Seawater Damage

[Hector1970]

Hi all,
I had a little accident when I was hit by a wave and my camera 5D3 went for a temporary swim. I dried it off quickly and took the battery out. I left it dry with desiccant for a few days. I put a battery in and I got Error 70 without turning the on switch. At the moment it's not switching on at all. No response at all.
Any experienced people here? What are the odds it's dead dead.
Saltwater I know is not good for electronics.
The only upside is I got a very good photo just before I got hit.
I wasn't over impressed with the 5DIV but maybe now is the excuse.
(Divide the price by 10 and tell my good wife how much it's costs )

 

[privatebydesign]

I have a lot of experience with sea water damaged equipment. It isn't necessarily the getting it working again that is the issue it is the future reliability, it will fail in the not too distant future, 100% guaranteed.

It is dead dead. List it on eBay for what it is and get the MkIV.

 

[danski0224]

Hi all,
I had a little accident when I was hit by a wave and my camera 5D3 went for a temporary swim. I dried it off quickly and took the battery out. I left it dry with desiccant for a few days. I put a battery in and I got Error 70 without turning the on switch. At the moment it's not switching on at all. No response at all.
Any experienced people here? What are the odds it's dead dead.
Saltwater I know is not good for electronics.
The only upside is I got a very good photo just before I got hit.
I wasn't over impressed with the 5DIV but maybe now is the excuse.
(Divide the price by 10 and tell my good wife how much it's costs )

100% guaranteed that it's garbage.

Maybe, if the battery was removed and dunked into several different buckets of fresh and clean distilled water almost immediately and then left to dry... Maybe.

There was a thread over on FM where a 200-400 was given a saltwater bath. Also garbage.

 

[Hector1970]

The camera turned on this morning . This was after I flicked the off switch about 20 times and some salt came out. The on off switch is now much smoother. I don't know if it will continue to work or have later issues.

 

[retroreflection]

Hooray, it turned on.
Wall street traders call that sort of thing a dead cat bounce.
The corrosion continues, it is dying more each moment.

While no camera can be 100% reliable, a saltwater soaked camera is guaranteed to really really fail. Do not rely on it for business, nor for memories. Some rather "modern" visionaries could incorporate this into a bit of performance art. The non-photographer, commenting on blah blah blah.

 

[pwp]

Salt water is spectacularly corrosive. An electronics engineer friend develops diagnostics hardware for pro divers working around off-shore oil rigs and the like. Swim in it, sail on it and surf it, but don't expose anything but extreme specification electronics hardware to the ocean. That's a dead 5DIII...

-pw

 

[Hector1970]

Thanks for all the replies it's really adding to my optimism
I am hoping my 5DIII will prove you all wrong.
That optimistic feeling I had this morning is long gone.
I was delighted when it flickered to life.
I was certainly taught a lesson by sea.
I survived wild Iceland seas to be destroyed on the wild Atlantic Coast in Ireland
At least it couldn't have happened in a more beautiful shot and the last photo is great.
I believe it's better to spend your money on experiences than objects.
I always have the memories of a great day out.
It will be a funny story in years to come.

 

[jhpeterson]

As a boating photographer, I've had a "little" experience with this. All one can seem to do is delay the inevitable, and that at some point the camera will not work.
But, I have found there are a few things you can do to buy yourself some extra protection, as well as a couple more that have a fair shot of getting your camera working again after the fact.
First, if you're ever plan to spend time around seawater again, consider nothing less than a 1D series body. It's not just the waves, but, over time, the salt spray and damp air will do in a camera. While the 5D models are very nice, they're not built to the same level as the 1D ones, as the latter have fewer places to let moisture in and much better weather sealing.
If you can live with "only" 18 MP (but they are big ones), buy yourself a nice used 1DX. (Despite the fact the technology is nearly a decade old, I'm still using 1DS3 bodies for most all my work and have yet to get a complaint from clients about the picture quality. For the price they're selling for now, they offer an incredible bang for the buck.)
But, no matter what camera you get, it's still wise to protect it from the ocean. A poly plastic, neoprene or PTFE jacket that fits to cover most everything but loose enough to operate the controls is a great idea. There are several items commercially available or you can make your own.
A few times a year I also lightly apply a layer of anti-corrosive lubricant (I recommend the T-9/Boeshield product) on all exposed surfaces so water beads up. And, at the end of a long day on the water I always wipe my equipment down with a damp cloth.
If you ever find yourself in this situation again, first try wiping your gear with a rag soaked in fresh water as soon as you can, taking all pieces apart as much as possible. Then, apply the anti-corrosive and leaving it a few hours before wiping dry. While there's a good chance doing this will restore your camera's functions, it's still best to send it in for servicing as soon as you can because there's almost always hidden damage.

