My new camera took an unexpected dip in Iceland… what happened next surprised everyone
Iceland. The land of Fire and Ice. Every photographer’s bucket list location. How could you not be excited to go? I definitely was. I was going with my buddies Richard and Mark. We were flying over and camping for a week in a trip that encompassed the whole island. This meant spreading the equipment load and bringing only the most essential equipment. Weight was definitely an issue.
At the time I was using Canon and even with just a few lenses I was well overweight. Something had to give. It was time for a travel camera. I hummed and hawed. Fujifilm seemed like a great idea, the image quality was great, but there were focus issues. One of my portrait photographer heroes had started using Olympus, so I bought an E-M5. It was feature packed and very compact. It fit the bill.
We flew over at the end of June and collected our jeep. After a short trip around Reykjavik, we hit Route One with sun to our sides. We made our way down to Vik, stopping at waterfalls and black beaches as we passed. The summer meadows made for a gorgeous foreground as we perused Seljalandsfoss. My new Olympus was perfect as we wandered around the waterfall.
Seeing as we were tourists (don’t lie to yourself-even as a photographer, you’re still a tourist), we did the tourist thing and followed the queues up behind the waterfall. It was glorious, with the sun shining through. No chance of a golden hour shot, we had too much to see!
On we went to Skogafoss. I wanted to capture this beast as it thundered down. It was every bit as magnificent as I imagined. Now, I did take two cameras with me. My Canon EOS 5D Mk II and the new Olympus E-M5.
The Olympus was getting the love, but I was still using the Canon to get wider shots using the EF 17-40mm f4L. I got this up first and took a few shots, letting it run a few HDR brackets. Then I set up the Olympus by the stream coming out of the waterfall. I wanted to use the stream as a leading line into the magnificent falls.
Once set up, I went to check my Canon. As I got there I turned around to see my 4-day-old E-M5 falling in slow motion as the tripod overbalanced. It splashed into the stream and the water flowed over it completely. I sprinted over, but it was still a distance from me. It was deep in the stream and I had to wade to grab the tripod to lift it out.
Now these cameras are weather-sealed, but they’re not waterproof. It was a mess. Water was pouring out, so I immediately removed the battery. All I could do now was let it dry out. A few days later after sitting on the back window of the jeep in full sunlight, I risked putting the battery in with mixed emotions. Nothing started smoking, so that was a start. I tried to take a photo.. The shutter fired. The picture? Not so good.
The sensor was covered in gunk. I tried to clean it using sensor swabs and cleaning fluid, but no amount of repeated cleaning made any difference. To cut a long story short, I became convinced that somehow dirty water had leaked under the sensor’s protective glass. Another side effect at the time was each time I reinserted a battery, the camera time would reset, so I can’t actually pin the exact photo I shot, but I think this one is around the time of doing some cleaning and having 2 spots that couldn’t be removed.
I sent the camera back to Olympus, via my local shop, where I had bought it. Olympus sent it back untouched, saying there was no point in trying to repair a water damaged camera. I was a little upset and could only just suck up my loss.
Time passed and I got to the point where I figured that as the camera was a dead loss anyway, I’d give it one more go with new cleaner and swaps. If it failed, then that would be the end of it. It would be a great story of over-excitement and a tale of warning.
What do you know? It worked this time. I shot loads more on that camera and eventually sold it to a friend who knew the full story of the camera. He used it on many shoots, and recorded many music videos with it.
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