I’ve been in the mountains recently photographing elk, especially in Rocky Mountain National Park. Fall color has been really nice, and the temps have been mild…until a couple of days ago. Our first blizzard of the season came through, temps dropped to the teens, and snow starting falling. Any radical change in the weather often means good photography, so I set up my D5 and 600mm for rainy weather shooting. My rain cover of choice is the Hydrophobia by Think Tank.
There are a few reasons I really like this cover. First, is is absolutely waterproof, and designed to be used in situations where you are photographing in the rain and snow for hours. Think pro sports photographer covering a football game…or wildlife photographer in a blizzard photographing elk. Next, you can roll up this cover while it is still attached to your lens, nice when the snow stops. Finally, and very important to me, the cover has a waterproof lens cover that goes over your lens front when you are not shooting, very useful.
This rain cover also has a dedicated eye piece you buy separately. So you have to unscrew your eyepiece and use the Think Tank one. The cover then firmly stretchs over the eyepiece ensuring a nice tight seal from the elements. But one word of caution…unscrewing your eyepiece might be difficult. If you are a Nikon user, just remember this; you must flip the viewfinder curtain down before you can unscrew the eyepiece. Flipping the curtain down releases a tap so you can unscrew the eyepiece. On both my D850 and D5 the eyepiece was still so tight I had to use pliers to get it undone…a little scary. Try flipping the viewfinder curtain back and forth to release the tap so you can unscrew the eyepiece. By the way, the Hydrophobia has a convenient pocket to store your eyepiece while you are using their eyepiece with the rain cover.
Elk tend to take cover in heavy snowstorms (smarter than the photographer), but one bull came trotting across the meadow this morning nicely backlit against some aspen. The image at top is my favorite from this morning.