By popular request, here is the design of my home made camera blimp. It’s for use on film sets to muffle camera noise so that it doesn’t end up on the soundtrack recording. It’s also useful for working in areas where you could be splashed with salt water, or where there’s blowing sand, both of which are really bad news for cameras.

Here are the two blimps that I built. The black model is designed for use with a short lens, between 20mm and 85mm. It’s based on a common pelican camera case. I cut a hole out of the centre and glued in a piece of 4 inch ABS water pipe to accomadate the lens. I glued a large Cine filter and lens hood to the front of the pipe. This is very important, as most of the noise transmission comes through the front of the lens. The gray case is for use with lenses longer than 85mm, and is the same, except for the filter on the front.

The camera is fired from an electronic cable release that I ran through case. I sealed cord into the case to make it sound and water proof.

The cable release is held in place with some black gaffer tape.

Here is the view finder, which is just another filter glued to the back of the case. I haven’t used this set up with a digital camera yet, so there isn’t a window for the LCD screen on the back of the camera. I attached the straps to the locking rings on the case.

Here is the inside of the case. I’ve kept the standard foam from the pelican case, and added some thin foam on the lid as some extra sound protection.