Nitecore BB nano Review: How Did a Blower Get Any Better?

Air blowers aren’t really accessories that photographers get excited about, but the Nitecore BB nano might just change your perspective on that. This tiny little gadget makes cleaning your cameras, lenses and even sensors so much quicker and convenient, that we’re marking it as a must-have accessory for any photographer who’s serious about their work.

This little thing is not much taller than a 35mm film canister, even if it is a little chunkier in girth. But it weighs almost nothing at just under 100g (3.52 oz) and is definitely something every single professional photographer needs. I remember the days when my granddad used to painstakingly use a manual air blower with a horsehair brush tip, to meticulously clean his beloved lenses. The Nitecore BB nano takes the pain out of any such cleaning with two blower speeds (that high one is really strong at 40kph / 25mph)

We’re not shy of testing out gear here to the limits, so we did what most people may not do when testing out accessories like this. We deliberately added finely sifted spell flour to our own lenses and cameras in order to test out the effectiveness of the Nitecore BB nano. Risky? Sure, but some of my gear was built to take (and has taken) far more than this.

Spoiler alert – The Nitecore BB nano did a far better job than I expected it to, and in each case in less than 10 seconds I was able to remove almost all, if not all of the flour on the surface of the lenses and the body of my Nikon D4.

The Nitecore BB nano blower unit we received came with the Enhanced Cleaning kit and Extended Vacuum kit attachments.

The Enhanced Cleaning kit has some invaluable attachments. It comes with an extended cleaning nozzle, which you’ll see how we used later, as well as two brushes. One is harder for exterior surfaces such as that of lenses and camera bodies. The other is much softer, specifically intended for use when cleaning lens elements.

In the image comparison slider above, you’ll see just how effective using the Nitecore BB nano for 5 seconds was on my Artralab 50mm lens. Quicker than you can say “ThePhoblographer.com” most of the spelt flour was blown off the lens’s body. But the eagle eyed among you will notice some residue can still be seen in the ‘after’ photo. Another pass of the blower, this time with the lens brush attachment helped clear that up completely.

Okay so the smooth surface test was aced. I then moved on to the much more bumpy rubber exterior of my Nikon D4. See for yourself how the BB nano fared here.

To the naked eye, it was practically dust free after just around 10 seconds of blowing, without the brush attachments even.

There was still one final test left. The ultimate test of the Nitecore BB nano’s strength. I was definitely reluctant to do this, but for the sake of this review, I dumped some flour on the sensor of my Nikon D4

Call me crazy, but I had a feeling that I could get it completely off it. Since it was quite deep inside from the surface of the D4, I swapped the regular head out for the extended one.

In no time, the deed was done, and my D4’s sensor was dust free, although some of it was now stuck to the surface of the long silicon tube

Thankfully I didn’t have to shell out money to send the camera in to a professional sensor cleaner and I have a feeling this Nitecore BB nano will save me a few trips a year to my usual camera cleaning chap.

The BB Nano blower from Nitecore is small, has great battery life, and cheap at under USD 30 (for just the main blower unit). This will go with me on every serious shoot of mine and totally deserves our Editor’s Choice Award.

We’re giving it five out of five stars.