Lense Protection Question

[Dustin A Grabau]

I work for a company that is filming a Paintball Tournament in an Indoor arena. We need the cameras to be inside the netted area but need some way of protecting the lenses of our rented cameras without compromising quality. Does anyone know what we can do about this?

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Matte box with a hard matte on the front of it to minimize chances, and then an optical clear glass filter inside of that; so if paint does splatter, it hits the $200 filter and not the much more expensive lens

[Daniel Sheehy]

The lens is not the only issue you want to consider. You don't exactly want a paint ball striking anywhere directly on, or even terribly near the camera body either. It won't cause physical damage, but the paint sprays everywhere at a high velocity.. and there are an awful lot of places the paint could get in where you don't want it. (toggle switches, audio and power connections)

 

You might want to consider using some sort of weather jacket as well.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Good call on that Daniel.

[Daniel Sheehy]

I had the rain jacket on. After the game ended, there was a single hit, right over the audio / TC / menu switches panel...

 

It's probably fair to assume that the camera will get hit at some stage.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Daniel Sheehy