I have recently been using my Large Dome hide , from my sponsor Wildlife Watching Supplies, to photograph the abundant bird life in my garden. I thought so highly of it and the result of success I had with the birds was brilliant, I thought I would share a few points as to why you should defiantly invest the money into getting one.
The Dome Hide is one of many of Wildlife Watching Supplies products and I can now say why it it such a successful product.
To start off with I will talk about the initial setup, I had the visions in my head of having to take forever to put up[ the hide but I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is one of the simplest hides to setup and no extra help was needed at all further more the hide went up in a matter of minutes. The hide consists of the canvas and two foldable poles, so all you have to do is slide the poles in and pull the canvas up.
I’m 16 so anyone older will definitely not have any trouble setting the hide up.
The canvas material is fairly weather resistant, I have sat in it in the heaviest of shower and you hardly notice any change in the hide at all. In contrast the hide does get quite humid in hot summer conditions but this is easily dealt with by opening up the two smaller side windows to allow for ventilation to the hide, and the hide are just at head level so you can enjoy a cool breeze on your face. This is excellent as you can endure time in the hide for longer periods of time so you don’t miss any of the action. On the subject of weather and conditions, the hide doesn’t really seem to fade in colour at all and the pattern itself is brilliantly designed and blends in extremely well.
Now we get to the most important subject ,space. The hide itself measures 1.5m square at the base and 1.49m in height, which provides more than adequate space and I can fit inside and I’m 6ft. I have also found that I can fit a foldable camping chair in and the tripod as well.
There is also a clever slit in the front of the hide,below the main window, which allows for the tripod to be poked through,creating more space for the photographer and any extra equipment. Pockets,which run along the base of the hide, give you space to place any additional equipment or ,what I found useful, to place weight(rocks) in the four corners to give extra stability. Access to the hide is a large double opening at the back of the hide which makes it easy for you to move in and out freely or could be left open to keep the hide cool.
The hide’s main window is quite large and is covered with a layer of fine mesh so that it hides any movement in the hide, important for bird photography. Being quite a large window it gives the photographer a lot of space to maneuver the lens and means that they can cover a wide area. As mentioned before the hide also has two smaller side windows which can be useful to check the surrounding area of any possible subject moving into your area of site.
Finally, this hide is easily packed away and can be packed away in less than 5 minutes. The bag which the hide is stored in is a little bit bigger than the hide itself which means that it can be put away quickly if the weather turns bad or when your session finishes.
Thanks for reading this review and I definitely recommend this product to anyone into wildlife photography, it gets you closer to your subject without needing the big lens !
