What would happen if I took a WP camera scuba below 10 ft?

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johnnythailand

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Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
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Location
San Francisco and Thailand
# of dives
200 - 499
Hey guys, I've been wondering if anyone has tested taking a OLYMPUS Stylus 550WP or OLYMPUS Stylus Tough 6000 type waterproof camera diving below the 3meters it is approved for.

What would happen if you took it down to the 18 meter-25 meter range? Would the buttons just not work or would it cause a leak? I'm pretty sure that the manufacturer just wants to cover their butts so they put a more conservative rating on it.

Any thoughts or experiences?
 
Only thoughts here, no experience:

18 meters is 6x the rated pressure. 24m is 8x. Probably gonna leak. Well beyond butt-covering range IMHO. YMMV but I doubt it will be by that much
 
Only thoughts, no experience, from me as well.

I would expect parts of the camera to crack from the pressure if teh seals don't fail. You don't save much money making a seal that only holds 5 psi instead of 100 psi. The pressure differential at 25m is going to be around 36.75 psi. The 550WP is 3.7"x2.4", so that's 326 pounds of pressure. I would expect things to crack at that much force, or at least bend more than the seals can compensate.
 
For my 770 the LCD stopped working. It still focused and took pictures in the blind. I did send it back and they fixed it. I now used the UW case.
 
My experiences with an Olympus Tough 8000 (guaranteed wp to 10m/30ft):

- Works well until about 15m/45ft...but deeper than that the zoom buttons freeze/get stuck

- At 25m/75ft I had the screen crack...leaving a black spot afterwards roughly 1cm in diameter...but the camera still worked fine when I took up to 15m/45ft and also later on the surface

Some instructor had told me that the camera could tolerate up to 50m/150ft...which I found out not to be quite true ;-)
Luckily the photo store replaced the camera at no charge...even though I did tell them how I had abused the poor thing....and of course I also bought a proper uw housing for my camera (uw housing is wp to 40m/120ft).
 
They approved it to 3 meters for a reason, anything after that and it breaks.....you buy a new camera, pretty simple.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, especially from the ones that had experiences themselves and found out the hard way before I did myself!

I'm assumed it would work to double the depth without a problem, but 25m might be an issue. I know the disposable film waterproofs work deeper, but the buttons get stuck. So some people just tied it to a string and let the camera accend to reset itself.

Hopefully they start making deeper waterproof cameras soon, but I doubt it's cost effective. At least every company is making waterproof versions now, including cannon's newest, so prices will go down.
 
Hey guys, I've been wondering if anyone has tested taking a OLYMPUS Stylus 550WP or OLYMPUS Stylus Tough 6000 type waterproof camera diving below the 3meters it is approved for.

What would happen if you took it down to the 18 meter-25 meter range? Would the buttons just not work or would it cause a leak? I'm pretty sure that the manufacturer just wants to cover their butts so they put a more conservative rating on it.

Any thoughts or experiences?

That is real easy, mostly you would need the latest new model.:rofl3:

Actually, my 770SW is supposedly rated to 30 feet, I have had it to about 70 or a bit. The buttons act weird about that depth. But, I also have the housing for it so why take a risk.

N
 
Well... I would also advise that you stick to ratings. My son saw his 790SW destroyed twice at less than 30 feet. The first was warranty replacement but we bought the 3rd rebuild for $100. I found an internet dealer in Japan who still had the housing in stock. I figured a greymarket housing was better than starting from scratch. It is on it's way back to him in Australia, so we will soon see how that does.
 
I had a diver on my boat take his new Canon D10 waterproof (rated to 10meters/33ft) down to 15 meters on three dives, and down to 19 meters (60ft) on another over two days. Worked perfectly, no leaks.
 

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