RIP Olympus C4000z

[Cussy]

Well I knew it was going to happen one day, I suffered my first flooding yesterday It all happened in the first minute of the dive and I did my best to save my trusty little friend, but alas I think he is dead

I suppose it's just one of those things, but extra annoying as I fly to Mozambique on Saturday and I wont have a digital camera

High level electronics + water + a little incompetance =

[TimIngmire]

Damn, thats a pain in the arse. I just looked at the camera in Manchester airport and they have a fuji f810 for £255. Don't know how that cost compares with the high street prices but if you could get a housing then that might be your best option for something before the trip to Moz (lucky bugger).

Anyway, hope you get yourself sorted.

[Cussy]

Moz is a work trip (Maputo) and I'm not diving there. It's a long story, but I am staying on for 3 days diving in Aliwal Shoal, so all is not lost.

Do you work for Fuji? You're always suggesting that one. My replacement is down to an Olympus 7070 or Fuji 810. One of my main criterias at the moment is whether anyone can get me one delivered by Saturday morning That seems to be letting the 810 down.

[dave s]

Hi,

If you need a camera very quickly try www.digitaldepot.co.uk

I bought a c7070 on a monday and it was delivered
to Belfast the next day !!

They were the cheapest I could find.

Hope this helps.

[Cussy]

I may be a very lucky boy. After some really useful advice from Heather at Alan James photography I took to the camera with a hairdrier (it had also been in the airing cupboard all day), and my camera started to show the first signs of life, albeit nasty grinding, beeping and flashing lights. In a vane attempt of desperation, I took the camera apart (oh, aren't they tecnical looking inside) and gently tried the hairdrier. So it can now play a card, beep, it's zoom comes out, but the image doesn't look good. So I've put it to bed in the airing cupboard with about 20 sachets of dessicant. I'll see what happens tomorrow.

Thanks for tip on digitaldepot. I have until 1pm Thursday to make a decision on replacement, or I may go down to the Swindon shop and pop in and see the folks!!

[mdemon]

If it was saltwater, would it not be worth removing batteries and flushing with alcohol/de-ionised water? Just thinking that salt crystals won't do much for a camera mechanism...

CAVEAT!!!! I know nada about cameras! This is just a hypothetical thought on my part!

[TimIngmire]

John has a point, I have heard that if the camera is still wet you can try and remove all batteries and soak in fresh water for a fair long time and then dry out and try it. It might be beyond all help but it maybe worth a try.

[Cussy]

It's not dead at all, everything has come back to life, flash and all. It spent 4 weeks drying in the airing cupboard.

However, it is far from perfect. The photos are really washed out. They can be rescued in PS, but the histogram shows that there is no mid-range tones being recorded. What is puzzling me is that it works better in low levels of light and photos in bright sunlight are really bad. Flash illuminated images seem fine, but not with a slave unit.

I've tried everything I can think of, including resetting the white balance. Doesn't seem to have much effect. What I suspect might be the problem is that something has been deposited on the optics. The optical view finder is full of all sorts of nasty looking stuff. The lense on the camera seems to be a sealed unit, so I can't take it apart easily to clean properly.

As I've been quoted £75 for Olympus just to assess it, I'm looking at a new system. I loved the C4000, but I was reaching several limits of the system and the silent video was always annoying, plus it is one of the old housings so could only go to 30m. On above water trips the 128Mb limit of SM was also a problem. As I like natural light wide-angle photos in poor vis, I think the "fogged" image is going to be a real big problem.

So I've talked myself into a new one, not decided which one yet, but the Oly 7070 is the front runner at the moment. It would be my 4th Olympus and I've never had a problem with them, apart from being a prat and flooding one!!!!!

And yes Tim, I have looked at the Fuji. Main reason for the Oly at the moment over the Fuji is the very high quality video and the fact the Oly will take both Compact Flash and xD, so film capacity shouldn't be a problem. The battery life is also exceptional and the extra wide-angle suits my photography. I also use the Olympus auto panorama function a lot and would miss it....although panotools does the same.

By the way, the advice on a flooded camera is to put it in a bucket of fresh water as soon as possible after removing the batteries and film. Then dry them out (slowly) and not to over-heat them too much with a hairdrier. As my experience shows, they do come back to life.

[TimIngmire]

Well, I guess that's a result of a kind but at least the advice 'works' which is great.

Sounds like the Oly would be for you then although xd card can do capacities up to 1Gb so the 'film' (tut tut ) capacity shouldn't really be an problem. But I do like Oly's too.

[Jules]

Cussy
do you mind sharing with us what exactly happened to make it flood? We might learn something and not do the same to ours..

Jules