Weather Sealing Torture Test: Canon, Olympus, Nikon Pass.. Sony?

[Don Haines]

Ultimately, we make personal choices. There is no "one answer for all", our differing needs and preferences give us different answers. For me, when it comes down to a question of small and portable, yet with decent quality, I like Olympus..... but for normal shooting I find glass and ergonomics far more important, and that's why I went Canon. I find Sony to be somewhere in the middle.

Totally agree. I went with Olympus for its sealing. I've had my Oly E-M5 in terrible rain storms. Only issue I found was I couldn't use AF since it would try to focus on individual raindrops between me and intended subject! I kept my Canon gear for 'serious' work although the latest generation of Oly PRO lenses is fully the equal of Canon L glass for IQ (within abilities of smaller m43 sensor).

They all have weather sealing limits though. Just reference the forum favorite Tony Northrup's story about his two 5DIII's wiped out by a flash storm. It's all on video as they tried to protect the cameras. (Video taken by Panasonic GH4 that survived the storm.)

Apparently, in Canon land, the 1DX2 is the best sealed camera, closely followed by the 7D2..... the latest Olys are supposed to be equivalent..... better sealed than the 5 series!

 

[midluk]

I was out shooting in heavy rain only once, but at that time I had less concern about damage to my 5D4 than to my 100-400 II. You simply can't properly seal a lens that sucks air in every time you zoom. Everything went fine, though.

 

[peters]

I always liked the build quality from Canon, but Nikon is reeeealy great as well. I think the 800d line feels even a little bit better and even studier than the 5d line from Canon.

No surprise on the Sony. But I wonder why this is? The buttons and dials etc. must be as easily sealable as every other button on another button.

The way sony listens to the customers makes me think, that this will be adressed in the a7r4.
With the a7r3 hey fixed very much issues of the a7r2: much better battery, better menus, extra joystick, touchscreen... I think better weather sealing and a better grip may be included in the a7r4.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The way sony listens to the customers makes me think, that this will be adressed in the a7r4.
With the a7r3 hey fixed very much issues of the a7r2: much better battery, better menus, extra joystick, touchscreen... I think better weather sealing and a better grip may be included in the a7r4.

Except that people complained about the poor sealing of the a7RII, and Sony responded with the a7RIII. Maybe the forthcoming a7Sieve III will have better sealing.

 

[Don Haines]

I was out shooting in heavy rain only once, but at that time I had less concern about damage to my 5D4 than to my 100-400 II. You simply can't properly seal a lens that sucks air in every time you zoom. Everything went fine, though.

That’s one of the reasons I like the 70-200F4...... constant length! No pumping damp air through it.....

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi midluk.
I was surprised the other day, I was out shooting with my 100-400II and I zoomed out (shortened the lens) fast, the draught out of the camera body on to my face really caught me by surprise, it made me miss my shot as I wondered what had happened! ???
I’m guessing the lens is pretty well sealed against rain if the air in it has to get out through the camera! I don’t know if the act of zooming in draws air (water) in through the body or directly in to the lens!

Cheers, Graham.

I was out shooting in heavy rain only once, but at that time I had less concern about damage to my 5D4 than to my 100-400 II. You simply can't properly seal a lens that sucks air in every time you zoom. Everything went fine, though.

 

[Sporgon]

Maybe the forthcoming a7Sieve III will have better sealing.

;D

Is that what the "s" stands for ? I hope it's not the same on my 5Ds

 

[Etienne]

This is worrisome for the A7rIII, a camera that I have been considering.
These test results are a persuasive argument in favor of the 5D4.
Time to rethink ... again .

 

[old-pr-pix]

Hi midluk.
I was surprised the other day, I was out shooting with my 100-400II and I zoomed out (shortened the lens) fast, the draught out of the camera body on to my face really caught me by surprise, it made me miss my shot as I wondered what had happened! ???
I’m guessing the lens is pretty well sealed against rain if the air in it has to get out through the camera! I don’t know if the act of zooming in draws air (water) in through the body or directly in to the lens!

Cheers, Graham.

Panasonic learned that you can seal a lens too well. Quickly zooming their 100-400 is impossible. The sealing is so tight that changing FL either creates a vacuum or compresses air inside the lens making it very hard to move the zoom ring. Their national rep. told me it can take months for the seals to 'wear in' and allow smooth zooming. Canon seems to have the 'Goldilocks' solution - at least on my 100-400 Mk I if I want it tighter I just turn the 'smooth-tight' ring a bit.

 

[ecqns]

This is worrisome for the A7rIII, a camera that I have been considering.
These test results are a persuasive argument in favor of the 5D4.
Time to rethink ... again .

A friend of mine just returned from 2 weeks in Thailand with his Sony a7r2 and reported no problems in the heat, humidity and sudden rainstorms there. He said the camera was drenched a few times.

