Hello, would appreciate some questiins answered about camera safety

[ilia_isakov]

Ok first of all, thanks fir taking the time....

here are my two question:

I own a panasonic gh3 camera and i do some light

photography and video. Ive been having some doubts

about how i use my camera and ive been known to be a

bit careless with equipmwnt so i want to take some

precautions.

A) questions 1: does air pollution, or smoke from a

boiling pot have any affect in my camera and lens. The

gh3 is slight waterproof and dust proof camera.

However i do some shooting of ny dad cooking, he

usually cooks on open fire with a big pot on top of it. I

dont have a zoom lens so i tend to get into to all that

steam and dark smoke coming out of the wood burning.

I dont overdo it but i get in enough to be worried. So my

qiestion is, does dark smoke and steam get into this

camera.

2) question 2: Ive recently had incidents where both my

external flash (granted its a cheap one) and my on

camera continuous light fell off the camera. If i use

some muscle they come off by themselves, no safery

there.luckily someone cought the led light, and the flash

survived but it makes me ever conacious and afraid to

take them out. So is there a safety lock or thether i can

buy, or will a more expesive flash do it just as well. (My

flash and led ligh bith work on a rotating wheel that i

tighten, but like i said use some mucle or let it bump my

chesr by accident and down it will fly.....what shoyld i

do).

Thanks again.

[MichaelChang]

<p>Hi Ilia, to protect the gear, you can use a plastic bag over the camera with a cutout for the protruding lens; a couple of rubber bands and a UV filter to protect the lens front element, et voilà! :-) </p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>If the smoke and steam aren't bad enough to harm you they probably aren't bad enough to harm your camera. But following Michael's advice to put the camera in the bag wouldn't hurt anything. What he describes is a basic homemade raincoat that can protect a camera out in the elements.<br /><br />As for your flash/LED, if you use the wheel that tightens it down it should be pretty secure. You can't bash into it and expect it to stay in place but it should not fall off spontaneously. Some flash brackets have a tightening device in addition to whatever lock the flash has. They also have the advantage of holding the flash higher above the lens so you don't get red eye. But you would then need to use a cord to connect the flash to the camera, but not big deal.<br /><br />Not sure that buying a more expensive flash is going to make a difference. If you "use some muscle" anything is going to come off. May be more a matter of how you're handling the camera.</p>

[DickArnold]

I insure my gear as a result I am more relaxed about safety from theft or a clumsy drop (which I have done).