A friend of mine was part of an expedition to South America, Peru I
believe, and had all kinds of the latest hi tech gear with him to
transmit via satellite back to the US. It was for a virtual field trip
that schools could join on the web. He said it was an almost
insurmountable problem to keep the equipment dry and unfogged. Several
of his lenses came back with severe fungus-like growth in inside, after
only about two weeks. None were OM.
Gregg
From: Richard Schaetzl
| 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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