Years ago, the Pentax rep for Alberta came by our store to tell us about his merchandise. To demonstrate the "splash proof" sealing of the Pentax bodies, he took a K10, placed it in a large tupperware container and poured a whole jug of water over it.

I've always wondered (but never had the guts to test) - how much water can these things actually resist? I've been out in pouring rain plenty of times with no problems, but I've never really pushed it.

They're not officially "waterproof". If I gently and shallowly submerged my k10 into some water, would the seals fail to hold? Has anyone tried these sorts of things with a k10/k20/k200? What are the actual limits of the sealing?

You'd probably be OK for a brief, shallow submersion with a K10/K20 but not with the K200 (whose sealing is somewhat lighter). They're very well sealed cameras (the only other cameras with similar sealing are the Oly E-1 and E-3) and can take some pretty severe wetting, but they aren't actually waterproof.

Splash fine, submersion bad.

Submersion is totally different than splashed water. Constant pressure will push stuff through seals eventually. I've used mine near waterfalls and in dusty canyons and in heavy snow w/o problems.

I wish Canon made a 5D with that kind of sealing.

Astragony wrote:
I wish Canon made a 5D with that kind of sealing.

I wish the Canon made a 1D with that kind of sealing.

Both the K10D/K20D and E-1/E-3 are sealed significantly better than a 1-series or single digit Nikon. Ditto for Pentax's and Olympus's sealed lenses.

Both the K10D/K20D and E-1/E-3 are sealed significantly better than a 1-series or single digit Nikon. Ditto for Pentax's and Olympus's sealed lenses.

I am really curious. I am not asking you this with ill-intentions but I have seen this topic coming up over and over and I havent found any reasonable demonstration other than marketing pamphlets. So here are the questions: how do you know that? did somebody actually try them all on similar conditions and get them fail?

Check out this Olympus thread, particularly the remarks about an E3 being completely submerged in salt water and the user simply rinsing it in running water to clean. Not sure nor have I read of any Nikon or Canon pro series camera that could withstand that with no ill effects. Would love also to hear of success stories like these for Canon and Nikon.

http://forum.fourthirdsphoto.com/showthread.php?t=41432

Javier Munoz wrote:

Both the K10D/K20D and E-1/E-3 are sealed significantly better than a 1-series or single digit Nikon. Ditto for Pentax's and Olympus's sealed lenses.

I am really curious. I am not asking you this with ill-intentions but I have seen this topic coming up over and over and I havent found any reasonable demonstration other than marketing pamphlets. So here are the questions: how do you know that? did somebody actually try them all on similar conditions and get them fail?

There's JIS ratings for sealing which affects how the bodies can be marketed. Both the Pentax and Olympus sealed bodies are rated splashproof (and thus can be marketed as such), the Canon, Nikon and Sony bodies have not achieved this rating and are simply marketed as having weather sealing.

mawz wrote:
There's JIS ratings for sealing which affects how the bodies can be marketed. Both the Pentax and Olympus sealed bodies are rated splashproof (and thus can be marketed as such), the Canon, Nikon and Sony bodies have not achieved this rating and are simply marketed as having weather sealing.

Well that's really fascinating. I had no idea it was done this way.

Oooh. I can't wait for the Pentax K7. Then I'll put my K10 through some tests

Thanks for the info.

Just remember the weathersealing is incomplete unless you have a weather sealed lens on the body as well. This was a sore point for me for a while. However, it seems that Pentax is finally releasing weather sealed lenses that are relatively affordable (smc PENTAX DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 AL WR & smc PENTAX DA 50-200mm F4-5.6 ED WR). I just want to know how good the optics are in these. Prior to this I believe that only the DA* series had the matching full weather sealing, and the DA 17-70 had a seal at the mount.

Astragony wrote:
I wish Canon made a 5D with that kind of sealing.
They did, it's called the D700.

TWoK wrote:
Astragony wrote:
I wish Canon made a 5D with that kind of sealing.
They did, it's called the D700.

While the D700 has much better sealing than the 5DmII, it's not even close to the level provided by the sealed Pentax's. In particular the card and battery doors are essentially unsealed on the D700.

Of Nikon's products only the Nikonos rangefinders can match (and actually far exceed) the sealing of a K10D or K20D.

That said, you'd have to be in pretty severe conditions to find out the difference between the D700's sealing and the K20D's. The only advantage to the Pentax in most situations is confidence, you know its sealing is up to heavy rain and such, while the Nikon can probably handle it, you can't be 100% sure.

mawz wrote:
TWoK wrote:
Astragony wrote:
I wish Canon made a 5D with that kind of sealing.
They did, it's called the D700.

