Water Logged Camera

[1ADAM12]

I can't remember if I posted this but it is worth mentioning again. Last summer I was out hiking/fishing and I dropped my camera in the stream. I immediately fished the camera out. I emptied the batteries and took out my memory card right away. I did make the mistake of turning the camera on and I thought it was wrecked for sure.

So when I got home I put the camera in a zip lock bag with uncooked white rice and left it for a week. After the week’s time I fired up the camera and hey guess what.......It worked After almost a year it is still working nicely.

I just wanted to pass this tip along to anyone that has thought about throwing their camera away do to a little water damage. Hope this helps save your camera.

Adam

 

[PA Ridgerunner]

Did the rice have a metallic flavor after being in the bag with the camera?

 

[DougPaul]

I suspect that you can dry the camera equally well by opening it up and leaving it in a warm dry place with a bit of ventilation. For DSLRs, this risks getting dust on the sensor, but the sensor can be cleaned.


Edit: I'll bet the rice is rather dusty and likely to get dust in the camera. Dried on-wet dust would be harder to clean out than dry dust...

Doug

 

[MichaelJ]

Many sources recommend that you flush any immersed electronics with distilled water *before* letting them dry out. That way, anything that would dry onto the circuit boards is washed away, and the distilled water doesn't leave behind any residue.

 

[J.Dub]

I have also successfully used this trick, and I'm guessing it would likely work with any portable electronic device. In my case, it was an iPod.

Last Christmas, both my daughter (then 10) and son (then 7) received iPod Nano's as gifts. Not from me, mind you, but my wife's aunt, who doesn't have kids of her own and sometimes goes a little overboard on stuff for our kids, IMO. She's married to a guy pretty high up at Apple, so I'm guessing the Nano's were either gotten free or at a steep employee discount. Still, I wasn't of the opinion that a 7-year-old needed his own iPod.

Anyhoo, during the break b/w Christmas and New Year, I was doing laundry (being Herr Laundrimeister in our family) and as I transferred a load from the washer to the dryer, what falls on the floor but...my son's iPod! Yep, went through the whole wash-rinse-spin cycle with jeans, jammies and sweatshirts, and he hadn't had it for even a week yet!

After calling to his attention that he left his iPod is his pocket and that it got washed and was likely ruined -- with all the attendant crying and feelings of guilt that a 7-year-old can muster -- I put the iPod in a bowl of brown rice and left it on the counter to dry.

Now, being a bit of an electronics geek, I knew that it wasn't necessarily the water per se that would mess up the device, but likely that the moisture could short-out some internal components if it was powered up whilst still wet.

Well, after two weeks in the rice -- with daily, "Daddy, can we try it now?" from my son -- I figured it was probably as dry as it was gonna get, and tried turning it on...

Nothing.

My son's face fell, and his eyes started to well up. I told him not to freak out just yet, and grabbed the AC charger and plugged it in.

Bingo! Lights, sound, action...and the songs we had loaded on were still there. (No factory reset required.)

Dunno if the brown rice had anything to do with it, but it's still working a year later!

 

[Grumpy]

Adam, et al -

That’s a very interesting story. I suspect you were lucky to one degree or another, but what you did certainly was worth a try.

A high-end Nikon DSLR I was using got waterlogged one night during a football game downpour. The thing flat out quit after less than a quarter of the game, with maybe two dozen images on the memory card. With no backup available, I had to bail out and head back to the newspaper office, where I expected to tell the sports editor there probably would be no photos to go with the game story.

In the car before heading back to the office I wiped the camera down – got most of the “standing” water off it – with a dry towel, stripped the memory card out of the camera and left the card slot cover open. The camera and memory card rode back to the office on the car floor, next to a heat vent, and the lens on the passenger side seat.

Miracle of miracles! I was able to recover enough photos from the memory card to meet assignment needs. And by the time I had wrapped up for the night, the camera had dried out enough to begin functioning again. The camera stayed in service for another year before it was sent out for an overhaul.

I guess these modern cameras will take a lot more moisture abuse than we might expect. Maybe they are sealed up better than old time film cameras.

The old wisdom, in the day of mechanical cameras and film was if a camera got soaked or dunked, keep it thoroughly wet until it could be turned over to a competent repair shop. There it would be disassembled, dried, cleaned, lubed, reassembled with needed parts replacements, calibrated and come home like new.

Heavy dependence on electronics has changed the name of the game, it may be.

G.

 

[Adventurous]

Wish I knew about soaking electronics in distilled water a few years ago. I pretty much did everything wrong and killed mine 2 summers ago. I was at the beach taking pictures of the waves during a big storm. Well...one wave came over the wall and soaked me and my camera. In a brief moment of brilliance (or lack thereof) - I decided that the camera didn't look too wet so I tried to take another picture. That one picture ultimately cost me the camera.

