Kit review: baldness, a buff and camera stuff.

Lots of us wildlife photographers share some key characteristics: maleness, baldness and the incipient problems of middle age. I've never found my maleness to be a problem, but being a baldy (and absolutely happy with it, I may add) means that I have always worn hats to hide my shiny pate from nervous wildlife and keep my head warm. My belated discovery of buffs has been a revelation and seems to offer other benefits as well that I detail further below. My ageing spine has also been hugely helped with a new harness, but first: the problem of keeping a camera and large lens protected and camouflaged ....

My camera has new pyjamas. Well, that's what I call it. In the picture below you can see that I have fitted a cammo sleeve to a 300mm lens. It is water proof, insulated and covers the camera body as well. It even has a pocket for one of those hand-warmer things so that you can keep your hands and DSLR working in arctic weather. While severe cold is not usually a problem here in England's balmy southwest, sudden heavy showers certainly are. However, the insulation really came into it's own when I was on location in Maharashtra last year, photographing tigers in temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius. The camera body was too hot to touch if left in the sun for more than about ten minutes. As I was waiting out for up to three hours beside waterholes, this could have been an problem, to say the least. If you have read the previous posts about my visit to Tadoba, then you will recall the enveloping clouds of red dust stirred up by my guide's enthusiastic driving and the traffic jams around the waterholes. The thick insulation saved my DSLR and lenses from dust and cushioned them against the inevitable bumps and thumps as we hared around the park.

The sleeve fits over the 300mm lens and DSLR and has space for a x2 extender.

The sleeve helps with camouflaging the outline of the lens.

I got mine from Kevin Keatley at Wildlife Watching Supplies in Devon. I have not found a comparable product and I have always had good service from them, even when I've had a problem (which was my own fault, in fact).

Recently, I have been finding that after about an hour with binoculars and camera bag (complete with two DSLRs and lenses) I start to get serious neck pain. To be honest, this problem has been getting more serious for a long time. I have a couple of injuries to my neck vertebrae from smacking my head pretty hard on unyielding things, or unyielding things smacking me on the head. After thirty-and-some years of carrying binoculars, rifles and back packs around the countryside suspended from my neck and shoulders, my poor old spine starts to complain. I was unsure what to do about this until I saw another wildlife photographer in India, wandering around with his camera and lens attached to a harness. "Now THAT," I thought, "is what I need". So I sidled up to him and picked his brains and it turned out he had similar spinal issues and had found that the harnessing was the best idea. So my Christmas present to myself in 2016 was a Cotton Carrier.

The Cotton Carrier has transformed the way I use my smaller lenses when I am actively searching for subjects such as plants, insects and photographing events.

I got mine from Speed Graphic, but there are other importers and other types of harness. However, I recommend the Cotton system if you are out in the countryside as most of the other makes are better suited to wedding or sports photography.

One of the great features of the Cotton Carrier is the belt-and-braces approach to securing the camera to the photographer. The additional 'idiot strap' proved to be vital for this particular idiot when crossing a stile: the camera and lens swung free, but there was no nasty, expensive crunching sound as disaster was averted!

I've discovered buffs! I know I'm a bit late with all this, but then I've never claimed to be a style icon. In the pictures above, you can see that it is not only headwear, but can be used a face-veil as well. I was sent this one from Kitshack and while I have lots to learn about how to wear it (style icon status continues to elude me), I'm a convert. There seems to be a whole You Tube genre around wearing buffs, so there's plenty of advice. It's been a great boon under a cap on cold days. In the summer it will get the ultimate test when we head up to Ardnamurchan on Scotland's north-west coast and I use it to keep the dreaded Culicoides impunctatus, better known as the Highland midge. This 2mm long terror will put the microfibre buff through it's paces. If it works, I'll be so delighted that I'm sure to mention it in a summer posting!