A word of warning for all. If your camera or lens is damaged by water ingress Nikon will tell you it's been abused and therefore the warranty is void and does not cover the damage caused by exposure to rain. I see people using their gear in pouring rain, Nikon will say it's designed and sealed to counter the occasional accidental splash and not waterproof ! Cheers all.
Good vid. I used to shoot Pentax, the K-1 is insanely good for sealing, you can tell when just inspecting the ports, not flimsy plastic doors like on my supposedly WR Fuji bodies, but THICK RUBBER FLAPS THAT NEEDS PUSHED IN TIGHT OVER THE PORTS TO SEAL. The amount of confidence in such a build is very comforting, so much so I think that there is a old Chris & Jordan K-1 review video from dpreview where Chris just dunks the K-1 under a stream 🤣 As an aussie shooter we get more extreme weather, so when it is dry it is very dry, when it rains it REALLY rains. The weather problems I face the most is heat. I had an event last year, 30-35 degree day, shooting outdoors (and thus the actual 'in the sun' temperature would be much hotter!) and my Fuji bodies started to overheat quite quickly. I will have to bring some kind of cooler bag onto the job in future, dual harness isn't practical in this setting. I need to keep the cameras that aren't seeing action at that point in time in a cooler environment than dangling by my side.
I've still never owned a Pentax camera - hopefully I'll get a chance to play with some at a trade show or two this year as I feel like I've missed them entirely 😅 Yeah Australian heat is something else - I did notice that a bunch of the camera reviewers over there were overheating their R5s quite regularly in particular. The heat is actually the main reason I went with the S5IIX over the G9II as well, as it takes me ages to record a video so an internal fan is very useful 😆 Welsh summers can get pretty unpleasant, just because we end up around 28°C but at like 80% humidity and with no AC, so I do appreciate the fan for those few days if nothing else. There is that fan attachment for the X-H2S which might be worth a look. Does mean you have to have the screen sticking out the side though, I believe 🤔
A good video and fun to see the ducks in the rain. I had the grit in my 300mm f4 focus clutch mechanism problem too and also fine sand from a Norfolk beach. It did work its way out with use eventually. A problem I had recently getting a false sense of security from OM System weather sealing was condensation inside a lens due to changes in temperature, a different thing from water ingress as lenses are not air tight of course. I walked all day at the Norfolk coast in -1C with damp and fog then straight back into a warm hotel room. A bit of a face palm moment as the expensive 150-400mm lens steamed up inside the front element! It thankfully cleared within 30 minutes but next time I'll put it in a bag before going inside as suggested in the fine print of the operations manual / PDF. It looks like the Nikon gear is well sealed, but it would be good if they published ratings and test details given how much we spend on this stuff.
I'm glad (I guess) that it's not just me who's had the grit issue with that focus clutch!😅 Yeah that humid air is the only thing that's caused me trouble too. I tend to forget to put my camera away when going indoors and only notice when the lens fogs over.
@@robert_may I think it mainly comes down to whether a company is willing to spend a lot of resources on IP rating when most customers don't really care. Leica makes well engineered luxury products so they can afford to test them. Olympus/OM systems' main selling point is outdoor and nature photography so it is almost essential for them to advertise IP ratings. Otherwise, I agree with you, most flagship cameras if IP tested would be atleast IP43.
@@jessejayphotography Yeah IP54 is very impressive. Their price is usually prohibitive but if they put out a viable wildlife camera I’d certainly be interested 😆
@@robert_may The SL3 seems like a sidegrade from the SL2. The SL3s has the potential to be a decent wildlife camera if they go ahead with a fast sensor.
A word about sunny countries and the problems you face there. In desert areas, you can, of course, run into a lot of trouble with dust and sand hitting your gear. Windy weather and sandstorms can be a real menace to equipment. But if you're not in a desert-y area but still in a sunny country, you can run into a different problem. The sun. Sometimes there's just too much of it. Cloudy weather is great to soften the light in your photos as you may know, but that's not the main thing. Shooting outdoor during a sunny day with the majority of cameras means you won't see anything on your LCD because it's so bright outside. Even with the great LCD on my Z6II I barely see anything. Heck, it's so bright even using electronic viewfinder can be a problem if it's a mediocre viewfinder. I genuinely prefer optical viewfinder and rangefinders for sunny days over something like a Sony camera. Even a more modern one like the FX3.
Funny you should mention this - this is a huge problem on the S5II I discovered recently. The EVF just does not go bright enough to be able to follow action on a bright day. The Z9's viewfinder does, thankfully, go to absolutely ridiculous brightness levels (although it does feel like I'm blinding myself sometimes). I too find I prefer optical viewfinders on bright days, and honestly I still prefer them in general too. I shot a ton of film on my Mamiya 645 last week as it was ridiculously sunny, and that big waist-level viewfinder was super bright and easy to use in such weather 🤩
I’m come to just ignore any language around weather sealing for cameras and I always take caution and cover the camera with something in soaking weather.
Do you just have to search online what IP rating a camera is if it isn't stated by the manufacturer? or is there a source that rates cameras on their IP rating?
Unfortunately there's no central resource that I've found - you are reliant solely on manufacturers publishing the ratings 😕 It'd be nice to have some independent testing of them, but I don't think the manufacturers will want to donate equipment for that, so it'd need someone to buy every camera with the intention of destroying them 😅
We end up destroying cameras with the combo of rain and mud. Turns out getting your hands covered in mud and then trying to take photos periodically isn’t great for cameras… haven’t found a solution for archaeology yet, I tried to get the team to use bags but to no avail! Sand is also a problem. Sand sticks to everything when wet and so you end up getting grit everywhere 😬
Yeah grit is the worst! My current setup has fewer moving surfaces so it doesn't get in as many places, thankfully, but in the past I was always more worried about the grit scratching up internals of things like the extending barrel of lenses than I was of water getting in 😆 I would suggest trying an underwater enclosure for archaeology but I think it might get scratched up by the grit too 🙈
I've sorta warmed up to them over time for shorter lenses just because I quite like the smaller packed size, but there are some designs that I'm more wary of. Seems like a few manufacturers are very keen on compact external zooms now - Canon went all-in with some of their new designs (and their 70-200s really are compact!)
People can rant about "focus breathing" and forget about what I call "aperture breathing" that comes with the former. With lenses that physically change length there is another breathing: gas. Because the volume inside the lens/camera space changes. This poses a problem to sealing. With lenses that internally shift, gas volume changes can easily be balanced with internal ports. So I would expect some of the external zooms as you call them to have significantly less good IP rating, if any.
5:03 hello cute little squirrel! Very relevant discussion, thank you for making this video!
Haha, just noticed you said the same thing 😆
A word of warning for all. If your camera or lens is damaged by water ingress Nikon will tell you it's been abused and therefore the warranty is void and does not cover the damage caused by exposure to rain. I see people using their gear in pouring rain, Nikon will say it's designed and sealed to counter the occasional accidental splash and not waterproof ! Cheers all.
ZOMG! Bruh... 5:06, a squirrel was right next to you! What a missed op!
Good vid.
I used to shoot Pentax, the K-1 is insanely good for sealing, you can tell when just inspecting the ports, not flimsy plastic doors like on my supposedly WR Fuji bodies, but THICK RUBBER FLAPS THAT NEEDS PUSHED IN TIGHT OVER THE PORTS TO SEAL. The amount of confidence in such a build is very comforting, so much so I think that there is a old Chris & Jordan K-1 review video from dpreview where Chris just dunks the K-1 under a stream 🤣
As an aussie shooter we get more extreme weather, so when it is dry it is very dry, when it rains it REALLY rains. The weather problems I face the most is heat. I had an event last year, 30-35 degree day, shooting outdoors (and thus the actual 'in the sun' temperature would be much hotter!) and my Fuji bodies started to overheat quite quickly. I will have to bring some kind of cooler bag onto the job in future, dual harness isn't practical in this setting. I need to keep the cameras that aren't seeing action at that point in time in a cooler environment than dangling by my side.
I've still never owned a Pentax camera - hopefully I'll get a chance to play with some at a trade show or two this year as I feel like I've missed them entirely 😅
Yeah Australian heat is something else - I did notice that a bunch of the camera reviewers over there were overheating their R5s quite regularly in particular. The heat is actually the main reason I went with the S5IIX over the G9II as well, as it takes me ages to record a video so an internal fan is very useful 😆 Welsh summers can get pretty unpleasant, just because we end up around 28°C but at like 80% humidity and with no AC, so I do appreciate the fan for those few days if nothing else.
There is that fan attachment for the X-H2S which might be worth a look. Does mean you have to have the screen sticking out the side though, I believe 🤔
Really appreciating your videos in Alaska. Sage Brush Dry has rainforest level bags. Cheers!
Ooh thanks! That's good to know - not heard of those before 😀
A good video and fun to see the ducks in the rain. I had the grit in my 300mm f4 focus clutch mechanism problem too and also fine sand from a Norfolk beach. It did work its way out with use eventually. A problem I had recently getting a false sense of security from OM System weather sealing was condensation inside a lens due to changes in temperature, a different thing from water ingress as lenses are not air tight of course. I walked all day at the Norfolk coast in -1C with damp and fog then straight back into a warm hotel room. A bit of a face palm moment as the expensive 150-400mm lens steamed up inside the front element! It thankfully cleared within 30 minutes but next time I'll put it in a bag before going inside as suggested in the fine print of the operations manual / PDF. It looks like the Nikon gear is well sealed, but it would be good if they published ratings and test details given how much we spend on this stuff.
I'm glad (I guess) that it's not just me who's had the grit issue with that focus clutch!😅
Yeah that humid air is the only thing that's caused me trouble too. I tend to forget to put my camera away when going indoors and only notice when the lens fogs over.
Wanted to buy RF70-200, asked the seller if I can use it in rain. All I got was silence.
Never seen ducks so elegant before 🙌
Leica also publish IP ratings.
Haha was wondering when someone would notice this - I filmed this video a few weeks ago and stumbled across Leica's ratings the next day 😅
@@robert_may I think it mainly comes down to whether a company is willing to spend a lot of resources on IP rating when most customers don't really care. Leica makes well engineered luxury products so they can afford to test them.
Olympus/OM systems' main selling point is outdoor and nature photography so it is almost essential for them to advertise IP ratings.
Otherwise, I agree with you, most flagship cameras if IP tested would be atleast IP43.
I think Leica has the highest published rating of IP54 on the SL3 cameras. That’s pretty good.
@@jessejayphotography Yeah IP54 is very impressive. Their price is usually prohibitive but if they put out a viable wildlife camera I’d certainly be interested 😆
@@robert_may The SL3 seems like a sidegrade from the SL2. The SL3s has the potential to be a decent wildlife camera if they go ahead with a fast sensor.
A word about sunny countries and the problems you face there. In desert areas, you can, of course, run into a lot of trouble with dust and sand hitting your gear. Windy weather and sandstorms can be a real menace to equipment. But if you're not in a desert-y area but still in a sunny country, you can run into a different problem. The sun. Sometimes there's just too much of it. Cloudy weather is great to soften the light in your photos as you may know, but that's not the main thing. Shooting outdoor during a sunny day with the majority of cameras means you won't see anything on your LCD because it's so bright outside. Even with the great LCD on my Z6II I barely see anything. Heck, it's so bright even using electronic viewfinder can be a problem if it's a mediocre viewfinder. I genuinely prefer optical viewfinder and rangefinders for sunny days over something like a Sony camera. Even a more modern one like the FX3.
Funny you should mention this - this is a huge problem on the S5II I discovered recently. The EVF just does not go bright enough to be able to follow action on a bright day. The Z9's viewfinder does, thankfully, go to absolutely ridiculous brightness levels (although it does feel like I'm blinding myself sometimes). I too find I prefer optical viewfinders on bright days, and honestly I still prefer them in general too. I shot a ton of film on my Mamiya 645 last week as it was ridiculously sunny, and that big waist-level viewfinder was super bright and easy to use in such weather 🤩
I’m come to just ignore any language around weather sealing for cameras and I always take caution and cover the camera with something in soaking weather.
Do you just have to search online what IP rating a camera is if it isn't stated by the manufacturer? or is there a source that rates cameras on their IP rating?
Unfortunately there's no central resource that I've found - you are reliant solely on manufacturers publishing the ratings 😕 It'd be nice to have some independent testing of them, but I don't think the manufacturers will want to donate equipment for that, so it'd need someone to buy every camera with the intention of destroying them 😅
@@robert_may Thanks for clarifying and It would be splendid if it were.
We end up destroying cameras with the combo of rain and mud. Turns out getting your hands covered in mud and then trying to take photos periodically isn’t great for cameras… haven’t found a solution for archaeology yet, I tried to get the team to use bags but to no avail!
Sand is also a problem. Sand sticks to everything when wet and so you end up getting grit everywhere 😬
Yeah grit is the worst! My current setup has fewer moving surfaces so it doesn't get in as many places, thankfully, but in the past I was always more worried about the grit scratching up internals of things like the extending barrel of lenses than I was of water getting in 😆 I would suggest trying an underwater enclosure for archaeology but I think it might get scratched up by the grit too 🙈
Also I don't like non internal zooming lenses, I refuse to buy a XF16-55 for this reason, I'd trust my Sigma 18-35 before that thing!
I've sorta warmed up to them over time for shorter lenses just because I quite like the smaller packed size, but there are some designs that I'm more wary of. Seems like a few manufacturers are very keen on compact external zooms now - Canon went all-in with some of their new designs (and their 70-200s really are compact!)
People can rant about "focus breathing" and forget about what I call "aperture breathing" that comes with the former. With lenses that physically change length there is another breathing: gas. Because the volume inside the lens/camera space changes. This poses a problem to sealing. With lenses that internally shift, gas volume changes can easily be balanced with internal ports. So I would expect some of the external zooms as you call them to have significantly less good IP rating, if any.