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Re: [OM] Malaysian breakdown

Subject: Re: [OM] Malaysian breakdown
From: Richard Schaetzl <Richard.Schaetzl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 23:24:38 +0200
Hello Ulf,

Ulf Westerberg had sad news:

> Upon arrival in the rainforest of Taman Negara, my OM-4 immediately began to 
> suffer from the heat and humidity. 
> At the same time the display on my OM-4Ti began to freak out, 

Had a similar experience with an OM-4 in the jungle, the camera didn't
work and started to beep (crying for help I suppose) I immediately
removed the batteries.

It occurred not immediately after arriving in the jungle, but after an
short rain downpour when the humidity reached levels above 100%, the
forest real started to steam.
Never had problems during fog or in the mountains while passing
clouds. My theory is it happened in this situation not only because
the rain added humidity to an already humid forest but more important
it cooled down significantly the enviroment, so condensation might
have happened inside of the camera.  

>  No mechanical 1/60 th either, Dead, dead, dead.

Sounds bad, I didn't tried it with my OM-4 because the Ti was still
working, but anyway problem disappeared after "drying" the camera. The
camera is still going strong, passed two CLAs without a problem (like
corrosion).


> All this happened within 24 hours. Thankfully this was at the end of the 
> trip, with only 4 days left, we had had more than 2 weeks of great thrills 
> before this, so the trip was fairly succesful, even photographically, despite 
> the Taman Negara disaster.

That's good to hear. It's usualy an disaster for an photographer when
his gear breaks down, especially on unique occasions.
 
> But, as a consequence of not only this but some other breakdowns in the past, 
> I'm in the process of changing to more heavyduty gear, ruggedness and 
> durability being the main aspects.

I would suggest an mechanical camera, they don't mind when elecricity
breaks down.

> I've had thoughts of getting a high-end Nikon...

Why not an OM-1? I'm not sure if an Nikon FM-2 deserves it to be named
"high-end", it's a little bit old and the fast shutter might be a
little bit delicate.

> ...and the flash system of Nikon is fantastic and of great use in nature 
> photography.

Are you talking of an electronic Nikon wonderbrick? I seriously
question that this cameras would behave any better than your
unfortunate OMs.

> But, I'd like to stress that if it weren't for the durability aspect,

Did you have problems before with your OMs? Jungle is a pretty extreme
climate for any camera and might kill any camera (and lens!) within
short time.


Best regards

Richard


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