"The largest group of failures [in our group of 77 photographers and instructors] were among the Canon 5D MKIIs. Of the 26 samples of this camera onboard, one quarter (six) failed at one time or another, and while three recovered, the other three never did. In all cases it appeared to be water or humidity damage. Of particular concern were two cameras which stopped working while completely protected within Kata rain covers during a light rain ashore.
"No Nikon bodies (mostly D700s) failed in any way.
"I should note that the 5D MKII's are not rated as weather resistant, but then neither are the Sony A900's. I deliberately allowed both of my A900 bodies be exposed to the rain for two days ashore to see how they would stand up. There were no operational difficulties."
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P.S. Please don't shoot the messenger: I have five Canon bodies (including 5DII) myself.
I used my 5D2 in light rain with no rain-cover while in Japan a few weeks ago. I didn't have any problems with the camera.
Also, a few times I thought my 5D2 had focusing problems when in fact my left hand index finger was hitting the depth of field button. The 5D2's depth of field button appears to be bigger and more easily triggered than before.
I'm sure these folks had some real problems with their 5D2... hopefully a common cause can be discovered and fixed.
Did MR have 26 each of A900s, D700s and D3s? Probably not.
I will say the 5DMkII body seems flimsy. The battery cover door creaks due to the bottom plate near the battery cover fitting loosely. I had to tighten a screw inside the battery compartment using a precision Phillips screw-driver. If water/moisture got in there, then it could short out the battery.
The CF cover door creaks too and I had to put electrical tape on the inside of the door so it doesn't flex with a moderately heavy lens like the 24-70.
rsg_1 wrote:
Well, its unfortunate for MR, but until we know the details of the failures, I would say the evidence of high failure is anecdotal at best.
One concerning thing is the number of anecdotal failures is unusually high, just look at the current and past threads on this forum for example
52 Camera's are Canon, 26 are 5DII's. Wonder why these failed the most
Couldn't be that a third of the people on the boat were shooting them could it? Couldn't be statistical probability here at all. A 1DSIII failed too, that's rated as weatherproof.
If you read the "What worked what didn't" article on LL some of the cameras had grips on them. Apparently the grips collect water in the rain. I just looked at mine and if that happened it looks like water would follow the grip battery shaft into the battery compartment. Also it looks like this is worse if you do not store the original battery cover properly in the slot on the grip.
"The top LCD on a 5D MKII spontaneously cracked; Another 5D MKII had a jambed on lens caused by a loose screw, a 1Ds MKIII reported intermittent problems; a 1D MKIII kept reporting Error 99;"
Err 99. What a trip that must have been for that person. I feel pretty bad about these Canons failing- it really makes you wonder how reliable these cameras really under extreme conditions. But to have no Nikon fail? That's crazy.
Well, if you say, 70% of the 23 Nikon users had the D700 (the article mentioned "most"), that makes 16 D700s. 6 out of 26 5DII's failed- that's 23%- it's impossible to work the statistics without the standard deviations.
However, the difference- 23%... compared to no failures.... that would appear to be significant.
"I don't know what conclusions should be drawn from this high percentage of 5D MKII failures. All I can do is report on the facts of the matter. As for the weather during which most of the failures happened, it was no worse than a drizzly day in winter in New York or Berlin. Nothing Antarctic about it at all."
fuzzi math