Wet camera - what chance of recovery?

[kay]

I hadn't realised when I got my rucksack soaked through last Thursday that my camera was in it. I've just found it, distinctly soggy and covered in the porridge-like remains of the oatcakes that were in the same pocket. I've wiped it off, taken out battery and storage card, wiped out the battery compartment with a tissue, and it's now sitting on my back-up disc drive (the warmest thing in the house apart from the cats) with a silica gel sachet in the battery compartment. What, if any, are the chances of its eventual recovery?

 

[mikem]

Put it in a bag of rice. Good chance of recovery as long as it's not salt water.

 

[kay]

Won't the silica gel do the same job as the rice?

 

[braveduck]

Or put in cylinder cupboard for a week ,if you have one .

 

[kay]

... Good chance of recovery as long as it's not salt water.

I hope there wasn't much salt in the oatcakes 

 

[christopher]

I had the same problem earlier this year, it was a waterproof compact camera but I forgot I had it in my chest pocket and had been crawling with it ,leaning on it and generally abusing it. It was fogged up for about 4 or 5 days and I had more or less given up hope when it started clearing up, took about another 2 days until it was totally clear, just left it open with the battery out,  perfect again now

 

[braveduck]

Santa's Grotto about 6 years ago . Chap filming the crowd with video camera.
Stepped backwards and fell in the lake at the entrance (not there now)
went completely under with camera.
Year after a lady came up to me and said do you remember my husband falling
in the lake last year. I certainly did ! I asked how the camera was ,she said we
put in the cylinder cupboard for a week and it worked perfectly .
Very important you do not switch anything on before it has dried out though .
   





 

 

[mikem]

Won't the silica gel do the same job as the rice?

Yep, but it'll only remove so much before it's saturated.

 

[Fulk]

I once dropped a (film) camera in a stream and it came out full of water. I put it in an ammo box with a whole load of silica gel (~500 g) that I'd dried in the oven, and the camera dried out and worked properly. One problem with silica gel sachets is that they are so small, they have only a limited capacity to absorb water; the other problem is that you don't know whether they are dry or saturated, but the stuff I got turns colour from wet (pink) to dry (cobalt blue on account of being doped with cobalt salt). If you could obtain some of the coloured silica gel, then you'd be able to track its progress (although I suppos we're now talking of a 'bolt-the-stable-door-situation').

 

[chunky]

Another vote for a shed load of silica gel. When this has happened in the past with my kit, batteries straight out, in to a tub of silica gel and in the airing cupboard for a couple of weeks.

Sent from my SM-A730F using Tapatalk

 

[mrodoc]

Yup silica gel worked for me with an Olympus 5050Z that went to Swildons 9 and got wet. The card was fine and some of the photos ended up in the Swildons book. The camera carried on working for another year. If it's seawater it's dead before it leaves the water (I write as an underwater photographer) unless its an old mechanical camera like the extremely robust Nik 111.

 

[Pegasus]

Did it work?? 

 

[kay]

Still don't know!

Just got back from several days away, so tried switching it on - nothing. So put it on charge. After half an hour or so I heard a bleep. Then a few minutes later another bleep, and it did a press-up, followed by "battery empty" message on screen. A few minutes later another bleep, press-up, and message. So I turned it the other way up so that it could stick its lens out and back in without doing a press-up as well ;-) Since when, nothing.

 

[kay]

Stop press! Just as I posted the last message, it played a little chime, waggled its lens again, and now is displaying the "charging" symbol on its screen.