It's HOT, and some comments on recent purchases

    Ask people about the weather in Canada in the last few days, and the answer will be "HOT!!!" Some places are hotter than the Vancouver area, temperatures were 30ºC on shore, and 35ºC inland, yesterday, but for us that is above normal for this time of year. Most people in this area don't have air conditioning in their homes either, due to the short period of 2-3 months of hot summer weather we get a year. As a result, I haven't been out shooting since Monday.

    Last week I bought a few accessories for my D300, and they arrived on Tuesday this week. I haven't had much of a chance to use any of them seriously, but I'm going to give my first impressions today.

First I'll start with the Hoodman HD300, a screen protector for the Nikon D300.

    The photo isn't the greatest, and it doesn't really show what it looks like on the D300, but I think you get the idea of what it does. It provides a flip up cover, which allows for greater viability in hash lighting conditions, while still protecting the screen from bumps or scrapes. This type of protector would be especially useful if you are using your D300s to shoot video or do macro work in liveview! It would be under those situations that I think such a device would be most useful. Another advantage of this protector is that it moves your face back away from the camera, which is great if you shoot with your left eye like I do, because you wont be bumping the AF point selector with your face anymore! The only downside is that it can make seeing the corners of the viewfinder harder to see.

    Next comes the Hoodman H-EYEN225, which is a eyepiece cover. Not much to say about the eyepiece cover, other than it can be tricky to get on and off the camera. It can be used along with the HD300, but it isn't practical as it prevents the cover from fully coming up, thus blocking your view of the rear LCD. The eyepiece is comfortable to rest your forehead on, unlike the eyepiece that comes with the D300. The H-EYEN225 also prevents stray light from entering the viewfinder from the sides, if you don't want to press your face tightly against the camera.

Last, but not least the KATA-702 Rain cover. This rain cover does just that, cover the camera and your lens. The kit will cover any pro sized DSLR, including the D300 or D700 with MB-D10 battery grip. The part of the cover made to protect the lens is designed to protect mid-range to telephoto lenses up to 200mm. A Nikon 70-200mm VR would easily fit under the cover. There is a zipper on the bottom of the cover allowing you to quickly cover your gear, it takes about a minute or less, to get your camera in and get everything tightened up. I was able to safely cover my D300 with MB-D10 grip, along with Nikon 300mm F4 AF-S under the cover, although the lens hood does stick out a little. Since it hasn't been raining lately, I haven't had a need to test this cover fully yet. I think I'll get back to this in a few months when the fall rain storms start hit the coast.