How to keep a camera dry in the damp.

[Paul_Westhead]

Hi,

I have a canon 50D which I tend to use outdoors quite alot.

I was out walking the other day in the snow quite happily snapping away when the auto focus started trying to focus on it's own!

Suffice to say it has brought to my attention that the electronics obviusly don't like water!

Having dried it as best as possible outside and leaving it in a warm room for a few days the issue cleared up.. (phew)

Now obviously doing something like that again would be stupid so the question is how can I use it outdoors witout coming across the same problem?

I would like to have full use of the camera whilst outside so how can I achieve this?

Thanks for any advice

Paul

 

[SThornton]

There are some rain covers I have seen on amazon but I dunno how useful they are.

 

[Byker28i]

I've shot sports in all sorts of weather with a 50D without too many issues. Provided it's not immersed or allowed to get seriously soaked then it seems to perform well in foul weather.

At worse I've been hunkered under a fishing brolly, during light rain I used to drape a bar towel over the top of the camera and lens. I also keep a few large size freezer bags in my camera bag. You can pop the camera in and rubber band the open end around the lens hood and the camera is mostly sealed.

I also keep a couple of larger bin bags in there. Really useful for other things at times.

Which lens were you using? Some are more weather proof than others.

For drying out stuff, if you haven't desiccant bags then dried rice works

 

[Paul_Westhead]

Hi,

It was only a few large drops that had dropped out of a tree I was standing under.

I was using a Canon 17-40 F4 L lens at the time, I might try the big freezer bag trick maybe drop some silica gel in there as well to try and keep the damp out.

Being a diver I have come across gel packs you can throw in the microwave to dry them out for use at a later date.

 

[Byker28i]

Those gel packs sound handy. I'll have to look them up.

A few drops shouldn't have hurt the camera but I guess sods law says water gets in somewhere nasty at some point. I've carried on shooting in torrential weather without issues but maybe I've been lucky?

 

[footman]

I had an experience recently with a 7D. In the Ecuadorean rainforest for 4 days without problems but spent about 4 hours in a garden in Coca waiting for transport, very hot and humid.

The gear had been in a ThinkTank bag with about 10 silica gel bags but after using it for about 5 minutes in the hotel garden it went haywire and would only operate in full auto.

Hell I thought, not too good just before a Galapagos trip! Got back to Quito and it worked perfectly thank goodness.
It may have been another factor but damp/humidity was most likely.