Inside the EA50 (or, soggy Sony and other learnings)

[Darryl N. Barg]

Hi Friends,

As the subject indicates, my EA50 went 7ft deep into a lake recently. I was shooting a family fishing trip in Northern Manitoba. It was underwater for about 45seconds. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say, I had a very, very bad day. The lens was FULL of water. I pulled it all apart and stuck it all in a garbage bag with 2lbs of rice which was what I had at hand.

I write this now that the camera has been replaced by my homeowner insurance, but in the process of proving it was not reparable, I took it to a good friend who has been an A/V tech for decades. He opened it up and took pictures... mostly proving the corrosion.

So, the old camera body totally works for now! I am told that corrosion is the silent killer, and it could stop any time. There is no lens control at all, so I am now in the market for a manual adapter so I can stick my old Pentax K-mount lenses on it. A manual EA50 as a second camera would be very sweet.

Anyway, a major learning, beside being more careful with the camera around water, is about insurance. Any of you making money with your camera surely have the right insurance, but I was just getting into freelancing, and it became very clear in this process that I would not have been covered if I was making a single cent off the project. It will be expensive, but I am buying insurance this week to cover my commercial uses of the camera.

Finally, I've attached a whole bunch of pictures that some of you might get a kick out of.

Take care, keep your camera dry!

Darryl

[Chris Harding]

Hi Darryl

Scary stuff!! I often look at my renewal notice for my "photographer's insurance" and wonder why I'm paying nearly $800 a year for nothing but your story does show why!! Yep you do need a commercial policy and your home-owners policy would cover probably fire and theft from home but not a lake dipping.

Most companies will have a dedicated policy for pros which cover all instances and also (importantly) will include public liability.

I'm using Novoflex adapters on both my EA-50's and they are awesome adapters made in Germany and also let me change iris on my Nikon lenses.

Chris

[Dave Blackhurst]

While it's apart, take the time to go through everything with some electronic cleaner - with a soft toothbrush - if you take the time to carefully clean all the contacts and boards, you may be able to keep corrosion from taking it's eventual toll. If it's actual corrosion, a baking soda and water (preferably distilled or ionized type rather than tap) can clean that - obviously it's a tedious process to take the needed steps, but I've restored "dead" cell phones (which often take unexpected swims!) with patience and careful cleaning and rinsing of the crud that can form so quickly...

Just a few ideas, if it's still stripped to bones - it MAY live again! You don't have anything to lose at this point from the sounds of it! Good luck!

[Darryl N. Barg]

Thanks for the thoughts Dave and Chris,

The camera is back together. I retake possession of it tomorrow. We'll see how it goes once I purchase an adapter.

Chris (or anyone else), do you know if there is there a difference in functionality between the Novoflex and the Voigtlander adapters, which are at least $50 cheaper at B&H? I'm not clear how the Novoflex controls the iris of a lens... do I need that if the lens has manual iris control?

Your point about liability is also helpful. I do more on-location audio than video, and I suppose all it would take is someone tripping over something for there to be potential issues. The policy I'm purchasing does include that.

For what it's worth, the technician who looked over the wet camera says he has seen a lot of weird stuff, and is completely amazed at what still works on this unit. He keeps talking about it having been baptized. :)

Darryl

[Darryl N. Barg]

Oops, I revisited B&H Photo and see the difference between the Voigtlander and Novoflex is $110... And I've reread the Lens Adapter threads... Still, it's not clear to me what the difference is... Can anyone help here?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Darryl

Do your Pentax lenses have an aperture ring?? If they do then it's very simple and all you need is a simple e-mount to Pentax adapter without any iris control. I'm using Nikon lenses which have no iris ring on the lens so I need the adapter that has a lever on it that uses the DOF preview actuator inside the lens to open and close the iris.

I bought Novoflex after getting tired of cheap Chinese adapters that simply didn't fit the camera!! Mine were 175 euro direct from a guy in Germany called "the camera gentlemen"

Chris

[James Manford]

Sorry about your mis-fortune but it's interesting to see the inside of an EA50 considering I own one, thank you for taking pictures and uploading them!

