Following impression after unpacking: solid material, very well made.
But then the actual function:
- Point 1: The Hydrophobia has its own camera strap. To gwährleisten its function, a (padded with rubber) strap must be attached to the lens inside for the camera belt depends not only on the hook and loop fasteners of the rain cover. Unfortunately, quite a fiddly job! Those who are caught by a sudden shower, want anything but fumble with cold, wet fingers in any hidden mini belts! For Originalkameragurt (if you have the mounted) there should be a small recording so that you can him out of the way. This shot turned out to be much too small elastic strap, in which one might just as under the camera strap gets a cheap clippers - but not a full-fledged camera strap (width). Since I do not really need this feature of the camera strap own Hydrphobia, it would now be nice if you could just take off the inner restraint strap and of course the outer camera belt. But: None! For this purpose a cutting through the straps would be required. Nice idea (who needs it), poor design: Conclusion - So but these straps are always in my way!
- Point 2: The Hydrophobia works with a specific Eyepiece (sold separately). For this you have to the original from the camera screws (simply by hand), then squeeze the ThinkTank Eyepiece through the rubber of Hydrophobia and screws after coating into the corresponding hole of the camera. This exercise I want to really be reluctant to carry out in the pouring rain. The problem is also that the Eyepiece-opening in the rubber is held very closely to ensure that the construction is tight. As you can imagine, however, is now turning the Eyepiece in this tight rubber in the recording of the camera body - without any sense of how hard one has actually been screwed. Conclusion: annoying and not very wise when it rains!
- Point 3: The Hydrophobia has a transparent portion to allow a view of the rear screen of the camera. Unfortunately, the design of the Eyepiece (rubber) covers so around the top third of the screen (with the D800, which is not exactly small indeed - with smaller camera bodies, it could also be more), which is not really ideal, of course, especially when using Live View wants to work. Moreover, there is a cover for the Eyepiece when it is not being used. This is fastened with Velcro left and right of Eyepiece - thus are then (in D800) also left obscured the Play & delete keys and right the AE-L / AF-L and the AF-ON button. Conclusion: Useless!
- Point 4: Use of the rain cover with smaller lenses is virtually impossible, because you would not know where to put all excess material. The sleeve is designed specifically for lenses the size 70-200. The manufacturer also claims otherwise - but more versatility would be desirable, since I hate having multiple rain covers trudge through the countryside.
Due to the above points, the first covering the Hydrophobia was neither quick nor intuitive possible. In order to ensure rapid but adequate rain protection, an intuitive coating without much fumbling must be possible. For me the Hydrophobia is simply "over-engineered" - will say: many (really good) ideas, which are not applied in practice, result in a product that fall through in the actual provision, namely to be a fast and intuitive-to-use rain protection ! For the appearance of the material I forgive 2 points.
Alternative: I have now the LensCoat RainCoat bought 2 standard (not Amazon). Good material quality, intuitive operation (
