue side down over the hole as you did at
the beginning of this step and press down gently to achieve a good
seal. Don't press too hard or your rubber ring will stretch and
smear glue all over the place.
TIP: Place a piece of paper into the bag to stop you gluing the
back of the bag to the front.
LEAVE IT OVERNIGHT TO DRY !!!
Then turn the bag back out so your rubber ring is now located inside.
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6. Slip your camera lens (with adapter tube & UV / skylight
filter) through the hole.
Notice that the rubber ring, being slightly smaller will stretch
and provide a water tight seal around the camera lens.
Also note that you may get some condensation inside the bag as
shown here. This is easily removed by taping some silica gel packets
inside the bag.
You should now be able to take the camera into water spray / rainy
environments with minimal risk of getting a damaged camera, whilst
having access to all the functionality of the camera.
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Note 1: To make sure you've got a water tight seal before possibly
damaging your camera, I suggest removing the adapter tube and filter
from your camera and just placing these into your new rainproof
bag. Then fill the bag with some tissues and, holding the bag underneath
your home shower, give the thing a good downpour, holding it as
shown in Step 6. After a while, remove the bag, towel it down and
examine the tissues. If they're all dry, and the inside of the adapter
tube is also dry, you're ready to use it where necessary with your
camera.
Note 2: ALWAYS clean off your rain / sea spray covered filter as
soon as possible, otherwise you may end up with permanent marks
on your filter from dissolved minerals in the rain / sea spray.
Disclaimer - as with all things, this isn't totally waterproof
and there's a possibility of some water being blown in through the
bottom of the bag. If it's really gusty and this is likely to happen,
don't take photographs in those conditions.
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