Gaffer Tape: Never Leave Home Without It
For those that don’t know, gaffer tape is in pretty much every working photographers bag. It’s to a photographer what duct tape is to a handy man. In fact, it’s so versatile, that I’ve used it to:
- Mark spots for my floor remote
- Keep my prefocused remote lens properly focused
- Keep the eyepiece on my cameras (because the Canon eyepiece is 20 bucks!)
- Temporarily mend a rip in my cargo pants (a big one)
- Taped over my IS and other controls on larger lenses, it prevents me from accidentally switching on or off something
- Keep my cameras LCD screen from being scratched while in my bag (just put a piece right over the LCD)
Gaffer isn’t perfect though. It’s not cheap, not compared to duct tape. At 20 to 30 dollars a roll, it can get pricey if you go through a lot of it. And worst yet, the big rolls are bulky and inconvenient to take with you. Some stores offer mini rolls of gaffer, that are great to pocket or toss in a bag, but those are 10 dollars or more a roll, and only about a couple of yards worth of tape. I can go through that in one outing. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make our own small roll from the larger roll, so that it’s both convenient and inexpensive?
How about making your own roll of gaffer? Because of its nature, gaffer can be unrolled and rerolled from the big roll, and onto pretty much anything else. At first, I hoped to roll it onto a film canister (because hey, wouldn’t that be cool?). The film canister was a little smallish. So I found an old prescription bottle, and that fit just right.
It takes a few minutes, but it’s very easy, and certainly cheaper than buying the small roll. I will roll a fair amount onto the prescription bottle, and if I feel im running low, just roll more onto my original supply.
And the prescription bottle itself is a container, so you can put other knickknacks in there, anything from a couple of batteries (alkaline for long shelf life), to yarn (ever useful in a bind), to small cables or adapters (like a small pc cord, or pc to mini adapter). The possibilities are endless.
So that’s it, that’s something that I do on a regular basis, and while it’s not life changing, it saves me money, and it’s very useful, so I hope it can serve those same purposes for you.
Got any great ideas of your own, feel free to share them in the comments.
One of the neatest tricks I never would have thought of. Thanks Max!
Max, what brand do you use? Notice any differences between them?
Personally, I have a roll of ShurTape or something like that. It does fine but it’s a little stretchy at times. This is great for fitting stuff on abstract surfaces (like when I put a piece over my IS controls), but bad when I need things held specifically in place.
Pro-gaf is what I have at work, and it’s a little tighter, less stretchy.
I got the ShurTape locally, and Pro-gaf we ordered at work. I think in the future, I’d order the Pro-gaf. Which brings me to another post idea. . .
Gaffers tape is a life saver….I like the idea of the prescription bottle to keep additional knicknacks….I buy the 2 inch think and the 1 inch thick for different purposes…..perhaps the 2 inch can be cut in half to make it an inch….just like to ready for any inconviniences..thank Max