Giotto - New Stars in Heaven

In photographic life, as elsewhere, the simple things are often the most useful. We feature here two devices which are very simple but which bring benefits way beyond their cost. The back of a digital camera is relatively vulnerable when being carried, resting, as it does, on the front of the chest, often where buttons and zips hang about. As a result, the plastic protective cover or the actual screen itself becomes scratched and scuffed. This plays havoc with your viewing contrast in an already tricky situation. Very thin multi-coatings are used on lens elements to both harden the surface and improve the anti-reflection properties and Giotto have hit on the idea of using that technology to improve things around the back of the camera. The concept is to take a thin, strong slip of Schott Glass, backed by a tempered glass and give it as many as 12 multi-coatings to reduce the reflections and improve the transmission. The device is wafer thin but glass is much more resistant to scratching and, thanks to the high-quality self-adhesive coating, it may be removed for replacement with a domestic hair dryer. The improvement in the clarity of the LCD image is pretty impressive; spectacle wearers will understand when it is likened to giving your glasses a good clean after a walk along the seafront during a high tide and storm! Available for all quality D-SLRs from between £17.99 and £24.99

The Giotto Rocket Air is an apt name for the other device we look at (see the call-out box). One of the problems plaguing the digital photographer is dust on the filter glass which sits in front of the imaging chip. Any dirt, marks or smudges on this glass appear on every single shot you take and come into even sharper focus if you stop the lens down. There are a number of precautions that you should take to avoid the problem. Firstly, never touch the filter with anything other than a puff of air or a specialist cleaning device. Prevention is better than cure so you should ideally always turn your camera off before changing lenses so that the static electricity generated by working chips does not suck any lurking dust onto itself.

Never hover your face over the camera with the lens removed as this is a surefire way of allowing bits of hair, dandruff, loose skin, sweat, tears or other human remains to fall into the mirror box – this is why clean-room personnel are always togged up like operating-theatre staff. The trick is to point the camera lens-downwards when changing a lens. You should also ensure that the caps are kept on the lenses when they are not in use, so that the lenses themselves do not introduce dust to the mirror box. Whilst stuff on the actual mirror does not show in the image, the mirror clacking up and down at high speed projects that dust into the air, ready to be sucked onto the chip by static electricity just as soon as the shutter blinds open. Some photographers try to avoid the issue by never changing lenses – each camera is dedicated only to one lens. However, even this does not protect against the sucking action of the lens elements pistoning back and forth during focusing or changing temperatures alternately sucking and puffing. Some cameras have additional seals around the lens mounts and many have sophisticated cleaning devices, built in, to shake the dust down – once again though, prevention is better than cure.

Before it was discovered that it was blasting a hole in the ozone layer, we used to use compressed-gas jets to clean instruments and cameras. Your editor is particularly sensitive to the dangers of this method, having witnessed a technician blow the shutter blinds of a Nikon F3 clean out of the back of the camera (they are very light and take ages to flutter to the ground!).

This is where the Rocket-Air comes in. It provides a reasonably strong puff of air, plenty of it, and at the right temperature (compressed-gas puffers can actually shatter a lens with their freezing action as the gas expands rapidly – that’s how the doctor ‘burns’ off a wart after all). A quick blow of air over a lens and an occasional blowing out of the mirror box will make the £7 investment seem like a good deal in saved retouch time – remember that Adobe Lightroom only has a few tools at its disposal but one of them is dust removal, that’s how common the problem is.

Visit
http://swpp.biz/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Rocket for SWPP-branded Rocket-Airs
www.johnsons-photopia.co.uk for LCD covers
(Price as of 1st April 2008 and subject to change)

Photo Quote: No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit. - Ansel Adams