 

[Larsskv]

This is worrisome for the A7rIII, a camera that I have been considering.
These test results are a persuasive argument in favor of the 5D4.
Time to rethink ... again .

A friend of mine just returned from 2 weeks in Thailand with his Sony a7r2 and reported no problems in the heat, humidity and sudden rainstorms there. He said the camera was drenched a few times.

I guess it takes some time before the corrosion damage kicks in...

 

[NancyP]

No mention of Pentax, though - those cameras, including the medium format 645Z, are full-on water-resistant when their water-resistant line of lenses is used. Pentax would be the ideal kayaking/canoeing SLR - I have seen situations where the camera has gone overboard or gotten soaked in the bottom of the kayak/canoe and keeps on shooting fine. Not that I would give up on a dry box/bag for storing camera and lenses inside kayak/canoe ...

Most of us on land can do just fine with lesser degrees of water resistance. I admit that I am not too comfortable taking my Canon SLR on a kayak, though I see other more skilled kayakers do so, including using long telephotos for birding (that I am not set up to do yet, not having a long tele with IS, just the 400 f/5.6L no-IS).

 

[ecqns]

This is worrisome for the A7rIII, a camera that I have been considering.
These test results are a persuasive argument in favor of the 5D4.
Time to rethink ... again .

A friend of mine just returned from 2 weeks in Thailand with his Sony a7r2 and reported no problems in the heat, humidity and sudden rainstorms there. He said the camera was drenched a few times.

I guess it takes some time before the corrosion damage kicks in...

did you read the original article? The Sony even returned to working order after drying out, I think people here didn't read and are assuming it was dead. I think the issue with the test was having the cameras set totally level so water pooled on the top case. Of course its unfortunate water got in but highly unlikely in real life situations to be using the camera in a downpour like that perfectly level. Used handheld water wouldn't have pooled like that. The author says in the conclusion and comments he still fully recommends it as one of the best cameras you can buy. I shoot Sony but not in conditions like that, so I choose the best tool for my job - and that requires high dynamic range.

 

[midluk]

I was out shooting in heavy rain only once, but at that time I had less concern about damage to my 5D4 than to my 100-400 II. You simply can't properly seal a lens that sucks air in every time you zoom. Everything went fine, though.

That’s one of the reasons I like the 70-200F4...... constant length! No pumping damp air through it.....

My 70-200 had a defective rubber seal at the mount at that time, so I didn't use it.
And it started to rain right when the action was about to start, so there was no time to put the rain cover around camera and lens.
At home the extending part of the lens was wet on the outside multiple times when doing retract-extend-dry cycles.
For some days afterwards I regularly caused an air exchange by retracting and extending the lens multiple times to make sure any internal moisture can dry.

 

[neuroanatomist]

I guess it takes some time before the corrosion damage kicks in...

did you read the original article? The Sony even returned to working order after drying out, I think people here didn't read and are assuming it was dead.

Did you read Larsskv's post? I think you didn't and are assuming the camera that started working again won't stop working at some point in the future as a direct but delayed result of the water ingress.

In case you aren't aware, that's a common occurrence with water ingress into electronics. When the water is present, contacts are short-circuited and the device doesn't work. Then, once the water has evaporated, the device resumes normal function. However, unless the water was lab-grade ultra pure (the stuff coming from a sprinkler or falling from the sky isn't), the water exposure and the trace salts left behind after it evaporates (or not trace, in the case of salt water exposure) begin the process of corrosion, which progresses inexorably over a period of weeks and months. When the corrosion becomes severe enough, the device fails again...that time, permanently.

 

[Talys]

I guess it takes some time before the corrosion damage kicks in...

did you read the original article? The Sony even returned to working order after drying out, I think people here didn't read and are assuming it was dead.

Did you read Larsskv's post? I think you didn't and are assuming the camera that started working again won't stop working at some point in the future as a direct but delayed result of the water ingress.

In case you aren't aware, that's a common occurrence with water ingress into electronics. When the water is present, contacts are short-circuited and the device doesn't work. Then, once the water has evaporated, the device resumes normal function. However, unless the water was lab-grade ultra pure (the stuff coming from a sprinkler or falling from the sky isn't), the water exposure and the trace salts left behind after it evaporates (or not trace, in the case of salt water exposure) begin the process of corrosion, which progresses inexorably over a period of weeks and months. When the corrosion becomes severe enough, the device fails again...that time, permanently.

Corrosion to the camera parts, plus, I'd be too worried about something catastrophic happening internally within the lithium battery. It wasn't just a couple of drops of water that got into the battery chamber.

I don't know if it's possible that corrosion inside the battery could lead to something horrible, but I'd rather not find out.

 

[woodman411]

This is worrisome for the A7rIII, a camera that I have been considering.
These test results are a persuasive argument in favor of the 5D4.
Time to rethink ... again .

