Sticky Rubber!

It might sound embarrassing to admit, but the day you put your hand in to your camera bag and go to grab that lens or camera body you haven’t used for a few months only to discover the rubber parts have become all sticky and your fingers get coated in a black mess is not a good day….

However, there is a solution to this issue that I have used on a couple of my camera bodies and a couple of lenses that were functioning just fine, but the rubber grips on the bodies or the lens rings had started to become this sticky mess.

Yes it is a car care product that I had on the shelf already. With just a very small amount on an old fluffy hand towel and then rubbed carefully on to the grip and in to the rings on the focus/zoom ring. And then buffed using a clean part of the old towel the rubber came back as good as new.

Every couple of years I make a point or repeating this treatment. Making sure to not let any of the gel like product enter the camera body or lens and the rubber parts don’t seem to go bad ever again.

You can apply the gel with a cotton bud if you need to get it in to smaller confined spaces.

It will also work on any other gadgets that have some form of rubberised coating.

Keep your gear in top working order and don’t stop using it just because it has become sticky!!

Future Gadgets

Using my iPaq in conjuction with my mobile phone, I have got used to a ‘two box’ solution to my day to day email, calendar and reminder requirements. Whilst most mobile phones can do most if not all of these
functions to get a decent size screen means that you will carrying around quite a large device that is tied in someway to a mobile phone contract.

I do prefer a small phone that pops into my shirt pocket, with bluetooth and a handsfree it does most things I want. I am currently using a Nokia 6230i.

I posed myself the question the other day what would I replace my iPaq with? One device that has interested me recently is the new Nokia N800 internet tablet. It isn’t a phone, but it has bluetooth, WiFi. So it would seem a useful device. The N800 is released at the end of March at a price of £300 approx.