I got a chance to put a thinkthankphoto hydrophobia 70-200 through it’s paces in Antigua last week. It’s a very impressive “technical shell” for your camera, or basically foul weather gear. I can see a few brilliant uses for it, the obvious on (since it’s a “rain cover”) is for anyone who NEEDS to keep shooting when the weather gets ugly and it’s raining. Yes, there are quite a few sealed lenses and bodies out there, but I could see how adding this over them would make me feel a bit more comfortable with all the water. The second use for this is when you’re shooting around the water, especially salt water, and spray is an issue. There are a LOT of yacht photographers out there who already use igloo coolers to keep their gear dry out on the boat, but once they start shooting it’s just the camera and lens out in a boat. Salt water is VERY nasty in terms of sneaking into sealed bodies (I’ve drowned a 5Dii myself) so whenever I’m around spray I’m always a bit conscious of the risk involved. Using this cover allowed me to not worry about spray at all and just shoot. The biggest problem I had was that I’d get my hands wet driving the boat, and then put them in the sleeves to use the camera, but that’s always an issue and NOT a fault of the bag. The only other critique I have of the bag is that it might be nice to have a window for the switches on the lens similar to the one for all the camera controls. I use the lens switches much less often, but it’d still be nice to have I think? I’ll also say this setup is designed to be used with a 70-200 which is a fixed length lens (internal zoom and focus) but it worked perfectly on my 100-400 at full range as well. Below are the shots I grabbed while recording the above review!
As with most of my recent TT reviews, TT DID send me this bag for free, but as you’ve learned from watching my other reviews (I hope) I give you the pros and the cons of their gear. Make sure you use my links below though as they get YOU a free gift as well as helping me cover the cost of this site.
hydrophobia @ thinktankphoto.com
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