REVIEW: Outdoor Photography Gear Lens Covers

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Lenses can be an expensive outlay that luckily, in most instances, return value when you come to sell them on and therefore are investments that need looking after. In my case, I not only wanted to protect my lenses but also blend in with the environment when photographing wildlife.

I trawled the internet and stumbled across Outdoor Photography Gear Ltd at www.outdoorphotographygear.co.uk and thought that their prices were very reasonable and so I bought my first lens cover for my newly acquired Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lens.

If all you want to know is what I think of them, since that purchase quite a few months ago, I now have 6 different lens covers! I think that sums it up!

Outdoor Photography Gear Ltd have many different lens covers available for many different manufacturers, they also offer various different camouflage and non-camouflage patterns. Just for the balance of my review, I have no connection with Outdoor Photography Gear Ltd and these are simply just my findings.

The photo below shows my lenses and teleconverters with their covers fitted. As a complete coincidence, I recently purchased a 2nd hand Nikon 500mm f/4 VR lens and it came with an Outdoor Photography Gear lens cover already fitted.

{Click any image for a higher resolution}

Outdoor Photography Lens Covers
Outdoor Photography Lens Covers

Left to Right, Back to Front

  • Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR
  • Nikon AF-S Nikkor 300mm F/2.8 ED VRII
  • Nikon AF-S Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR
  • Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F/2.8 ED VRII
  • Nikon Nikkor TC-17E II – 1.7x
  • Nikon Nikkor TC-20E III – 2.0x

UPDATE: I now also have a cover for my Nikon Nikkor TC-14E III


Fitting a Camouflage lens cover breaks up the outline of the lens helping it blend in with the natural environment, it also stops any light shining off the surface which could alarm any wildlife. As with most manufacturers, Outdoor Photography Gear’s lens covers are made from Neoprene (think of a divers wetsuit) and are therefore held in place by it’s elastic nature which means they are not permanent and leave no residue once removed.

The camouflage options available are “Woodland Green”, “English Oak” and “AP Camo”. I have opted for English Oak for all my covers as it blends in with most of the locations I’m likely to use.

The other added bonus is they protect the lens body from any minor bumps and scrapes avoiding potential damage and keeping the resale value up.

So, how well are these made?

The fact that I’ve gone back and purchased more sort of sums it up, but both the neoprene quality and the quality of the stitching is a very high standard. Quoted from the website, “All joints are zigzag stitched and edges overlocked to prevent fraying.” and this certainly shows in the quality of the covers. The larger lenses have a window over the lens controls so that it’s easy to view and change settings. The smaller lenses do not have this window, however, it’s easy enough to lift up the section to gain access to them.

Most importantly, the lens covers are an exact fit, they are split into smaller sections so that Focus and Zoom rings can still be used. I have noticed on the site that the owners have been looking for lenses to borrow to design new kits and it’s this approach that has clearly helped to make the covers an exact fit.

Modification to Filter Screw hole required
Modification to Filter Screw hole required

There is a minor issue with the 300mm f/2.8 cover that is the section that covers the tripod collar also covers the slip in filter housing. When I have the camera and lens mounted on a tripod, if I want to rotate from landscape to portrait orientation, the filter screw twists the cover. There is a simple fix for this which is just slicing a slot to allow the screw to move freely when the lens is rotated. This is just a very minor criticism and easily solved.

Lens Cover Reversed
Lens Cover Reversed

Another added bonus is that the covers are reversible. Camouflage pattern is great at blending in with the forest, but has the opposite effect when trying to blend into a crowd for example. The lens covers can simply be reversed as the other side is black! This for me is a simple but great feature even if it has been designed by default.

So as you can probably tell by now I’m very happy with the the quality, fit and usability of these lens covers and if anyone was to ask me to recommend a cover, then it’s Outdoor Photography Gear all the way!

Check out their website and online shop at www.outdoorphotographygear.co.uk. They also sell many other great equipment including hides of which I have their Pop-up hide and bag hide amongst other things.


One final image, the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 with x2 Teleconverter mounted onto the D810

D810 with covered 300mm f/2.8 and 2x Teleconverter
D810 with covered 300mm f/2.8 and 2x Teleconverter
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