I took my camera, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my L glass in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought it down
Like you said, I think you are over-thinking this; mine has been in morning fog (regularly), oceanside (occasionally), mist (often), and rain (a few times). Don't dunk it, keep a plastic bag or two handy for cover, and a towel for wiping it down...mine has ridden many river and lake miles in my lap in the kayak with a hand towel over it - no problem. It's hardier than you think, just think a little...
wickerprints wrote:
I took my camera, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my L glass in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought it down
My 5D2 stopped working after getting wet in a mist from a waterfall. After drying out for about 6 hours, it worked fine again. I now use a weather jacket whenever I shoot in the rain or sleet. Shooting in snow, especially when it is really cold is not an issue as the snow does not melt on the camera, just falls off.
I got 5 days of light rain, and didn't bother to use the rain sleeves. Both 5DIIs got misted upon, and still worked perfectly.
I went to Costa Rica 3 weeks ago. I got 8 continuous days of 24 hour per day rain, including light mist, rain, heavy rain, and absolute cloudbursts. I used the rain sleeves every day. I was cupping the foot of a 300 F4, and so much rain was pouring off of the rain sleeve, that my hand would fill with water, I'd dump it and 10 seconds later, it would fill again. The rain was coming down so hard that it was impossible to hear any sounds of wildlife. Being out in a boat on the canals in that weather was ridiculous. I had no problems with either 5DII.
I don't think it is possible to encounter any worst condition than this, short of scuba diving.
And I don't think any unprotected camera, including Canon series 1, would continue to work under these conditions, as some series 1 owners have discovered, to their dismay. Series I is more weather resistant; they are not water proof.
So the 5DII will survive light mists, and you can always use a $3 rain sleeve (or a free grocery bag) when conditions get terrible.
chez wrote:
My 5D2 stopped working after getting wet in a mist from a waterfall. After drying out for about 6 hours, it worked fine again. I now use a weather jacket whenever I shoot in the rain or sleet. Shooting in snow, especially when it is really cold is not an issue as the snow does not melt on the camera, just falls off.
Ouch! I was a little worried about that but lucked out as I've shoot in plenty of waterfall mist and light rain. Many of the waterfall shots in my gallery required wiping off the front element after every shot!
You might check over on Luminous Landscape. I seem to recall they had a review of the 5D2 performance on a trip to Antarctica not long after the body was released, and a number of the bodies encountered the same issues as chez reports. My understanding is that it is not as weather resistant as the 1 Series bodies.
David_Manning wrote:
Thanks for the reply Todd. Pretty basic common sense, I guess.
During my Google search, I came across an over-two year old thread at DP Review about 5DmkII failures in Antarctica. I'm trying to read between the lines (there is a lot of emotion on that particular thread). I won't be trampling through the rain forests of Borneo, but I see a variety of conditions. In fact, later this summer here in Texas I worried about the mkII in the 109F heat (the black body got very hot while shooting outdoors). Nothing bad happened, but it didn't stop me from worrying. I won't even mention the dust involved.
Soon it will be sleet/ice pellet/snow season in North Texas, and that stuff melts into water immediately after landing on the camera. Trying to be prepared...the idea of a fair-weather camera is a total waste......Show more →
That story is a one-time thing and not much can be extrapolated from it. If the 5D2 really had a significant and unusual issue with cold or wet weather performance you'd be reading a lot more than this one old story.
The 5D2 is not weather sealed. If you want a sealed body you are looking at a 1-series camera. However, the non-sealed 5D2 works pretty well in a wide range of circumstance - I regularly use mine in ocean spray, deserts, light rain (with care), some snow, etc.
Deborah Kolt wrote:
You might check over on Luminous Landscape. I seem to recall they had a review of the 5D2 performance on a trip to Antarctica not long after the body was released, and a number of the bodies encountered the same issues as chez reports. My understanding is that it is not as weather resistant as the 1 Series bodies.
It is something with how the cameras are handled on that trip. The previous year they killed an even higher percentage of 1 series cameras.
Me, I shoot the 5DMK2 and 1 series the same. In both cases I try to cover up the body a plastic bag when it rains.
I think all those 5D2s that died during that LuLa trip were gripped and the owners may not have taken precautions to prevent condensation when taking a cold camera indoors.
I took my 5dm2 to Antarctica in 2009, shortly after the luminous-landscape crew came back with all the failures. We had good weather but riding in the Zodiacs, we got a bit of salt water spray. My camera survived that and even dropped it from extended tripod height with 100-400 attached, still working
The big test was in the Amazon rain forest earlier this year. 90% humidity and temperatures around 100f and rain every evening.
I was there for 4 days, shooting in the rain, fog, from a dugout canoe.. The only problem I had was the control stick stopped functioning. I had to use the wheel to select the AF point, but everything else was working fine. The control stick started working again once I got back to Quito.
I did use an Optech sleeve when it rained, but that doesn't help with the humidity.
The camera has NO weather sealing, only dust seals.
There are a lot of anecdotes about people shooting in various conditions and the camera surviving. I've disassembled a 5D.2 and it has no weather sealing, only dust seals as someone else pointed out.
h00ligan wrote:
Think about condensation too, look up how to deal with that when coming into warm from cold.
For what it's worth, I'm really amazed my old 5Dc held up to some REALLY bad condensation when I went on vacation.
I was in Aruba and brought my camera gear. Our hotel room was kept at a nice and cool 72 degrees, while right outside our door it was 90 degrees and about 90% humidity. The first few days before I kept all the camera gear outside on the balcony the rest of the vacation, I'd go outside with the "cold" camera and it would instantly start sweating, and I'm talking big beads of water forming all over the camera, plus the lens would fog up for a good half hour until it was fully warmed up. But I can't imagine the amount of condensation that was inside the camera body. I ended up using it for another 1.5 years before I sold it and got the 5D2. Never had any problems with it. I was fully expecting to send it in to Canon at some point.
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