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Water Damage to Canon 350D
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Not sure this is the correct forum for this but anyway,
I was down at Tibradden yesterday trying to get some interesting autumn colour shots. I had setup my tripod very steadily across a little stream and I placed my camera on top, but the catch for the quick release plate seemed to be broken. I tested it for a minute and I thought it seemed sturdy enough so I attached my camera. I tilted the head slighty and the camera immediately feel off into the stream.
I quickly pulled it out and took a shoot to ensure it worked and it seemed ok just water over the lens and body.
I used anything I could to dry it off but after that it would not register any aperture from any lens I had, so I packed up and went home.
When I got home, I opened up every thing I could and dryed everything I could see in the body with swabs but the viewfinder seems to have alot of water.
I put the camera in the hotpress over night and this morning the aperture works but it makes a clicking sound when changing aperture. But now, the autofocus mechanism does not work and viewfinder is too fogged up to see anything through it, there is probably too much water in it.
I have left it this moring, sitting on a well folded up towel sitting on a radiator to help it dry out.Has anybody got any advice on what I should do to salvage it? It is out of warranty but it’s had a good life span so far at 31k cycles over 15 months
Canon have said to send it to one of their repair centres.Thanks
DarraghOh dear. You have my sympathy. This story was almost too painful to read. I think sending it off to Canon is really all you can do.
I doubt it would have made much difference in the circs, but I’d have whipped the batteries out pronto, on the basis that water and electricity don’t mix well. I wouldn’t have tried them again tell it was bone dry inside and out.
I also have a habit of keeping the strap of the camera round my neck when it’s on the tripod because I once knocked my tripod over and clattered a lens against a rock. I was lucky as no optical damage resulted, but it made me realise how unsteady tripods can be on very uneven ground.
Horror story.
as Billy Bragg once wrote-
“the laws of gravity are very very strict”Good luck with the fix, and on the plus side, at least you’ve had a lot of use with the camera-
time to re-think about insurance, where is that thread from last week-
My camera is now with Image Supply Systems to be sent off to the UK for repair, hopefully.
Well, at least I can use my girlfriend’s 350D for a few weeks til mine is repaired.
To help me console myself, I bought a Manfrotto 190 tripod with a Ball Head to replace the Silk 500-DX tripod
which is at the centre of this little episode.2 narrow escapes..
While crrossing a stream in Iceland I dropped a borrowed camera into the water. Whipped it out and dried it off and it worked perfectly so never confess to the owner.
Reason: it was a Kodak Instamatic.
During the summer I stopped the car, grabbed the Canon S1 IS and got ready for a shot, when suddenly the neckstrap worked loose. I just managed to foil an expensive encounter with the tarmac. Since then I’m paranoid about checking the strap.Well I will try to say what is best to do in situations like this, from my experience:
When any electronic device falls in water (not salty – against salty water there is very little you can do) what you should do is take off it’s bateries immediatly, don’t test it to see if it works for as light as the damage may be, pack up and go home.
If the water is very little and seems to be only a few dropplets here and there you might wan’t to try and open the device (beware that you loose any insurance or warranty by doing this) and try and dry off all the electrical components that you can touch with a clean paper tissue (please dont try to dry a Camera’s Sensor) on places you can’t touch or access is not easy you can get a hair dryer (on it’s lowest heat setting) and blow the device for a good while. There are lubricant sprays for electronics, if you can get a hold of these you can try and use it on the circuit board and electronic components to prevent corrosion.
If the water damage is extensive your best bet is to send the device into a authorized dealer for service, you can still try the previous but it’s likelly that it won’t help anyway.
This is just from my experience with electronics, and I don’t guarantee this will work, do it at your own risk.
Hope it helps if anyone gets in the same situation.
Regards,
Rod
Oh dear – not a very pleasant experience at all!
No point in saying what you should (or could) have done as that’s water under the bridge now (pardon the deliberate pun!). Besides, there’s little one can do in situations of total immersion in water really.
I would imagine that the likely repair bill would easily be more than half the value of the camera itself, so the camera will have to be written off, but make sure you get this in writing then submit an insurance claim. There’s not a lot that can be repaired in modern devices these days as they are all modular and you’ll probably find that you’ll get a quotation for the repair along the lines of a few circuit board modules having to be replaced possibly along with the sensor and maybe the shutter (if you tried to fire it while wet).
Its proabaly best to send it back for repair or look for a secondhand 350d as the repairs might cost around the same, if not more. You could also let it dry out for a few days and see how it recovers, the autofocus screw could have been pushed back into its socket and latched in there during cleaning, you should see a little round hole on the metal lens mount on the camera, inside this the AF screw may be sitting inside and should pop back out if you prod it gently with a pin.
I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but I enjoyed your story in the same way that I enjoy “You’ve been framed”.
I know that it’s only a matter of time before it happens to me and that’s why I don’t use a 1DS markII. I have yet to see a 1DS user in the sea up to the top of his wellies with his tripod blancing on three rocks above the waves.
But to fair, I seriously hope that you get your camera sorted and it lives long enough to be dropped in another river in the future. Let us not forget that the camera is just the tool. If your gear isn’t getting wrecked then you just aren’t trying hard enough.
Just don’t drop your images in the river. Even I wouldn’t be as heartless to laugh at that.
Andy
Darragh.. very sorry for your loss :(
Rodcunha wrote:
When any electronic device falls in water (not salty – against salty water there is very little you can do) what you should do is take off it’s bateries immediatly, don’t test it to see if it works for as light as the damage may be, pack up and go home.
This is the key bit of advice for any mobile electronics device submereged in water. Get the battery out of the device quick!!! Hind sight is a wonderful thing.
I got some good news today from Canon. They said they can repair the damage. So hopefully I should have my camera back next week.
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