Photo Tip #23

Photo Tip #23-Shower Caps and Nail Polish Are Not Just for Housewives Who Want to Look Pretty

Use a clear plastic show cap to cover your camera if you are shooting in windy, slightly rainy, or adverse conditions. If you are using a tripod and a lens that isn’t too long, you can use the elastic on the shower cap right over your entire camera and lens setup. Simply “un-tuck” your camera when you are ready to expose the frame, as you can even look through the shower cap when first composing your images.

A lot of photographers use Vaseline to make a nice “soft filter” effect. You can smear Vaseline on a spare UV filter, for example, to make a nice filter for portraits, and this is a nice look. Vaseline, though, can get in your camera bag and “goop” up your gear. A better idea is to take a spare filter, get some colorless nail polish, and “paint” the filter, making a soft filter that you can more easily re-use. You will also have better control this way over which areas are soft and which stay sharper.

2 Comments

  1. mythopolis
    Author
    November 23, 2009 / 11:11 am

    The nail polish idea is pretty cool.

  2. Carol
    Author
    November 23, 2009 / 1:16 pm

    Yes, it works-just use an old filter because it's pretty hard to scrape off all of the nail polish.

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