Arghhh! Sea Water in lens!

wildviper

Hi All,

Yesterday while shooting in Corona Del Mar, I got sea water briefly on my camera and lens. After that, my lens wouldn't autofocus or manual focus. I could hear the grinding while I turned the focus ring.

Any chance of saving this? It is the 50/1.8 Nikon. (thank god it was the cheaper lens).

Moogle Pepper

You are going to have to send it to Nikon, or a good repair shop, if it is really bad.

If it were regular water, you could try letting it dry, but sea water is not so forgiving.

wildviper

Moogle Pepper wrote:

You are going to have to send it to Nikon, or a good repair shop, if it is really bad.

If it were regular water, you could try letting it dry, but sea water is not so forgiving.

Thanx...I will contact Nikon.

Candid Arts

I'm gonna say no. I had got my old P&S wet with salt water, and no way in hell it was gonna get fixed. Sent it out and everything...had to buy a new one.

So good luck on that. It's always a bummer. Send it out, won't hurt, but I'm sure they'll say no. Water isn't was is gonna kill the lens, it's the salt, and that you just can't clean up or let dry, it's even worse once it's dry.

:cry

Tee Why

I hear salty water that makes it inside is a death sentence for electronics.

It may be cheaper to replace the lens than to repair it.
Sorry to hear though.

Manfr3d

Tee Why wrote:

I hear salty water that makes it inside is a death sentence for electronics.

It may be cheaper to replace the lens than to repair it.
Sorry to hear though.

The best thing to do is to immediately clean it with fresh water and then let
it completely dry over some heat source. Saltwater reacts chemically with
the electronics (metal) and destroys it.

On a sailing trip our whole toolbox with electronics was soaked in water.
When we bathed everything in freshwater in the harbor we got some strange
looks but sure enough after drying everything worked as it did before.

nycs10011

I recently had my nikon 50mm 1.4 get soaked (fresh water). I tried to dry it off best I could then let it sit in a ziplock bag with a bunch of silica packets to try and absorb more of the moisture. Amazingly after about a week. it worked just fine. Still had some water droplets on the internal glass so i took it to a local repair shop to have it cleaned. All told works like new. I got lucky, but it's not hopeless.

http://www.phototech.com/

Candid Arts

nycs10011 wrote:

I recently had my nikon 50mm 1.4 get soaked (fresh water). I tried to dry it off best I could then let it sit in a ziplock bag with a bunch of silica packets to try and absorb more of the moisture. Amazingly after about a week. it worked just fine. Still had some water droplets on the internal glass so i took it to a local repair shop to have it cleaned. All told works like new. I got lucky, but it's not hopeless.

http://www.phototech.com/

A bowl of rice is another remedy for fresh water. But salt is pretty rough.

nycs10011

yeah with salt water you're gonna have to clean it out and the sooner the better. The salt will corrode parts. Might consider cleaning it out with distilled water but I give no guarantee. I would say get it to a pro ASAP

nightowlcat

I have a feeling that you are going to be replacing the lens, only saving grace that the lens is not too expensive to buy brand new, but every penny still hurts.

wildviper wrote:

Hi All,

Yesterday while shooting in Corona Del Mar, I got sea water briefly on my camera and lens. After that, my lens wouldn't autofocus or manual focus. I could hear the grinding while I turned the focus ring.

Any chance of saving this? It is the 50/1.8 Nikon. (thank god it was the cheaper lens).