When you spend hundreds of dollars on a camera or camcorder, it's very frustrating to find that a flying stone or other debris has cracked its lens. Veteran photographers have a cheap way to prevent that, shared now by tech industry insider Marty Winston.

One of the least expensive of the little glass filters you can add to your lens is called a UV Protector, but its real job is to be the thing that gets cracked instead of the lens. Camera stores can fit one to almost any camera that doesn't automatically hide its lens behind a little door.

Bring your camera to the store to make sure you get the right size. Most UV Protectors are less than $30.