Stuff Your Stocking - With Op/Tec

And you can stuff your bag as well - and your suitcase. That's the kind of blog this is. Fearless.

It used to be a worry around Christmas time that you would wake up on Christmas morning to find a shapeless black mass in your stocking at the end of the bed. Either a lump of coal or Whoopi Goldberg...Well, you can rest easy this Christmas - Op/Tec have a wonderful alternative.

If you are going to be flying overseas you can sometimes be tempted to put your camera gear into your suitcase - to save room in the overhead locker for your bottles of duty-free gin or volumes of Proust. I've tried it with the camera wrapped up in layers of underwear and socks and gaffer tape. Do-able, but messy and woe betide you if someone official opens the case a looks at that sort of parcel. They'll come and get you and I can hear the snap of the latex gloves now...

Far better to invest in an Op/Tec neoprene camera case. These fit snugly over a wide variety of cameras, from small amateur compact to big professional bodies and zoom lenses - even some with battery grips attached. You can pack the camera in it inside the case and even if the whole lot goes to Rio while you go to Riga, at least it will arrive intact.

You can also beat the crowds when you have to carry the gear slung around your neck. If you do so with a bare lens there is always a sticky finger in the crowd that will get to your front element. If you have a lens cap on it will fall off. ( Humboldt proved this in the 19th century...) If you have a lens hood on as well as a lens cap you might as well buy postcards as it will be too much trouble to dig through it all to get the lens open.

 The answer is the Op/Tec Hood Hat. They are a deep neoprene cover that snaps over the lens hood and grips while protecting from impact - and snaps off just as fast for the shot. They come in various sizes and there are really humungous ones for the wide-angle lenses with the big petal hoods.

If you want to completely encase the lens while you are carrying it, you can also get deeper lens bags from the same firm. One colour - black.