I took it home and opened it up - after all - I couldn't do any more harm than I already did. I swabbed out the salt water and let it dry for a few days. To my surprise, it worked when I tried it a few days later - well everything except for the flash. I used it for about a month without any issues until I went to the ADK's to finish my 46. It rained all day and although my camera didn't get wet, it was not responding well to the moisture. The screen died on my second to last peak. I was quite surprised, though, to find that it had captured the picture I pretended to take of the Panther disc - my last peak.

At this point, someone told me to soak it in distilled water, which I did but it was too late. A lesson learned for the next time it happens...which I'm sure it will...also why I bought the extended warranty on my new camera

 

[DougPaul]

Miracle of miracles! I was able to recover enough photos from the memory card to meet assignment needs.

The memory card is probably more water resistant than the camera.

Heavy dependence on electronics has changed the name of the game, it may be.

Don't forget that a modern electronic camera still has many if not more moving parts than the pre-electronic cameras: motors, focusing and zoom mechanics in the lens, IS/VR, SLR mirrors, shutters...

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

I was at the beach taking pictures of the waves during a big storm.

Salt water is far more dangerous to electronics than is fresh water. (Salt water conducts electricity far better than does fresh.) And simply drying the salt water will leave salt deposits so that any later moisture will recreate the situation. (Dried salt may also freeze mechanical parts and block parts of the sensor or lens. And salt is likely to corrode some of the internal parts.)

Soda (particularly cola drinks) is also very dangerous to electronics.

Doug

 

[cbcbd]

Instead of rice you can also use silica gel packets... go to any clothes retailer and ask for some, I'm sure they'll be able to muster some.

 

[mookie]

Wish I knew about soaking electronics in distilled water a few years ago. I pretty much did everything wrong and killed mine 2 summers ago. I was at the beach taking pictures of the waves during a big storm. Well...one wave came over the wall and soaked me and my camera. In a brief moment of brilliance (or lack thereof) - I decided that the camera didn't look too wet so I tried to take another picture. That one picture ultimately cost me the camera.

I took it home and opened it up - after all - I couldn't do any more harm than I already did. I swabbed out the salt water and let it dry for a few days. To my surprise, it worked when I tried it a few days later - well everything except for the flash. I used it for about a month without any issues until I went to the ADK's to finish my 46. It rained all day and although my camera didn't get wet, it was not responding well to the moisture. The screen died on my second to last peak. I was quite surprised, though, to find that it had captured the picture I pretended to take of the Panther disc - my last peak.

At this point, someone told me to soak it in distilled water, which I did but it was too late. A lesson learned for the next time it happens...which I'm sure it will...also why I bought the extended warranty on my new camera

i wonder what would have happened if you spilled the Dr. McGilliduddy's on your camera last weekend??

 

[Waumbek]

Instead of rice you can also use silica gel packets... go to any clothes retailer and ask for some, I'm sure they'll be able to muster some.

Ask specifically for hearing aid desiccant pouches or "pillows" at a drugstore, or google them. If the desiccant turns color, indicating that it has absorbed maximum moisture, it can be micro-waved, per directions, to dry out and work again. If you're expecting a rainy backpack, the desiccant is light enough and can be carried in a ziplock that fits your camera just in case.

 

[David Metsky]

Ask specifically for hearing aid desiccant pouches or "pillows" at a drugstore, or google them. If the desiccant turns color, indicating that it has absorbed maximum moisture, it can be micro-waved, per directions, to dry out and work again. If you're expecting a rainy backpack, the desiccant is light enough and can be carried in a ziplock that fits your camera just in case.

That is wicked cool information! Thanks

 

[TrishandAlex]

This thread is wonderful. So much great info, fantastic.

 

[Viewseeker]

yes great info adam...you get green for this one

 

[Adventurous]

i wonder what would have happened if you spilled the Dr. McGilliduddy's on your camera last weekend??

It probably would have had a hard time keeping the shutter open

 

[cbcbd]

Ask specifically for hearing aid desiccant pouches or "pillows" at a drugstore, or google them. If the desiccant turns color, indicating that it has absorbed maximum moisture, it can be micro-waved, per directions, to dry out and work again. If you're expecting a rainy backpack, the desiccant is light enough and can be carried in a ziplock that fits your camera just in case.

Reusable, nice!

 

[masshysteria]

Adam, where were ya 4 years ago? I dropped my camera into the brook draining the Trap Dike, immediatly fished it out hoping the 5 second rule applied to electronics, and proceeded to turn it on. It was a gift from the Mrs., and I have only recently returned to her good graces !

 

[1ADAM12]

Adam, where were ya 4 years ago? I dropped my camera into the brook draining the Trap Dike, immediatly fished it out hoping the 5 second rule applied to electronics, and proceeded to turn it on. It was a gift from the Mrs., and I have only recently returned to her good graces !

Sorry buddy! Maybe it can help you in the future if you do something stupid like this again I know I probably will with all the fishing and backpacking I do. I love to take pics so it is bound to happen again

 

[masshysteria]

Sorry buddy! Maybe it can help you in the future if you do something stupid like this again I know I probably will with all the fishing and backpacking I do. I love to take pics so it is bound to happen again

IF I do something stupid again? Does Bigfoot go doo-doo in the woods?