LCD Armor

Those of us reading us who have no interest in photography can safely skip this post. These aren’t the posts you’re looking for. =)

This post is one of those write-ups that only photography enthusiasts – which includes our Angmo buddy, and also a certain student of mine who stalks my blog and gives me daily morning updates of what he thinks when I see him in school (you know who you are LOL) – will read and chuckle. =)

All modern DSLRs come today with a large rear color LCD panel (usually the ‘monitor’), and possibly a smaller monocolor LCD (often the ‘control panel’) at the top near the handgrip. The rear panel usually comes with a removable clear plastic protector when you buy the new camera, but it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation even with it. Those plastic protectors are easily scratched, and if you remove it, you run the risk of scratching the even more vulnerable LCD panel it protects. If a LCD panel ever needed gorilla glass, this would be it!

Many camera owners routinely leave the manufacturer supplied plastic protector as it is, since you can easily buy a replacement off eBay. Others look for third party solutions, and they routinely involve an additional protector to replace the manufacturer-supplied one. Some of those are the thin film sort – similar to what you overlay on your mobile or tablet device. That’s the $8 solution I went with my old Nikon D300.

For this new D7000 though, I wanted more upmarket solutions. There were the well-reviewed glass protectors made by GGS, and those looked interesting and were easily available in shops here. The older versions were apparently one-time applications, and removal for any reason – e.g. you accidentally misaligned the protector – resulted in the glass protector cracking.

In any case, I decided not to risk it, and went with the alternative. A relatively less known hard poly-carbonate screen protector made by Acmaxx that cost about SGD17 with shipping from the States, link right here.

The item took about a week to arrive, and was surprisingly easy to apply. Took just a minute to fit in both protectors. And here’s what it looks like now:

Unfortunately, both protectors aren’t flushed in with the camera body itself. Functionally there’s no difference of course, so it’s just an aesthetic thing. I’m not certain if I like the chrome trimming either (the GGS protectors are black). It helps in that you know the protector’s still there, but it also draws attention and looks sort of awkward too.

Oh well. I’m more concerned if the protector does its job well. i.e. don’t fall off, don’t crack, don’t attract too much of my nose grease when I take pictures, and don’t block off too much light transmission. If t doesn’t, expect to hear me grumbling about it here soon. =)