Today’s Question: I have a concern relating to the magnetic portion of the XUME Adapters you have recommended. Since it would be stored in my camera bag in close proximity to my memory cards, my hard drive and, worse yet, my camera with its internal computer memory, should I be concerned about the possible impacts of the magnetic fields? Or, is it weak enough that it would be of no concern?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Most of the items you mentioned use flash-based memory rather than magnetic storage, and so magnets would not be a concern. If your hard drive is a traditional drive (rather than an SSD) I would tend to keep the XUME Adapters at a distance, but the reality is that it takes a very strong magnet to cause problems for a hard drive.
More Detail: I am a huge fan of XUME Adapters (http://timgrey.me/go-xume), since they make it so incredibly easy to add or remove a filter (such as a solid neutral density filter) to the front of a lens.
These adapters employ magnets. One piece attaches to the front of a lens, and the other piece attaches to the filter. You can then simply put the filter in place at the front of the lens, and the magnets hold the filter in place until you choose to remove it.
The magnet in the XUME Adapters is adequately strong to hold a filter in place, but not strong enough that I would be concerned about it being near a hard drive. And flash-based media (such as memory cards or the memory buffer in your camera) would not be a concern at all.
By the way, you can see a (very old!) video of me demonstrating the use of XUME Adapters on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube here: