Lens + salt water = repair ASAP

[northernone]

Good day.

Drowned my dslr lens this afternoon.

(For interest, the "xring" on the shutter lever allowed water egress at steady rate but only sacrificed the lens, body ok by the time I safely surfaced with 3 inches of water pooling in my port)

Anyone know if a local camera repair solution who could clean and reoil before the salt dehydrates.

Regards,
Cameron

Ps. Alternatively, anyone with a watchmaker's toolkit in their save a dive bag? I've been into lenses before successfully but am far from my tools.

 

[lionfish-eater]

Check with larry at cozumel scuba repair.
Larry is a highly qualified, multi talented technician.

 

[northernone]

Exactly the combination of terms I hoped to hear!

Thank you,
Just emailed him now, will drop by tomorrow morning.

Cameron

 

[lionfish-eater]

Our great staff

 

[bhalah]

Exactly the combination of terms I hoped to hear!

Thank you,
Just emailed him now, will drop by tomorrow morning.

Cameron

I hope you were you able to save your lens. It's usually game over when salt water gets into delicate things.

 

[northernone]

I hope you were you able to save your lens. It's usually game over when salt water gets into delicate things.

Unfortunately you are right. Ended up opening it with the filed tip of a steak knife and rise/dry everything (not recommended it's complicated in there) but the damage was done already for the circuitry and without proper treatment for the blades the aperture is very sticky.

It's back together as a fixed aperture manual focus lens for this extra cautious photographer.

At least I saved the body and replaced the xring. She's solid to 9 bar again.

I'll put this story out there as a warning to improper maintenance/ and accumulated poor rinse jobs (I frequently had salt dry before I could get it back into a bath)

Regards,
Cameron

 

[ggunn]

Sometimes an alcohol bath and a long drying time can bring salt water exposed electronics back to life if you act quickly. If the item is dead anyway it may be worth a shot.

 

[sunnyboy]

I had a go-pro clone flood in it's crappy case and didn't catch it until I was home rinsing the gear. Given the thing was essentially toast anyway, I just dropped it into a container of fresh water for a couple of days (changing every 12 hours or so). Then I dried it off and poured ethanol over it.(pharmacy but not rubbing alcohol which has moisturizers and other stuff in it). Then left it to dry in a warm air stream for several days.

It did come back to life 100%, but it ended up having a waterspot under the plastic lens cover when dry. I didn't feel like redoing it all with distilled water, so pulled the memory card and tossed it. As a clone it was not a real loss, but more of a "test case" to see if I could bring it back.

Lesson learned - if you flush it with water, use distilled.