RunningBrave
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 p.11 #2 · 5DII failures on LL Antarctic trip | |
Very interesting thread - lots of info (and anecdotes) to digest and consider. I'll add a few of my own here:
1) as noted above, many 5DII's are out there working just fine in the dead of winter, so it's not simply a "cold" issue. I happily use mine (as well as my 40D and 50D) in temperatures down into the -35C range without any camera difficulty. Freeze my fingers off, mind you, but no camera issues other than batteries that don't last as long as at room temperature. I admit that I don't always even protect against condensation, and still (knock on wood) no issues whatsoever. Probably have shot upwards of 10,000 frames on those cameras in sub-freezing weather by now. Mind you, "it's a dry cold"....
2) There was mention of the conditions not being much different than weddings in London or New York (or various other places). That may be true for the air temperature and precipitation factors, but I'll hazard a guess that very few weddings involve a scramble into a Zodiac from a ship, motoring ashore across a frigid salty and choppy bay, and then a second scramble ashore from there. Salt water tracks everywhere. If you've touched the boarding ladder or grabbed a rope, either with gloves on or without, then you've got salt on you. Touching your camera after that continues to spread the salt around, and in my experience, brine and electronics do not play well together. Before my last career change, I skippered a 52-foot schooner a fair bit in the North Atlantic, and I will say that we certainly had to be careful, even with "Marine-grade" electronics, with salt spray. And if the electronics were only listed as "Waterproof" (and not Marine grade), they often failed eventually. Weather-proof or weather-resistant simply just doesn't cut it in a marine environment - if you use it long enough in those conditions, it will fail. Admittedly, as a 5DII owner I would hope that "long enough" would have been longer than a few hours or a few days, but you never know....
3) my mother, aunt, and uncle recently came back from an Antarctic trip with a group of friends. They are not avid photographers, and judging by their photos and EXIF data, their entire group was using simple P&S cameras (Panasonic Lumix, Nikon Coolpix, and Canon Powershots). Apparently not a single failure among them, despite similar weather conditions (within a few degrees of freezing every day, with snow, sleet and/or rain depending on the temperature). None of them did anything like protecting their camera from condensation, none of them used rain covers, and none of them changed lenses (obviously). I wonder how much of a factor those things have as well, especially the anti-condensation measures and lens changes.
Overall, I agree it's important to discuss the issue to help other owners stay out of trouble and identify situations/measures to avoid, and hopefully "encourage" Canon to improve on future bodies. But I've bought my camera already, and it continues to have abilities that far exceed those of the person holding it. It does what it says it is supposed to do, and even goes well beyond the specified operating temperatures in my circumstances. If it could also handle marine environments for extended periods, that would be an awesome (and rather remarkable) capability, but happily that's not what I bought it for.
My $0.02.
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.. like the "spontaneous cracking" of the LCD. Beam me up Scotty.