A friend of mine just returned from 2 weeks in Thailand with his Sony a7r2 and reported no problems in the heat, humidity and sudden rainstorms there. He said the camera was drenched a few times.

I guess it takes some time before the corrosion damage kicks in...

did you read the original article? The Sony even returned to working order after drying out, I think people here didn't read and are assuming it was dead. I think the issue with the test was having the cameras set totally level so water pooled on the top case. Of course its unfortunate water got in but highly unlikely in real life situations to be using the camera in a downpour like that perfectly level. Used handheld water wouldn't have pooled like that. The author says in the conclusion and comments he still fully recommends it as one of the best cameras you can buy. I shoot Sony but not in conditions like that, so I choose the best tool for my job - and that requires high dynamic range.

There's something sad about a Sony user, posting and defending Sony, in a Canon forum. These defenders are not enlightening anyone, they are just highlighting their insecurities (love how dynamic range is mentioned in a thread about weather sealing, sigh).

 

[ahsanford]

There's something sad about a Sony user, posting and defending Sony, in a Canon forum...

I pump the partisan brakes on these things -- this 'test' (or whatever you want to call it) is simply one of many pieces of information we have to peg how far Sony has / has not come by 2018.

I think some of us (myself to some degree) tend to think of Sony as this fanboy-pleasing machine that just spits out the core high-level horsepower spec stuff that people first look to when assessing value in a camera system. And in fairness to them, Sony is pretty damn good at either nailing a deliverable (sensors of course, but throughput of late as well) or steadily making Borg-like constant improvements in other areas (AF, third party lens use with AF, feature-based upgrades like IBIS, 4K, etc.). Sony are not idiots, and in some areas what they deliver is pretty damn impressive.

But they also can lay an egg in performance area Canon and Nikon may have put to bed a decade ago. In a nutshell, that is the blessing and curse that is Sony.

Why this video -- and the premise of potentially less-than-great weathersealing -- is so interesting is that it underscores a long-held belief that if it doesn't make the front-page headlines of the spec sheet, Sony isn't investing much to improve it, i.e. if it's not something big like FPS, MP, pure sensor quality, a bullet point spec on the B&H product listing (IBIS, # AF points, Eye AF, 4K, etc.), Sony might not be investing as much effort / time / cost as they should there.

Consider: there is no top-15 spec bullet point list that ever speaks to:

• How it feels in your hands from a long day of shooting with fast glass
• How the controls are / are not thoughtfully laid out
• How reliable and well-serviced the product is (shutter durability ratings are only a drop in the bucket here)
• ...add any plurality of things you care about here...

So I wouldn't pile on a Sony person defending their product -- I'm just absorbing what these rigs can / can't do and make informed purchasing decisions. My take home from this is that Sony's sealing may be a weak link, that's all. (I'll keep that in the back of mind if Canon makes us wait another 1-2 years for FF mirrorless and a hot new Sony arrives -- if we only see the Pros of what a hot new product offers, the Cons we probably should have seen coming will likely bite us in the a--.)

- A

 

[Don Haines]

So I wouldn't pile on a Sony person defending their product -- I'm just absorbing what these rigs can / can't do and make informed purchasing decisions. My take home from this is that Sony's sealing may be a weak link, that's all. (I'll keep that in the back of mind if Canon makes us wait another 1-2 years for FF mirrorless and a hot new Sony arrives -- if we only see the Pros of what a hot new product offers, the Cons we probably should have seen coming will likely bite us in the a--.)

I agree. Every product has it's plusses and it has it's minuses. Some things are easy to quantify (such as Mpixels or FPS) and reporting on them is simple, and they quickly find their way to the top of a review. Other items, such as "feel" and "user interface" are more nebulous in nature and there are (rightly) differences of opinion as to the value or impact of them, and as a result, we are less likely to see it mentioned in a review.

Quite often, reviews are done with sample cameras from the manufacturer.... a camera that has to be returned to the manufacturer..... a camera that has to be returned IN A WORKING CONDITION to the manufacturer.... and this means that your typical reviewer is not going to risk destroying that camera in order to do a review.

For many of us, we will never use our cameras under such conditions so it really does not matter what the sealing is. For others of us, we are shooting in the rain because our job demands it... and in the winter our cameras go through severe thermal swings. For those people, sealing and "toughness" are of paramount importance and we select our gear accordingly.

BTW, I spent about 90 minutes outside today with the work 7D and 70-200F4 in a freezing rain storm. There was ice caked on the top of it when I was done. It survived..... again.....

 

[neuroanatomist]

For others of us, we are shooting in the rain because our job demands it... and in the winter our cameras go through severe thermal swings. For those people, sealing and "toughness" are of paramount importance and we select our gear accordingly.

Or because we want to be out there.