D-90 Waterproofing

[tom beard]

Hello All,

I've ordered a D-90, but I noticed that it has little to no weather proofing. Other much more expensive cameras have all kinds of gaskets on the body and the lenses. I live at 6K ft. in a forrest and like to shoot 'weather' pictures. We have rain, sleet, snow and fog so heavy the condensation falling from the trees seems like rain. Should I consider wrapping the camera and lens in a zip-lock bag, or just using an umbrella? I'm not talking about shooting in downpours, just damp weather. What are your experiences?

Many thanks, Tom Beard

 

[Atlas77]

you could cover it in a plastic bag or buy a cover from a camera store.

if your not shooting in downpours or "extreme" weather I suggest you just cover it in a plastic bag before you go out.

I dont have much experience with covers/covering camera but goodluck.

 

[DScience]

D300 is probably something you would want to invest in. The weather sealing would be ideal for this.

 

[IgsEMT]

look into these
Camera Armor | Camera Armor | CA35384-0MP | B&H Photo Video

Delkin Devices | Snug-It Pro Skin | DDSDPROND90-B | B&H Photo

 

[MrRamonG]

I took my D80 on the Inca trail a couple of weeks ago. I'm not positive but I thing the D80 and D90 are very similar as far as weather proofing. It rained a little every day for the 4 days I was on the trail. The D80 got a little wet and had to deal with misty days but it didnt seem to suffer any ill efects. Took it in to get it cleaned the other day and everything is working fine.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. If weather sealing is something that is important to you, I would send the D90 back and buy into the Pentax system. I've never put my camera away for weather. I've shot in downpours for hours with no regard for my camera and making no effort to keep it dry except for the front element. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

 

[IgsEMT]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

VERY INTERESTING, THANKS FOR INPUT!!!

 

[pez]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. If weather sealing is something that is important to you, I would send the D90 back and buy into the Pentax system. I've never put my camera away for weather. I've shot in downpours for hours with no regard for my camera and making no effort to keep it dry except for the front element. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

I got caught out in a major deluge a while back with my K20, and unlike myself, it was completely unaffected.

 

[itznfb]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. If weather sealing is something that is important to you, I would send the D90 back and buy into the Pentax system. I've never put my camera away for weather. I've shot in downpours for hours with no regard for my camera and making no effort to keep it dry except for the front element. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

What makes the Pentax weather sealing better than any other brand's weather sealing?

I've probably spent over 200 hours in complete non-stop downpours with my D90 and never had an issue.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. If weather sealing is something that is important to you, I would send the D90 back and buy into the Pentax system. I've never put my camera away for weather. I've shot in downpours for hours with no regard for my camera and making no effort to keep it dry except for the front element. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

What makes the Pentax weather sealing better than any other brand's weather sealing?

I've probably spent over 200 hours in complete non-stop downpours with my D90 and never had an issue.

That's interesting. What do you shoot that puts you in so much rain? Were you shooting with just the body getting wet, or id you have a protective covering of some sort? What lenses were you using? The question is, can every D90 put up with that much rain, and reliably, or are you just lucky and/or more cautious than most users? I'm really honestly, not trying to start a flame war.

I searched around an could find nothing to back up the claim of that the D90 has any considerable amount of weather sealing. The Nikon page said nothing on the matter at all, I found one reference to it having seals at the battery and memory card doors, and one reference to it having 7 strategic seals. I also found lots of references to people saying, the D90 is not sealed, or not suitably sealed, or I wouldn't take mine out in the rain, or mine got wet and broke.

The K-7 has 77 seals, and is sealed at every single junction, seam, button, door, hole, and any other place that water and dust could possibly get in. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and in my opinion a camera is either fully sealed, or not sealed at all. And in searching for the K-7 and water, I got lots of people saying they use it in the rain all the time, and no people saying they ever had a problem.

As for you and your experience. That's great. But would you recommend to all D90 users that they too can shoot in the rain for 200 hours and that nothing will happen to their camera? That's a serious question, I'm not trying to be a jerk. Is the weather sealing of the K-7 massively over-engineered and way more than is needed to withstand the rain? Probably. Is the D90 suitably engineered to a level that can withstand the rain and reliably perform? Probably not?

 

[itznfb]

Pentax would have been the way to go. The weather sealing is unbeatable, especially at the lower price brackets. If weather sealing is something that is important to you, I would send the D90 back and buy into the Pentax system. I've never put my camera away for weather. I've shot in downpours for hours with no regard for my camera and making no effort to keep it dry except for the front element. For more read a blog post I wrote on the topic.

What makes the Pentax weather sealing better than any other brand's weather sealing?

I've probably spent over 200 hours in complete non-stop downpours with my D90 and never had an issue.

That's interesting. What do you shoot that puts you in so much rain? Were you shooting with just the body getting wet, or id you have a protective covering of some sort? What lenses were you using? The question is, can every D90 put up with that much rain, and reliably, or are you just lucky and/or more cautious than most users? I'm really honestly, not trying to start a flame war.

