September 7, 2006

Pleasantly Surprised

A few days ago while hiking at Fall Creek Falls State Park, I slipped and my camera took a brief dip in the water. I was pretty sure the camera, a Canon Digital Rebel with this Canon 28-135mm zoom lens was toast. Small electronics usually don't do well upon being submerged in dirty river water. But I have been pleasantly surprised. The camera body has shown no ill effects. The lens did get water inside it, but removing the rubberized grip allowed air to get in and quickly evaporate the condensation that was keeping the autofocus feature from working right. I took a series of test shots with the lens today and both the autofocus and the image stabilization features seem to be working just fine. One of the internal pieces of glass does have some dirty-water spots on it, but the spots don't seem to ruin pictures taken with the camera, though I suspect they might show up if I was shooting close-ups with the macro setting.

All in all, then, this post is high praise for the quality and survivability of Canon's Digital Rebel, a "prosumer" level camera not built as rugged as some of the company's pro models, and also of the lens. Now, if I could just find a company that can professionally clean the inside of the lens...

By the way, this picture was taken with the still-wet camera. I cropped out the right side of the picture where condensation in the lens caused some blur. A reminder, however: The camera and lens were under water for maybe a tenth of a second. I don't recommend submerging any camera in river, brook, ocean, lake, pond or pool unless it is specifically built for the occasion.