My nice Cannon Digital Camera (cannon reble EOS) got wet thanks to a brand new camelback that just had to leak during a ski tour the other day. The main camera body is fine...however the lenses (standard short lens and telephoto) are in deep trouble. I got them sitting in a bag of rice right now....any tips on what else I should do? How long should I let them sit in the rice?

Inkleys wanted $300+ to fix the lenes.....for this college guy that is out of the buget. ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!

Twins, just saw this in a photography forum ...

"... Condensation on the inside is potentially a big deal. It can lead to fungus, and the cost of taking it apart, cleaning and drying it, aligning everything, and reassembling it can be more than the lens is worth.

Also, the circuit boards in the lens are not waterproof (e.g., where the pins go into the chips there is no sealant), so they may eventually fail if there has been water in the lens.

Canon would not repair a very expensive lens of mine that fell into a lake (!) for that reason, even though it worked and did not have too much visible moisture in the lens."

Think you're just supposed to pack it in rice overnight ...

I hate to sound negative, but your chances of fixing it without expert assistance are not good.

Even if you were to succeed in dehydrating the interior of the lens assembly, you still could have tiny watermarks on the interior of the lens surfaces.

I guess I wouldn't try operating the electronics until I was totally sure that all moisture was removed.

Best of luck, and may The Force be with you ...

Just wonderin'

Would the manufacturer/retailer of the camelback accept any liability for "collateral damage"?

dude.bummer.

I dried my iPod out on th edash, but I'm not sure I'd do that with a nice set of glass. Are they IS lenses?

dadndave wrote:Just wonderin'

Would the manufacturer/retailer of the camelback accept any liability for "collateral damage"?

Not sure...but considering it was a very expensive camelback.....they OUGHTA. I swear those things leak no matter how much $$$$ you put into them.

butitsadryheat wrote:dude.bummer.

I dried my iPod out on th edash, but I'm not sure I'd do that with a nice set of glass. Are they IS lenses?

Yes they are....the 18-55mm lens will take a photo...but the camera reads, "connection between camera and lens is faulty" and nothing is recorded on the SD card.

The telephoto lens will take a picture...but it is foggy.

The guy at Inkleys tried throwing on a new lens and it took some pictures no problem.

Don't turn it on any more. The electronics will be shorting big time.

The way I see it, you have a very faint chance, so don't make matters worse.

Hey, do you know anyone that runs a shoe shop or something like that? I'm thinking that a good way to dehyrate the lenses might be to get a fistful of those moisture-absorbent sachets and pack the lenses with them into a reasonably airtight container (a shoe box?) for a few weeks. I still think it's a slim chance, because of the risk of watermarks, but, you never know, if the water was clean enough and didn't pick up crap on its journey between the camelback and the lenses in yer pack, who knows?

Good luck. It's one of the laws of the cosmos that this shit happens to you when youcan least afford.

On a brighter note, You've got some nice shots linked to yer profile page, ol' son.

Might have to try the shoe box theory. Luckily I do have another camera...but it is not nearly as nice...and it does not take shots as quickly.

+1 to shit happes when you can least afffort it.

My Uncle is a professional photographer so he might have some spare lenses....time to cross my fingers and hope.

I ruined a compact digital camera (Olympus something or other) in 2004 because I sweated into it. Sweat is significantly more conductive than water due to all the sodium and I just shorted the dang thing out. Attempts at dehydration were unsuccessful. At least I was able to get the photos out of it. It was a good camera!

I have a friend who dove into a lake with his IPhone in his pocket. His dad fixed it by soaking it in alcohol then in rice. It worked again.

I put my crappy, $30 phone through the washing machine for a full cycle without realizing it. When I was putting my clothes in the dryer i heard a "thud" and immediately knew I had messed up. Amazingly, after taking the battery out and leaving the phone on top of the dryer for a few days, it worked! The screen is cracked from being vigorously washed, but it has been working for a few months now with absolutely no problems. Its camera still works, too.

Pretty funny how the cheapest stuff can be so much harder to destroy than the expensive, precision equipment. LG has won me over bigtime with this phone lol

I doubt something precision like a camera lens will be able to be saved. I would go with the absorbent packets idea, and also keep it somewhere hot and dry (I won't say to put it on top of the dryer like I did, but hey, it worked)

Yeah, I had a cheap Sansdisk mpg player that went through the wash and the dryer. When I found it, there was obviously water behind the display screen and it wouldn't turn on. I set it down for several days and picked it up again and found that it worked fine and I still had my 4 gb's of music intact. Lucky me!

In the seventies, I bought a 35mm Pentax SLR film camera. It was near the bottom of their line, but still, I could barely afford it. I used for a few mountain trips and then about a month after I bought it, I had an unfortunate creek mishap and it was completely submerged. I was so sickened. I knew I could never afford to replace it. When I opened the film compartment, it was full of orange water (from the film) that stained the inside of the camera. It was now dead weight and I was early in a week-plus trip. I spun it around my head and very nearly let it fly into the nearby river. But, I'm not a litterbug, so I kept it.

That evening in camp I took a clean bandanna, and wiped it out as best as I could. I cocked and tripped the shutter dozens and dozens of times at every speed. More water drops would appear on various moving parts in the film compartment and I would diligently wipe them off. The next day I continued the routine in the warm sunshine. Cocking, tripping, and wiping. The water drops eventually stopped appearing and I decided to load a roll of film into it and start using it. I continued to use it for the rest of the trip- not knowing if it was really working or not. I would have to wait for the film to be processed to make that assessment. The pictures turned out to be fine (except for my own lack of talent ) and I continued to use that camera quite frequently for another seven years. Again, lucky me!

UPDATE

I was able to pull off some pictures with the telephoto lens....no problems, water stains, ect....

The IS 18mm-55mm lens is still not working.

Thank god the main camera body is ok.

Thanks for the help everyone!