DIY Softrelease Safety, The Follow Up

In January of 2008, I posted this article about using a hair tie as a safety while using a soft release to prevent accidental shutter releases. I ended that post by saying "I’ll try this for a few weeks and report back."

It has been about sixty-five weeks since then, so it is time to finally report back.

What I've found after using the safety for the past sixty-five weeks kind of took me by surprise. What I have come to realize, is that unless I'm actually putting the camera into a bag for a long travel in my car, I just don't need it anymore.

As reported in the original post, I was wasting about seven frames per roll by accidentally bumping the release. I've since had the soft release on my camera every day as I walk to work and around town. I find that I'm now so used to it being on the camera, that I instinctively handle it in such a way that accidental frames rarely happen from me bumping the soft release. The accidental exposure rate is down to one every couple of rolls, instead of several frames per roll.

So, if you are interested in getting a soft release, don't let the nay sayers in the frequent debates about the subject at rangefinderforum.com keep you down. Get one and use it for more then a month before you give up. It just takes a little experience.

High quality soft releases are available at rapidwinder.com.