Hey guys,
Went to look for a wide angle lens this afternoon and ended up with "sort of" an impulsive buy. Saw the new camera armor arrivals display and thought hm..... why not. My D80 could use as much protection as it can get especially with a big guy like me, the camera has a tendency to get knocked around into things while im moving through ppl or through anything for that matter
So paid around $80 AUD for it and another $5 for a second hand UV filter. Heres how the armor looks in the box.
And out of the box fitted onto a cardboard cut out of a camera
It is made out of really thick and stretchy rubber which gives some shock absorbing element to it. The box contains a camera armor which fits on the camera body like a divers suit, a lens armor which is essentially a rubberised lens hood that is fitted by stretching onto any lens you have, a lens cap attacher thing which allows you to hang your lens cap off your camera armor lens hood and a plastic LCD protector.
Here is how it looks on the D80.
Ok on to the proper review, I really find the camera armor package really expensive for a few pieces of stretchy rubber. But it really increases the size/bulk of the whole camera. This increase in size along with the rubbery feel makes the camera much better to hold onto. Also the thick rubber would really protect the camera from slight bumps, drops and scratches. It is also interesting to note that it softens the sound of the shutter opening and closing when taking a photo. However the armor does make pressing some of the buttons on the camera quite tricky. The only real problem i have with this is pressing onto the AE-L button and some of the time i end up releasing the shutter instead.
The camera lens armor is totally pointless in terms of protecting the lens. It might be useful to control the brightness but i would take a proper lens hood over the camera lens armor any day just because it offers much more protection than the soft rubber that crushes under its own weight. The lens cap attacher is a good idea but not that great of a deal either.
The lcd protector however could be a great asset for some cameras. Not so much for the D80 as the D80 already comes with one. Other camera models would benefit from this much more. I've seen samples of how they fit onto the canon 400d and it looks really good, much better than the clear plastic stickers for LCDs anyway.
Pros
Does what it's supposed to do, protect form shock damage, scratches, dings
Makes the grip much better for people with large hands
Plastic LCD protector a nice touch
Cons
Quite expensive for few pieces of rubber
Some buttons are harder to press/access
Makes camera larger which might irritate some people (not me
)
Didn't like the supplied lens hood at all
After a couple of hours experimenting with the camera armor, i got to say i quite like it especially for the feel of it. The AE-L button issue is a bit irritating but i'll live with it for now or at least until the day it costs me a good picture by not being able to focus properly while trying to hold onto it. It's a good product but i won't suggest it to everyone i see. I just don't think you're getting enough for the price you are paying however if you're like me being clumsy around my surroundings, this could be exactly what you need to keep your camera safe (from smaller impacts at least).
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