Causes of flooding (of camera)

[diediealsomustdive]

Mine was historical, a long time ago, when I had the Nikonos V. Someone played with it on the boat and did not fix the lens back properly...

Later I lost a Sea & Sea MXII when at depth I got stung by hydroid, unconsciously release the camera and it floated away...

I am on my fourth camera with housing, 3rd one retired due to pixel count, sold the housing to a newbie. Just bought my fifth camera with housing for my daughter to use.

Kthan you recently flooded your camera, share your experience le...

 

[kthan]

Mine was historical, a long time ago, when I had the Nikonos V. Someone played with it on the boat and did not fix the lens back properly...

Later I lost a Sea & Sea MXII when at depth I got stung by hydroid, unconsciously release the camera and it floated away...

I am on my fourth camera with housing, 3rd one retired due to pixel count, sold the housing to a newbie. Just bought my fifth camera with housing for my daughter to use.

Kthan you recently flooded your camera, share your experience le...

i suspect it is the 0-ring on the port that did me in.....but that is my suspicion. Also flooded my syn cord last week and see noticeable corrosion on one of the syn cord connector pins on the housing and 1 strobe

see, i told u the pain is bearable after the first flood. didn't feel a thing there....

OUCH!

 

[camerashy]

Huh, my camera when released, sink-leh. Where got bouyancy?

Some thoughts on how to save a camera which is flooding and you are maybe 4-5m down. If you have one of those acryllic plastic housing which are very buoyant, release the camera. It will shoot to the surface a lot faster than you can carry it up. Once the majority of the camera is above the water, and the pressure of the sea is released, no more flooding should occur. This ought to also work at depth, however in my experience, below 10m, the camera almost never floods because the pressure from the water pushes the O-ring against the housing making a tighter seal. But if you look at your housing and you see a little puddle of water in your housing, you can also release the camera and then follow it up gradually without risking getting DCS.
FYI + disclaimer: I've never done this, it's just a thought that occured to me after I flooded and lost my first my first camera (the 3040), on how I might have saved it...

 

[diediealsomustdive]

Huh, my camera when released, sink-leh. Where got bouyancy?

Personally for practical purposes I like cameras that are neutrally bouyant, or slightly negatively bouyant. Perhaps that's why Oly includes a weight to make the housing more or less neutrally bouyant.

Forgot to add that I actually lost my fourth camera due to carelessness during night dive entry, but the water was so still that the boat man managed to scoop it up from the surface. Narrow escape.

Now you can do that only with bouyant camera housing, hmm....

 

[lovells19]

wah.. can i dive around u diediealsomustdive? can pick up camera sometimes leh!

get a landyard to secure the camera urself, a stainlesssteel clip for extra secure, preferably i would not jump in the water with the camera, usually i swim back to get from the boat man, the impact when u jump into the water is rather great, suey suey ur housing snap open.. OMG!

mine flood due to my oversight, for using a overstretched Oring, caused by using the wrong type of grease. then lastly it was a night dive, and i didn't check the Orings.. heart pain.. my first camera ok.. now become paperweight.

I use my set up as a weight

 

[diediealsomustdive]

I lun oledi, la. Now got 2 cameras some more, 1 with my daughter. But I promise not to let my camera float ever, cause now my cameras sink... Better not let go near walls, they go real deep fast.

 

[Blu-By-U]

Reading all these..what about the waterproof cameras? Using one of these with a UW casing, will it increase the chances of survival if flooding occurs?

 

[lovells19]

well they would probably survive if your housing just leaked and not fully flooded.

But there's a catch.. they are not very good IMO lah.. lousy battery life, bad colors, slow focusing, long shutter langs, bad marco, weak flash, slow charge, blah blah blah

well they make fantastic snorkling cameras though..

get a better housing.. chances of leak is much much lower

 

[Zippsy]

uh oh. I always jump in the water with my camera held over my head. It doesn't even get wet as my BCD is partially inflated. So far no problems but I notice three people had floods.

*knocking knocking knocking knocking knocking* on wood

 

[seewhy]

uh oh. I always jump in the water with my camera held over my head. It doesn't even get wet as my BCD is partially inflated. So far no problems but I notice three people had floods.

*knocking knocking knocking knocking knocking* on wood

Maybe they were doing negative entry and fully deflated their BCD. Once you go straight into the water and notice the flood it will all be too late.

Now, with 1 hand holding the camera over your head and just one other hand for holding mask and weight belt, which 1 are you holding? Or is it some other dangling bits?

 

[cool_7]

Added mine into the "obituary" poll. It was an Oly. Happened in one of the recent trip, during the boat trasfer from the LOB to the divesite. Due the the base screw loosen, the housing was slipped from from my hand and hit the boat floor. The knock actually broke the uw TTL cable knob on the housing. I thought it was still ok, as it was just less than 1ft of gravity impact. Not realised the TTL cap broke as that was a night dive.

At 6m, it was still functioning. The next moment at 10m, I realised that the housing was filled up with sea water!! Nothing can be done..... The greater pressure at 10m caused the inner TTL connector to break. Water just flushed in through the 1 cm diameter hole on top on th housing.

Upon decent at the end of the dive, the boat man told me he found a red TTL screw cap on the transfer boat, he asked if that belongs to me .... :cry:

Seewhy...after hearing my story about your current model... kindly reconsider to upgarde. That will be a great "solace" to me...

 

[Zippsy]

Now, with 1 hand holding the camera over your head and just one other hand for holding mask and weight belt, which 1 are you holding? Or is it some other dangling bits?

I gave up weight belts years ago. If I need a weight to throw at a student, I ususally put it in a weight pocket on the back of my BCD. ;p

 

[seewhy]

Seewhy...after hearing my story about your current model... kindly reconsider to upgarde. That will be a great "solace" to me...

I already have 1 paper weight. I will take better care of my camera and housing. Hopefully it will not be another flood that kills it.

O-rings are still the most probable cause of flooding. So remember to clean and maintain all o-rings, change them when necessary. Also take care when handling your wet and slippery housing.