general advice for newbie

Hi, I am new to underwater photography and have just purchased my first underwater casing the Olympus PT-016. After reading the manual, a couple questions came to mind and I'm hoping that someone out there would be able to help me.

1) How often to I need to replace the silical gel? What would happen if I didn't use the siilca gel if I'm not submerging the camera, for example during river rafting. Also, only 4 silica gel packs come with the case, where would I buy more?

2) There was a warning stating that if water does leak inside, there may be an explosion from generation of hydrogen gas if the water gets to the batteries. Is that true??

3) How often should I do the water immersion test?

4) Should I remove the O-ring before storing the case as hte manual states? What would happen if I forget to remove the O-ring?

5) There are soooo many warnings in the manual. Which problems should I pay more attention to that occur more often?

Thank you in advance for the advice!

Here are quick answers for your questions, I am sure others will contribute too.

1) The only purpose of silica gel is to trap *small ammounts* of water if a small leak occurs, avoiding major damage to the camera. Use at your own discretion, replace when you think the silica will not be able to absorb water.

2) Yes, it is possible, but very unlikely. It would only happen if you leave the camera inside a flooded housing for a relatively long time. They have to cover their behinds legally, that's why the warning is there. You do sign a contract everytime you go diving, don't you? In that contract it says that it is not the dive shops fault if you get eaten by a shark, this doesn't mean it is likely to happen. It is the same principle.

3) Once, before using your housing for the first time. After that, every dive is an immersion test.

4) Yes, if you leave the o-ring at it's position for a long time it may be deformed and cause a leake. Also, everytime you dive, small particles of sand and dirt get trapped close to the o-ring. If you don't remove and clean it, those particles will cause a flood.

5) O-ring care, if you take care of your o-ring and mount the camera properly you won't have a flood.

Now, instead of worrying too much, you should get insurance for your camera and housing. DEPP and DAN offer insurance specifically for underwater photography equipment, and it should be cheap for your camera. If you are interested, check this thread about insurance:

Wetpixel's official insurance thread

I hope this helps,

Luiz

Luiz, not to disagree... but I need to disagree ( ) on a couple of counts.

The silica packs are used to help prevent condensation on the inside of the housing, know to cause fogging problems. The gel packs help, but in a warm humid climate, loading the camera in an air conditioned room aids this as well. There are a number of sources for these packs, as well as a number of "rechargeable types, but that is a thread unto itself.

As to batteries "exploding", if you flood a camera or strobe, and the batteries (rechargeable ones) get "wet", they will off-gas, rather violently. In most cases you will not notice this until you attempt to open the battery cover of the flooded strobe (I have obviously NEVER done that!) or release the latch on the housing of the flooded camera. These items will not "explode", but caution really is in order with a flooded unit...

Now that we have that out of the way, Luis is absolutely right. Get insurance, do your best to keep your system dry, and learn the rule; "Not IF it will flood, but WHEN!!"

The silica packs are used to help prevent condensation on the inside of the housing, know to cause fogging problems.  The gel packs help, but in a warm humid climate, loading the camera in an air conditioned room aids this as well. There are a number of sources for these packs, as well as a number of "rechargeable types, but that is a thread unto itself.

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Hi Richard,

I agree with you about the explosion, what I meant was that it was theoretically possible (high pressure in a small, contained space), but very unprobable in real life. I think I didn't express myself correctly.

Now, about the silica packs, I have never used them in any of my housings (a few Ikelites for still cameras and video, and Sea&Sea), and I have never seen fogging on any of my ports. On top of that, I think I am in the most humid place on earth, it rains in Panama everyday from March to December, I haven't seen a peak of the sun for the last week at least, and, as I said, I have never noticed any fogging in my ports, neither here, nor anywhere else, including when I assemble the housing in boats over open water with no AC. Do you think silica really makes a difference?

Luiz

I have never used any myself either, as all of my housings have been the higher end aluminum types, from Tetra to Aquatica.

However, all of the folks I know with the transparent aluminum housings (i.e plastic!) have had to use silica packs. I think the difference is that our metal housings deal with the condensation differently, and the moisture would build up on the housing, not the port. With a plastic housing like the Oly PT line, the port is just as susceptible to the fogging as the body and therefore becomes a problem.

NOt to send anyone away from Wetpixel, but DDN (www.digitaldiver.net) has had a large number of discussions about fog prevention in both the PT housings and the Fuji housings. I am not sure if Ikelite has the problem or not, but I seem to remember they do as well.

Sure would be nice if someone shooting an Olympus PT-x would jump in here to help out!

btw, as to the battery problem, when I flooded my YS-90 strobe, I was unaware of the flood until I removed the battery cover, and I almost lost a finger the cap popped off so hard...

Ok, ok, now I get it, compact cameras with plastic housings are a completely different ball game, I should know that! Thanks for clarifying Richard.

There have been many discussions here about fogging problems - just not six separate discussions in one day...:-)

Short answer - yes, they work.

When you run out of them, you can use pieces of cut-up mini-pads instead. They absorb moisture AND can also help out a LOT in case of a flood.

HTH

James

I go to my neighboorhood pharmacy who a buddy of mine runs and he saves up a bunch of moisture munchers for me in all sorts of sizes..they work well..

Tony

I use a oly pt housing and they certanly do fog up in some situations. As earlier mentioned if loading your camera in an air conditioned room etc. I use the silica gel packs to overcome this and they work fine. they will however have no effect when you flood the housing as i have witnessed on two occasions both on cameras without specific insurance however one was covered by home contents ins, it took some time to pay out however. the other was a lost cause. On both occasions both cameras were using re-chargable batteries and neither gave off any gasses that were apparent. hope this helps the debate.