Hi everyone,

As here in the UK we’re in Autumn heading towards Winter my thoughts once again turned to camera rain protection. All the rain covers that I’ve tried seem to suffer from one common problem. In use they all seem to slip down the lens exposing it to the rain or snow and/or bunching up and getting jammed interfering with the zoom mechanism and requiring tedious frequent readjustment. They all seem to be designed for mounting a camera statically on a tripod and not carrying it around. I thought I’d try something different, I asked my wife to sew on four small hooks from a hook and eye set in an approximate north-south-east-west orientation to the end of one of my rain covers. These hook onto the end of the hood and, by also using the inbuilt elasticated draw string cinch cord, the cover stays put much better. Tightening the cinch cord pulls the hooks into the front of the hood making for a secure tight fit that can’t slip back towards the camera body. I’ve tried this with lenses with a square/rectangular lens hood as shown below and also tulip style hoods as fitted to most of my zoom lenses like the one shown here. I’ve yet to try it with circular hoods which I suspect will possibly be less effective as the cover could/would slip around the circumference of the hood?.

They say necessity is the mother of invention 🙂 ,sometimes a simple modification can make life a heck of a lot easier. 🙂 It’d probably look a bit better with black hooks but this was a quick proof of concept try out. Once fitted this baby isn’t going anywhere!. 🙂 It’s very quick to fit and remove, once the cover is fitted place the hooks over the end of the hood, tighten the drawstring and that’s it and vice-versa to remove. I’m going to leave it fitted and take it for a walk in a local park tomorrow where there might be some interesting Autumnal foliage and there’s also a distinct chance of rain to test it out in action. I have added one very low-tech modification a rubber band behind the lens hood just in case the cinch cord should work loose when carrying it around. 🙂

Update

I replaced the lens hood on my M.Zuiko 12-50mm lens with a 52-67mm step up ring and an oversize 67mm tulip-style hood that I had. This hood better shields the front lens element from rain, knocks and flare and makes it virtually impossible for the hooks on the cover to slip round as they fit neatly into the recesses in the hood and it doesn’t vignette. The hood takes a 62mm lens cap.

Kind regards

Leigh