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Filed under: DSLR •Market Served •Extreme •Sports •Products •Camera Support •

Think Tank Hydrophobia 300-600 V2 Review

You guys know I’m a big fan of Think Tank’s photo accessories and I use several of their solutions on a regular basis for my photography business.  Last month I flew to France to cover the 24 Heures Du Mans, arguably the world’s greatest motor race.  On track activities are spread out across a whole week and at that time of year in Northern France it’s hard to go a whole week without some rain.

Knowing this , and the fact that I would primarily be shooting with much longer lenses on this particular trip I knew I need to buy a rain cover that would fit my 300mm f2.8 or longer.  Think Tank make a smaller rain cover called the Hydrophobia 70-200 which I have reviewed before and found to be an excellent product so it was a no brainer to pick the newer version II of their 300-600 cover for this trip.

As with it’s smaller brother the Hydrophobia 70-200, the 300-600 comes in a mesh bag that allows it to ventilate a little when it’s damp.  The 70-200 has blue tags and the 300-600 has green tags making it easy to quickly grab the correct one from your gear storage when you are packing your bags.

You’ll find a couple of accessories in the bag when you open it up.  The first one is an extension panel for use with a 600mm lens which uses hook and loop to attach to the main cover.

The second is a front lens cover which can be anchored to the main cover.  Again green for the 300-600 compared with the blue you’ll find on the 70-200 version.  Here shown on the lens hood of a Canon 500mm f4 L IS.

The zippers are seam sealed, just as you would find on high end waterproof clothing.

Hidden under the cover is an elastic strap which is designed to secure your camera’s shoulder strap.  The Hydrophobia 300-600 is deigned to be used in conjunction with either a monopod or a tripod so you don’t need your shoulder strap.  Nobody is going to be hauling a 500mm lens on their shoulder strap!  The problem I had here was that the elastic loop is designed with Think Tank’s own optional shoulder strap in mind which is much thinner than any other strap I’ve seen.  Standard Canon shoulder straps or wider, more padded straps like my own OpTech straps do not fit in this elastic loop so it’s of limited use.

The open end of the cover is highly adjustable to accommodate the varying width of the lens hoods from 300mm to 600mm.  A strip of rougher material around the front stops the whole cover from rotating when in use. Simple but very effective.

Eye pieces are sold separately due to the necessity to have different ones for different cameras.  They are a mandatory addition though and unfortunately cost $35 a piece.

A small pocket on the side is designed to hold your camera’s eye piece when you have replaced it with the necessary Think Tank one needed to work with the cover.  When you pack it away after use you can store the special eye piece here so you know you’ll have it when you need it.

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