While the D700 has much better sealing than the 5DmII, it's not even close to the level provided by the sealed Pentax's. In particular the card and battery doors are essentially unsealed on the D700.

Of Nikon's products only the Nikonos rangefinders can match (and actually far exceed) the sealing of a K10D or K20D.

That said, you'd have to be in pretty severe conditions to find out the difference between the D700's sealing and the K20D's. The only advantage to the Pentax in most situations is confidence, you know its sealing is up to heavy rain and such, while the Nikon can probably handle it, you can't be 100% sure.

The battery door has a rubber gasket and I agree the CF card door is a weak link, but it still has a neoprene/rubber-like gasket which has held back plenty of rain in the hand-full of downpours I've used it in. I get that the K1/20Ds have better sealing, but I am so tired of everyone's feature wish-list for a 5D being exactly what the D700 delivers minus a shorter register and a more girthy mount.

TWoK wrote:
The battery door has a rubber gasket and I agree the CF card door is a weak link, but it still has a neoprene/rubber-like gasket which has held back plenty of rain in the hand-full of downpours I've used it in. I get that the K1/20Ds have better sealing, but I am so tired of everyone's feature wish-list for a 5D being exactly what the D700 delivers minus a shorter register and a more girthy mount.

Oh, I definitely agree with you on that. My D300 survived plenty of rain and I do agree on the 'wanting the 5D to be a D700 in EF mount' thing.

Having fried a D100 in shooting white water kayaking close to a play hole, I will attest to the need for better sealing for some applications. Downpours are one thing, a big gulp of water hitting the camera from the front or bottom is quite another.
I remember someone quoting CANON in saying that the weather sealing has been designed for typical vertical rain application and not sudden lateral splashes -made sense given my experience on this.

I also went through the same situation later on with my 1D, which, by the way survived the splash with no problems. The SIGMA 80-200 was another story though

I went and looked at the K-7 yesterday. The battery door sealing is no better than the D700.

My D700 was completely submerged today ... I flipped in a canoe near the shore... my wife had my camera and went to grab for the kids who were with me... so obviously she didn't care that my D700 was completely dipped into the water... the lens was toast.. full of water (unsealed kit lens)... but the body is fine... I just dried it off and opened all the ports, doors etc... left it in the sun... works just fine...

WOW, that is a pretty amazing story. What kit lens are you talking about?

Don't know about total submersion but I did do a session with my K7 and two weathersealed lenses last week in a pretty heavy thunderstorm and after a couple of hours camera/lens were drenched but to no ill effect

TWoK wrote:
WOW, that is a pretty amazing story. What kit lens are you talking about?

It was a Nikon 24-120 VR lens... It's in the sun as we speak... finally dried the water out of it... have not tried it yet.. but the internal optics are covered in spots...

THe camera itself was fine a few minutes after the incident... but i decided to wait a while before powering it up...

Send that lens off to Nikon ASAP.

WOW - you will not believe this but the 24-120 lens was still fully functional after drying. It focuses and the VR works. I decided to sell it though since it has dried water spots on the inside. Insurance hooked me up and I now have a new copy of the lens...

you mean a video of a guy washing his 40D under a faucet with a toothbrush after every shooting session because of the huge amount of stuff that got onto the camera. this was an article a few months back in Pop Photo shooting some festival where they throw powder on everyone for good luck.

Herb...

Javier Munoz wrote:
I am really curious. I am not asking you this with ill-intentions but I have seen this topic coming up over and over and I havent found any reasonable demonstration other than marketing pamphlets. So here are the questions: how do you know that? did somebody actually try them all on similar conditions and get them fail?

i can tell you haven't actually used any recent single digit D series Nikon body in heavy rain. the D3 is significantly better than my K20D. a couple of the guys in the Nikon forum have shot entire sessions in rain too hard to see 10 meters without additional protection on their setups. i trust my D3 and D3X much more than my K20D even with the weatherproof lenses. the K7 might be better than the K20D but it doesn't seem like it so far. my personal experience has been shooting under heavy showers for about 4 hours with my D2X and 300/4 AF-S. until the DA * lenses came out, there was no point doing something like that with Pentax lenses because they all leaked water like a sieve.

Herb...

mawz wrote:
Of Nikon's products only the Nikonos rangefinders can match (and actually far exceed) the sealing of a K10D or K20D.