I searched around an could find nothing to back up the claim of that the D90 has any considerable amount of weather sealing. The Nikon page said nothing on the matter at all, I found one reference to it having seals at the battery and memory card doors, and one reference to it having 7 strategic seals. I also found lots of references to people saying, the D90 is not sealed, or not suitably sealed, or I wouldn't take mine out in the rain, or mine got wet and broke.

The K-7 has 77 seals, and is sealed at every single junction, seam, button, door, hole, and any other place that water and dust could possibly get in. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and in my opinion a camera is either fully sealed, or not sealed at all. And in searching for the K-7 and water, I got lots of people saying they use it in the rain all the time, and no people saying they ever had a problem.

As for you and your experience. That's great. But would you recommend to all D90 users that they too can shoot in the rain for 200 hours and that nothing will happen to their camera? That's a serious question, I'm not trying to be a jerk. Is the weather sealing of the K-7 massively over-engineered and way more than is needed to withstand the rain? Probably. Is the D90 suitably engineered to a level that can withstand the rain and reliably perform? Probably not?

The D90 has no water sealing. That's kind of my point. While on vacation I do a lot of wildlife shooting and I have terrible luck with weather always finding myself in the rain. Hence the D300s now instead of the D90. Though I never had an issue with the D90 I figured it was only a matter of time. You would need water to hit just the right spot though. I always just kept a towel in a bag and wiped off the camera whenever it started to get soaked. I still do this with my D300s though. EDIT: I should add that a friend with a 50D has been with me most of the time in the same rain and he never had an issue either. I don't believe the 50D is weather sealed.

Any camera body that claims to be water sealed though should be sealed at every possible spot that could allow water. I don't know of any that aren't this way.

What is it about the Pentax that is better than others? If anything I would say it's the same as say a D300 or .... I'm not sure which model Canon has water sealed. Saying that it's unbeatable is an exaggeration I hope.

I know on my friends 1D Mark III that thing has amazing thought put into the water sealing. That thing look like it would survive being dropped in a pond.

 

[GeneralBenson]

What makes Pentax better? I don't know. Do I have any objective evidence? Not really. But I'm just going of the sum of my experiences. I talk to lots of Pentax user that fear neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, an have never had a problem. And I seem to talk with lots other brand users that seem much more timid with the elements. I've talked to plenty of 1D, 5D, D3 and so on user that are scared of the rain. Doesn't mean those cameras can't take it, I'm sure they can. Maybe Pentax users are the only ones stupid enough to subject their gear to scenarios where if you're wrong, you've wasted $1000. All I know is that Pentax brags about and promotes their weather sealing heavily, and all the users seem to trust them and use it, with no problems. Canon and Nikon don't seem to push weather capabilities of their bodies much at all (maybe because they have better things to brag about. There, I said it before anyone else could...) and their users don't seem to trust it very much either. At least that's my experience in the matter.

I'm sure all high end bodies can put up with just about anything. But I really think that on the lower end and middle of the spectrum, Pentax has the market on weather protection. Fur under $1200 you can have a body and lens that are both completely sealed. You just can't get that from Canon or Nikon. For Prosumer bodies, Pentax are consistently, lighter, smaller, of equal build quality, equally spec'd, and equally or more weatherproof. They seem to be intentionally targeting themselves at the outdoor enthusiast/hiker/backpacker/adventure shooter kind of crowd, and I think they have it nailed.

 

[PhotoXopher]

So what is it about Pentax that doesn't really draw people to it (or so it seems)?

You always read about Nikon vs Canon, but rarely is Pentax in the loop.

 

[itznfb]

Back to the OP though... various companies make products like these if you're really worried about it:
Video bags camera bags Kata - Manufacturer of camera bags

 

[GeneralBenson]

Things I've observed...

The big two have epic amounts of advertising money.

It sure seems like quite a few magazines review more favorably with the people that send them more advertising dollars.

Just about every camera have a love affair with Canikon and won't even attempt to sell Pentax, or any other smaller brands for that matter, then will pull it off the shelves because it doesn't sell.

It seems with bloggers and reviewers that some like nikon, some like canon, they all like leica, and no one likes pentax.

When the digital thing started to happen, Pentax was slow to get on board, lots a lot of market share, and has suffered ever since.

Pentax was slow to get into the P&S dept as well, which is ultimately where the majority of users come from, who tend to stick with the brand they had.

And so on...

Mostly it seems like a lot of people just already have their mind made up, and nothing pentax does will win people over. For a while they were offering very well spec'd bodies or really low prices, and no one would buy them because people equate cost with quality, or because regardless of features, people actually like having expensive cameras. Now they've been raising their prices closer to what market value is, and now people say, well it has all the same features as a d300 and it's the same price asa d300, so I'll just get a d300. It almost seems like they're going to have to pull a lecia and just charge out the ass for everything. Then people will say, wow it's so expensive, this camera must be amazing.