 

[Hector1970]

Thanks Mr Peterson

 

[AlanF]

Hi all,
I had a little accident when I was hit by a wave and my camera 5D3 went for a temporary swim. I dried it off quickly and took the battery out. I left it dry with desiccant for a few days. I put a battery in and I got Error 70 without turning the on switch. At the moment it's not switching on at all. No response at all.
Any experienced people here? What are the odds it's dead dead.
Saltwater I know is not good for electronics.
The only upside is I got a very good photo just before I got hit.
I wasn't over impressed with the 5DIV but maybe now is the excuse.
(Divide the price by 10 and tell my good wife how much it's costs )

100% guaranteed that it's garbage.

Maybe, if the battery was removed and dunked into several different buckets of fresh and clean distilled water almost immediately and then left to dry... Maybe.

There was a thread over on FM where a 200-400 was given a saltwater bath. Also garbage.

Has anyone dunked a whole camera in distilled water several times and then dried it?

 

[privatebydesign]

Hi all,
I had a little accident when I was hit by a wave and my camera 5D3 went for a temporary swim. I dried it off quickly and took the battery out. I left it dry with desiccant for a few days. I put a battery in and I got Error 70 without turning the on switch. At the moment it's not switching on at all. No response at all.
Any experienced people here? What are the odds it's dead dead.
Saltwater I know is not good for electronics.
The only upside is I got a very good photo just before I got hit.
I wasn't over impressed with the 5DIV but maybe now is the excuse.
(Divide the price by 10 and tell my good wife how much it's costs )

100% guaranteed that it's garbage.

Maybe, if the battery was removed and dunked into several different buckets of fresh and clean distilled water almost immediately and then left to dry... Maybe.

There was a thread over on FM where a 200-400 was given a saltwater bath. Also garbage.

Has anyone dunked a whole camera in distilled water several times and then dried it?

Yep. It is standard opperating procedure for Nikonos cameras and they come back to life at least half the time.

 

[rfdesigner]

Thanks for all the replies it's really adding to my optimism
I am hoping my 5DIII will prove you all wrong.
That optimistic feeling I had this morning is long gone.
I was delighted when it flickered to life.
I was certainly taught a lesson by sea.
I survived wild Iceland seas to be destroyed on the wild Atlantic Coast in Ireland
At least it couldn't have happened in a more beautiful shot and the last photo is great.
I believe it's better to spend your money on experiences than objects.
I always have the memories of a great day out.
It will be a funny story in years to come.

IMHO the combination of optics and electronics means it's nearly impossible to recover this.

If it was mine and I couldn't get more than a pittance off ebay, then I'd try stripping it down, washing each part in dehumidifier water (I've got a ready source) drying with cotton towels (natural fibre so not particulalry ESD generating), putting circuit boards and other obsorbant materials in a vacuum chamber and giving them several cycles of vacuum over several days.

I wouldn't put the sensor chip through the vacuum.

I'd then carefully reassemble and keep my fingers crossed.

I'm an electronics R&D engineer so this sort of thing doesn't scare me, but I'd be lying if I suggested you'd have even a 50/50 chance of success.

In your position I'd flog it immediately, being honest about the dunking, but at least you can say it's currently working, someone might buy it for more than scrap value.

 

[iaind]

To all extents and purposes you now have an expensive paperweight. Canon regard water damaged bodies as beyond repair as corrosion will continue to some degree.

 

[mackguyver]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Also, FYI for other readers, I had a large wave completely wash over me and my 1D X and had to have the whole top of the body replaced due to some minor corrosion in the hotshoe ($308 repair [with CPS Gold Discount]). It was one area I missed in my post-saltbath clean. More on that:

 

[jhpeterson]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Also, FYI for other readers, I had a large wave completely wash over me and my 1D X and had to have the whole top of the body replaced due to some minor corrosion in the hotshoe ($308 repair [with CPS Gold Discount]). It was one area I missed in my post-saltbath clean.

The hot shoe always seems to be the first place to take the hit. Once saltwater gets on them, they never want to come back.

 

[sama]

Just came across this post in a Taiwan forum. It's a Nikon D800E and Nikon 14-24mm F2.8G soaked in sea water. The camera is beyond repair.

http://nrcintw.pixnet.net/blog/post/449474738###

 

[chasinglight]

Zero deductible, full value replacement insurance goes a long way in a situation like this...

 

[Hector1970]

It's still working at the moment.
I'm waiting to see it die in front of me. :'(

The last photo before I went for a swim

 

[suburbia]

I got a good repair price of £700 to replace all the electronics of my MKIII when it got dunked, had a similar instance of those error messages appearing for a time before it gave up the ghost. So repair might be an economical route.

 

[Hector1970]

The camera is still working.
It may be draining the battery when it's off (I'm not sure)
I am going to keep using it until it stops.
It's still taking great photos.
The photographer needs an upgrade not the camera.