Ouch! Major flood of my D300!

[Larry C]

Dropped down for a beautiful dive in stunning blue water in Carmel Saturday. Took my first picture to test my settings-a little dark, reset the aperture. Went to take my second picture and "Oh crud! (expletive deleted) Why is there a bubble in my viewfinder? Tapped my buddy on the shoulder, turned the housing dome down-mini dome, dammit! Started ascent as I watched the dome slowly fill with water...higher, higher, 10-17 fully immersed. As we got to the surface (dive was 100'+fsw) I handed off the housing and pulled my fins. A stream of bubbles seemed to be coming out of the button that I press to allow changing from single shot to high speed multiple. Got it in the boat, pulled the camera and dumped the water from the housing, pulled the battery, headed back to Monterey through bumpy, windblown waters and headed straight to Backscatter. A quick pressure test passed, but it's dropped off for service and I'll be without it until June 1 or so. I guess I get to play with my new old F100 film set-up.
Miraculously, the camera shows no signs of damage. I used some contact cleaner to clean the beginnings of salt corrosion off the edge of the lens contact area and poured clean bottled water around the front of the lens to get as much salt off as possible. After drying out, there's no apparent damage to camera or lens and both function. Wow. Nice to have that weather sealed D300 body, not one of the cheapie plastic models. Hats off to Tokina for building a tank of a lens. We'll see in a few weeks if everything still functions properly. Fingers crossed.

 

[Tigerman]

Is it insured? Cause if its flooded and you have to clean contacts thats started to corrode.. It'd probably be better to just use said insurance and have the camera replaced..

 

[muzikbiz22]

Holy "crud", Larry. Well, glad to hear that everything "seems okay". I fear that day, and can't imagine what it's like to be on a dive, and then go to fire off your first shot of the day, then discover you're holding 5k$ to 10k$ worth of "wet paperweight". Glad to hear the Tokina seems unaffected, as well. And I/we have to ask, did you dunk test before dive, check everything, etc ?? Anything out of the ordinary ?

 

[Larry C]

I had some moisture in the housing after my last dive day, which I attributed to pulling the camera to shoot whales on our way back to the dock. I dried it and soaked it in the sink for an hour and it was perfect, but I swapped from my macro port to my mini dome in the parking lot, and the mini dome loosened a bit from the adapter, so I had to retighten it. (I use a Bare port with a Nexus to Sea & Sea adapter and the Nexus port is threaded.) I thought perhaps the o-ring bound when I re-tightened it, but the bubbles seemed to be coming from the unlock button for the Live View/Single/Multi shot adjustment. It's been a little sticky for a while, so there may have been corrosion on the pin that damaged the o-ring or something. I dropped it off and they'll do the full annual service and fix whatever is broken, so at least when I get it back it should be nice and fresh. This is the first time I've ever flooded a housing. I've had minor leaks before, but nothing big. Strobes, don't ask.

 

[Starcruiser]

Must be the week for leaks.... mine wasn't the high-end rig yours is, but same scenario. Dropped in to a spot I'd never been to, popped off two shots and saw the red 'low battery light go on. 'Duh, should have checked before I got in' thought I. Swam around a bit , went to take another shot and saw half the housing full of fresh water. Now, new camera, or try to salvage the old? Leaning toward a new camera and new housing.

 

[Searcaigh]

Hi Larry,

Sorry to hear about your experience as I use virtually the same set up with camera and housing.

Only housing flood I have had was with my D70 + 60mm but I managed to get back to the surface before it got too serious and nothing was damaged.

I hope everything will be fine

 

[PatW]

Wow. That was a really close call.

 

[Equinox Housings]

Well I hope that everything keeps working well for you. If this ever happens to anyone we always suggest to place it in a baggy of dry rice as soon as possible. I had a friend flood a housing on a trip once by leaving a wire in the way of an o-ring, and he was able to stop any corrosion with this trick. It works pretty well if you catch it in time. Glad to hear everything is still operational though.

 

[Larry C]

Double ouch. Housing needs new hot shoe leads, new pc board, new sync ports and inners, o-ring kit and annual service labor of $450. $269 parts + tax = $780, if the camera and lens are OK.

 

[Gilligan]