Posts tagged Camera

Alright guys. As some of you may already know, I own the nice Panasonic Lumix FT1S which is an underwater camera waterproof up to 3 meters.

So why am I blogging about this camera again? Well, as the title already shows the camera does have some troubles with water. Here is what happened:

I bought the camera in July and after it arrived I took it to the local swimming pool. I took a couple of pictures and everything was fine. The next time I took it to the Berry Springs nature pool. We took some pictures there until the camera was taking blurry pictures. As described in the user manual I let the camera dry for a couple of days with the case opened and not in direct sunshine. After a couple of days it still was taking blurry pictures. So I called the Panasonic hot line to ask for support. They said that they have a service provider where I could send the camera to. That’s what I did. After arriving in Sydney the camera went through a pretest and passed. They couldn’t find any problems at all, so they suggested the blurry screen was due to fogging.

On my 4 week road trip I passed Sydney and picked the camera up. In the service report it said that the camera passed the pretest. After asking what this exactly meant, the lady explained to me that the camera was still perfectly fine and waterproof. We took some pictures to try the camera and as they weren’t blurry anymore moved on with our trip. So the camera seemed to work fine at that stage.

So what happened next? One day before we hopped on our sailing, diving and snorkeling trip to the great berrier reef, we took the camera to a local swimming pool in Airlie Beach. And guess what happened? Right. The camera died. After 5 -10 minutes in the water. It just turned off and never turned on again.

Now imagine:

You bought a waterproof camera.
You are about to go snorkeling at the great barrier reef.
You and your partner were looking forward to this for the last 6 months.
You only have 1 more day left until the trip starts.
You take your waterproof camera to a pool.
Your camera, waterproof up to 3 meters and for 1 hour, dies at approx. 20cm water depth and after 10 minutes.

Now if this doesn’t suck, what else? What the hell am I supposed to do with an underwater camera that breaks (or at least doesn’t work for a week – remember the blurry pictures?) as soon as I take it underwater? I just can’t see why the camera died in a pool. I could imagine it dying in saltwater, maybe with strong water currents, if you take it too long, too deep. But in a f*****g pool with fresh water, at 20cm after 10 minutes? …

I even took my Canon Ixus 70 once out on a wakeboarding trip where it was raining the whole day. The camera was completely wet and still working. With the Panasonic Lumix FT1S I am now even scared to take the camera into rain!

I did send it again to Sydney today and I am waiting for their response. So I’ll wait and see what they say to this.