Camera flooding anonymous

[kathymm 0]

My first flood was in Bonaire a few years ago when I was still shooting my Nikon F2. It was the second day there and my first dive with a beautiful vintage Nikkor 20 mm lens. Went through the whole dive just fine. Got on the boat and put the housing in the rinse tank. By this time the wind had come up and the boat was rolling. About five minutes on board and someone says, "Is that camera supposed to have water in it?" Duh!

 

The port had popped off in the rinse tank. Maybe it bumped into something. The camera and vintage lens were hosed, but the Action Finder was dry. The resort had a drying oven in the photo shop so we rinsed the camera and lens and put them in there but it didn't help. I was using an old Ikelite housing. All I did was rinse it out and let dry, never had to replace any wires or anything, it still works like a charm.

 

Luckily everything was insured and I received a new F2 pretty quick, the lens was harder to replace but Sub Aquatic Camera Repair kept after it and found me one.

 

I never put my housings in the rinse tank on the boat anymore.

 

Kathy Mendes

[ce4jesus 1]

Having yet to submerse my new digital camera, I'm now petrified :?O haha. Anyway, I'm new to the underwater world and my only experience even taking underwater pictures is with our old Sealife film camera. While I can't say I "flooded" it, there was occasional moisture droplets (humidity?) which affected the operation during the dive. Usually the 2nd or 3rd dive because we had to open it to replace the film. The camera always seemed fine once I got it top side. When you're in a tropical environment what are some good rules to live by if you have to open your camera on the boat? If you're in a hotel, the air conditioning tends to keep equipment a lot cooler than outside so there seems to be a natural condensation which appears inside the case when exposed to hotter, more humid conditions. Any thoughts?

[james 0]

See separate threads on camera fogging where it is explained in great detail. Do a search for "fogging."

 

Cheers

James

[mtbottle 0]

My dear old Sony DSC-P1 suffered a tragic death in the maldives. On the 13th dive of the trip (on the 13th of the month) it flooded! The total dive time was 13 minutes (Was a bit slow realising, now check as soon as I hit the water!). Later found out after I'd finished preping the camera, an ant had crawled accross the O-ring just as I was shuting it. Bastard!

 

superstitious? Me?! Never!

[cloustalot 0]

No floods, but I did have a small "drip" this summer (in fresh water, thankfully) from one of the controls on the top of the housing. Truthfully, I did not even notice it until I saw some weird residue on the mode dial on the 5050. I checked the control directly above it and saw the same stuff caked both inside and outside of the housing on the shaft.

 

Upon frantically consulting the manual (I was leaving that day for a dive trip to the Flower Gardens) I noticed that I should have been lubicrating the control shafts regularly in the last 3 years or so that I've been using the housing. OOPS. Anyway - I did so, and it didn't leak again.

 

That darn manual...somebody really should read that thing.

 

C

[Helge Suess 0]

Hi!

 

My first flood was of course a Nikonos III. IT was borrowed from a friend. The only part you can'T service yourself was broken. The o-ring that seals the rewind handle. It was an experience I'll necer forget to see the water rise inside the lens. The repair wasn't cheap and took some time.

 

The second flood was my DSLR inside the bruder housing. It was just a little so the camera survived. The finder leaked (must have been some poor workmanship, too few glue, don't know why, never found out). As it was the finder leaking I saw water dripping down the display of the camera. Rinsing and cleaning both camera and housing prevented the worst. After that I sent the housing back for service and sold it. I simply couldn't trust it anymore.

 

In the mean time I'm waiting for my new housing to be built (not by Bruder) and this made me enjoy a couple of very relaxed dives without the hassle of handling heavy gear or the fear of flooding ;-)

 

Helge ;-)=)

[ralphy 1]

My first post - and on a painful topic too!!!!

 

I've had two 'irrigations' (great phrase btw!); one on a strobe (subsequently discovered to be caused by a hair across the o-ring). A good strip down saved the day, apart from 4 fried batteries - and taught me to double-check the o-rings thereafter.

 

The other was on my X-D100 housing; fortunately I spotted it about 3 metres down - so a RAPID ascent to dive platform of boat. Cause?

Well, the night before I had come up with the 'good' idea of cable-tying my sync cord to the top of the housing handle - and didn't get round to cutting off the spare tail of the tie - which bridged across the main o-ring quite nicely..........

 

Must say it makes a good case for the ability to see through acrylic housing/back plates!

[Ron Boyes 0]

This happened a couple of years ago at a shootout comp - day 2 I flooded a D100 and 70-180mm Lens in the rinse tank prior to the dive.

No backup camera so for the next 5 days I dived without a camera - I hate diving without a camera.

The camera and lens were beyond salvation, my wife and friends were amazed at how calm I was (me too) - there was no one to blame but myself. The flood happened because the O ring was not seated properly, this happened because I was interupted during the setup by someone talking to me. Lesson learnt, do not talk to anyone when setting up your camera.

That evening the chef presented me with a silver platter, in the middle was my camera surrounded by a salad - even I got a laugh out of this.

 

Since this time I have always taken a backup system and have never needed it.

[Alex_Mustard 0]

Have you see this:

 

Entry URL: http://wetpixel.com/competition/index.php?view=entry&id=116

 

Alex

[Rocha 0]

I saw it Alex! Very funny, and tragic! I hope he had insurance.

 

Luiz

[Kasey 0]

Seems like a large number of D2x have been immersed already.