[Steven Digges]

Chris,

$800 a years for photographers insurance, Wow! That is a lot. My "commercial" insurance that covers my business and gear is a commercial rider on my home owners policy. It is less than half that. For the audio visual shows I produce the hotels and resorts I go into sometimes require me to provide proof of insurance. I have a certificate for $500,000.00 of liability coverage.

Steve

[Kyle Root]

Thanks for sharing the story and shots of the camera... wow.

You know, this is going to make me re-look at my insurance policy, because I'm not sure exactly what's covered and what's not. It looks like I need a rider policy as well probably.

[Noa Put]

Good for you that the camera has been replaced, I wonder if you would put a gh3 with it's 12-35mm lens which both are "weathersealed" for 45 seconds under water if it still would be dry inside. Anyone care to test? :)

Darryl: Can I use your photo's for my nex-ea50 blog (http://sonynexea50.wordpress.com/)? It's been a long time that I added something interesting so this would be a good addition.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

That's our "Photographers Package" from Aon Insurance here. Our public liability insurance supposedly needs to be a minimum of $5M for some reason. I would think in the USA where everyone is trying to sue someone it wiuld actually be higher. That accounts for roughly half of my insurance premium.

The other half is cover for my gear both in the country and outside too. I'm covered on my major gear from theft from my vehicle (as long as it was locked) any damage or theft at the venue as well and obviously accidental damage. Funny enough it doesn't cover my gear when It's at home !! My household insurance covers that so my Photog Insurance is only when the gear is out of the house!

Chris

[Darryl N. Barg]

Hi Noa, Yes, definitely use the pics for your blog.

Others, I have a cousin in commercial insurance, and he sourced me a rate of $650/yr for $20,000 equipment coverage plus $1,000,000 liability. I have a much larger investment in audio gear, so the 20G should cover both. Seems the million liability is the minimum. It's a crazy world.

Chris, I ordered the Voigtlander adapter... a bit more research did turn up the info you shared. All my lenses are fully manual with iris control. It seems like the Novoflex offers continues iris control, which could be nice, but I haven't really seen the benefit of this yet. When I try to change the f-stop on the ea50 mid flight, it still looks pretty poor... I don't know if the Novoflex would do any better. Do people operate with this workflow? I'd much rather have the iso or shutterspeed change, as that doesn't affect DoF.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Darryl

In manual I use the camera in auto and just adjust iris to suit and the camera looks after shutter and gain or ISO. It works very well in this mode and at weddings I'm mostly shooting with a moderate DOF. The Novoflex lever is very smooth so you can set the iris at anywhere you want to ..it's just not opened and closed. With my D series Nikon lenses I have no iris ring at all so the lever is essential for me.

It's not really important for me to know whether I'm at F8 or F16 in bright light but when I'm looking for shallowish DOF then I just open the iris wide open and I know that's F2.8 on most of my manual lenses.

Let us know how you find the Voigtlander adapter ..they used to make stunning cameras so it should be well engineered!

Chris

[Darryl N. Barg]

The Voigtlander adapter arrived today. Feels like a fine piece of gear. At $180, just to dumb adapt, it should be... so the good news is that the camera that spent almost a minute in the lake is now completely functioning!
I have a Pentax 50mm/2.0 and a Tamron 35-70/3.5. Neither of them great lenses, but given that they've been sitting in a camera bag for the last 20 years, and I assumed they'd go to the thrift store, things could be much worse. Now I'll need to cruise the used market for something a bunch wider and I have a great static camera.
Much of my freelance video work is actually a value added to my live audio work: recording concerts for local choral groups... but everyone wants to be on youtube. Now I can go two camera if they want the extra editing time.
For what it's worth, I would not recommend the route I took to get to two EA50's. :)

Darryl

[Michael Spanheimer]

Originally Posted by James Manford

Sorry about your mis-fortune but it's interesting to see the inside of an EA50 considering I own one, thank you for taking pictures and uploading them!

yeah...that was pretty interesting...i agree