weird oly 4040 problems

am hoping someone might be able to help with this issue I had on my trip to Bonaire last week.

camera: oly 4040

housing pt-010

strobe: sea&sea ys90dx

batteries: 2500 maha (tried for the first time in both camera and strobe)

sync cords were brand new sea & sea slightly different from my origional cord which had light blue on it, larger coils and diameter.

manual mode

tried 1/125 and 1/250 shutter speed and f5.6 as a starting point.

First dive-everything went well. However used alkaline batteries, none of my luggage never made it down and just had my camera no batteries.

Third dive-(got luggage) I had an awful situation with condensation inside the camera, so much I thought I had a leak. Concluded 1-those batteries kicked out alot of heat and overwhelmed the moisture munchers or 2-I didn't have enough inside the housing and they were old.

Remainder of the dives the camera developed a might of its own-working whenever it wanted to.

So what began to happen was very strange and extremely frustrating. The camera and strobe would work early into the dive then all of a sudden I would get a blinking amber and green light in the viewfinder. The camera would not focus nor would the strobe fire when I tried to shoot a picture. I would wait a few minutes and then it would fire and then it wouldn't. What is weird is that I was able to use the video in the camera and if I flipped up the velcro the camera would work using the internal strobe. I don't get it.

Could my media cards be too old? The moisture from the first episode affecting it the rest of the time. The optic fiber cable defective? The heat from the batteries? When I put 4 packs of moisture muncher in I had no problems with fogging.

I did try to dry out the housing using a hair dryer and the camera but didn't notice any improvements.

So whenever I tried to depress the shutter NOTHING, just rapid blinking from the camera-oh yea one more thing, the exposure meter was all over the place. usually it is red -3.0, but when it acted up the meter was literally jumping all over the place in the + category. Tried change the aperature but that didn't work either.

I probably have not explained this very well so if it seems cryptic I am sorry.

Wendy

Wendy,

Your problems sound indicative of wet/damaged electronics. Erratic behavior due to changing impedances in connections. I would attempt to dry it again with the hairdryer and look for moisture building up on the lcd. If you have any, it could indicate the camera is still a little wet. It is also possible that you had an extremely slow leak instead of just condensation. If that is the case, you might not be able to repair the damage.

later,

Gary

Gary,

Now that I am home in a dryer climate I have my camera-battery compartment and smart media compartment open under a ceiling fan hoping that will dry it out. I won't be back in the water for awhile but will give it a go in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the camera will dry out and the issue will be resolved.

Thanks,

Wendy