Three Not-So-Obvious Uses Your Rocket Air Blaster Is Perfect For

The air blower bulb is an essential addition to any photographer’s toolkit. They do an incredible job at removing dust spots from the delicate sensors inside our cameras as well as taking care of pesky specks on our glass. However, there’s no reason to stop there. Here I give you three more perfect applications for these nifty cleaning tools that you may not have thought of before.

A Work Desk Duster

As of now, I own two Giottos Rocket Air Blasters. One stays with the camera gear inside my bag, and one is stationed on top of my work desk. As it turns out, an air blower is a great economical way to keep your computer display spotless, rather than continuously shelling out for compressed air in a can. As long as you don’t let the dust gather too much, you will rarely have to contact wipe your screen saving you the risk of imperfections developing. Once a day while you wait for an image to load in Photoshop or you are unloading a memory card into Lightroom, just give the screen a few squeezes from the bulb and your set. Besides cleaning the display, it can also be used in lieu of compressed air for everything else sitting on your desk. This is well worth the sub ten dollar investment of a second air blower.

A Print Perfecter

If you’re making prints from your images, you know that nothing is more distracting than a dust specks. You can try and control your print handling environment as much as possible, but some dust particles seem to always linger. You don’t want to blow on your print because of the chance you may spread your saliva or humid breath. Compressed air is too powerful and may cause damage to a print. An anti-static wisk is good, but I’d rather go with the non-contact option: the rocket blaster. The blower can get rid of small specks, even those being held by static cling, and allow you to package or frame a print without the menacing dust.

A Foliage Fixer

Nature is messy. If you fancy taking photos of flowers and plants, than bring along an air blower. Unless it just rained, there is a good change that plants you find from forests to gardens are going to be dirtied with bits and pieces of pollen, seeds, grass, or whatever else ruining your otherwise clean shot. Plants can be too fragile to wipe down with a cloth, but the off-putting particles can sometimes be too heavy to simply blow off with your mouth. Using a rocket blaster is an easy way to unobtrusively clean up your subject at the time of shooting instead of relying on the clone stamp tool in post-processing.

Bonus: A Tabby Tamer

Do you have a cat that likes to get rowdy sometimes? Well, you can probably guess that blowing air on to them with this guy is an effective way to making them stop. Less messy than a spray bottle, an air blower seems to have the same results. Obvious cautionary disclaimer: don’t blast those cute furballs in the eyes or ears or anything like that, okay?

Have something else you use an air blaster bulb for? Add your own tip in the comments!