small rain shield for digital camera

I bought my wife a new canon sd 780 camera for her birthday.  This thing is smaller than a deck of cards but shoots 720p video!  So of course I want to play with it.  I do have a tendency to wreck things I use though so I wanted to find a way to protect it from the elements.  I was doing some shooting in a light rain and was really paranoid about frying the circuits.  I came up with the idea to make a super simple small rain shield out of some scrap I had lying around.

Step 1: Materials and tools

For this job I used some scrap stainless steel sheet metal I had lying around.
I needed one 1/4 20 bolt to attach it to the tripod mount.

I used an angle grinder with a zip disk, I used about 4 clamps, a drill and a hammer and center punch.  I also used a small sheet metal bender but this could be done with a vice if you don't have one.

I also used the 3d cad program called solidworks to help me design the shield.  If you don't have or know this program there is google sketchup which I hear is good, easy and free.  This could also be figured out with a tape measure and a piece of cardboard.

Comments

[bbuuggmmeennoott]

Hmmmmm . . . you bought the camera for your wife, but YOU'RE the one using it.   Sure you didn't really buy it for yourself?  ;-)

[dave spencer]

I can see where you would get that.  I do have my own camera that is much more powerful at taking still pictures.  My camera takes crappy video though.

[Da_Fudge]

Very cool!

Since it has the standard caera mounting hole, I imagine it would suit most cameras?

[dave spencer]

The distance from the hole to the side and the height of the camera will vary by make and model.  That's why I did not include the template.  Each camera needs its own custom dimensions.