I had my camera out shooting this evening and it was a light snow. It turned into a light sleet. I used my scarf to protect my camera but didn’t feel like it was coming down hard enough to really bother my camera.
I was wrong… Though thankfully it appears to be only superficial damage.
I had to take this image with my cell phone so sorry for the quality.
At first it was just a light wavy line that covered less than a quarter of the left side of the screen and about a quarter of an inch of the bottom, making those parts lighter when viewed at the wrong angle. It is barely noticeable from head on viewing.
A couple hours later and the wavy line on the left is far less visible but the bottom quarter inch still is lit up and now I have the streaking there.
I actually had to take a shot of a blank white computer screen to make it stand out… Its only a slight change with darker images.
Am I just going to have to live with it? How could I expect it to change or get worse if its changed like that in the last couple hours?
I have a warranty but can’t find it at the moment, I’m sure it wouldn’t cover water damage.
google directs me to electronics that went for a fully submerged DUNKING. Mine was more a few drops here and there in the wrong place.
Place a cup of dry rice in a plastic bag, then put your camera in (with the batteries removed). Seal the bag well, and leave for a week. The rice should absorb water from the air, reducing the relative humidity and causing the moisture inside the LCD to evaporate. A small bay of dry silica gel will do in place of the rice, too. Just don’t disturb the rice while the camera is in there - you don’t want things getting dirty or dusty.
Don’t use rice, too much possible stuff to get in the camera mechanisms. Use desiccant packages (silica gel) that you get with electronics (or just go to a shop and ask them for some). They are much better then the rice.
Turn the camera off (although any damage was already done when you turned it on already), remove batteries and memory card. Hope for the best, but the damage is likely already done.
Whoa, guys. If you read the OP and look at the image posted, it appears that the OP has dodged the “wet electronics and lenses” bullet, and just has some superficial moisture between the LCD proper and the plastic screen. This should not affect the electronics, and on drying out should be fine - although there may be some residual effects (salts in the water that remain after it dries out).
I agree with the preference for silica gel rather than rice. However, it has to be dessicated - an old silica gel bag from when the camera was purchased won’t do - it will already be saturated with moisture and won’t dry anything out. In a chem lab, we would dry raw silica gel crystals out in an oven (they contained cobalt chloride, and turned from pink to blue as they dried out), but I would be concerned about the paper/plastic of a gel pack catching alight/melting. If you can buy them dessicated and sealed, that would be ideal.
I remember heading out with my camera (UZ2100 at the time) to look around Hong Kong. We walked out from an airconditioned hotel room into a warm, humid HK morning and into Kowloon Park. When I looked through the viewfinder, all I saw was fog - moist air was condensing due to the cold of the lenses. I was gutted, as I was concerned that even if the camera warmed up, the moisture would remain in the lens assembly. So I figured I needed to get air moving through the camera. I wrapped my mouth round the 49mm barrel, and sucked gently. After a minute, I checked, and the camera was completely clear. And (fortunately) I have never again had to give a camera a blowjob. Considering that my current camera has a bigger barrel than the UZ2100, I don’t think I could open quite that wide. :eek:
Thanks for the info… I hope that there’s enough space to get it to be pulled from via osmosis or whatever (i.e. not just a super razor thin crevice that it leaked into then further in beyond where it would be likely to get out of).
The image has… changed… I guess. Not that sharp defined damage… More like super light patchyness over most of the screen except the corners. Those three or four streaks are still there but are fare less pronounced. All in all its barely noticeable… really only when I move the camera a few inches left or right when an object or edge goes across the areas that are patchy. Still can take fine pictures without it having any real impact on how well I can tell what a shot will come out like.
I’ll go to a camera store, or, barring that, just to wal mart or something and give some stock kid a few bucks for as many of those things as they got out of recentish packages.
The issue with the tubs is the same as with the rice - the bulk material can be dusty - not good for a camera. The baggies allow moisture to be absorbed without the risk of contaminating a delicate electronic device. You could cover the tub with a couple of layers of muslin before bagging it up with the camera, though.
