New York was fun! The weather though… We called it “museum day”, which was a euphemy for pouring rain all day long. As I had written, I planned to take my workhorse D3300 to this trip, but I decided to pull out the Big Gun, my most modern and expensive camera yet, the mighty D7500. It nearly broke my back, but it definitely paid off as far as the weather was concerned, as the D7500 is marketed as “weather sealed” together with the Tamron 18-400mm lens which I had on-camera.
It’s actually quite funny how manufacturers play sneaky-sneaky with that “water sealing” designation. There’s no official measure, no IPX rating, just a rather shady marketing statement about the camera’s ability to survive in rainy / dusty weather. Olympus is well-known for its resistance to dust / snow / whatever, and I believe all flagship (think D6, 1D, etc.) and “pro-grade” models (D850, D500, 5D…) are expected to deal with harsh conditions, but the prosumer stuff (D7500, Olympus OM-D EM5, Canon 70D, etc.) are in a gray area.
Accordingly, my confidence was somewhat limited in the D7500-Tamron combo to survive pouring rain, but I suppressed my anxiety (f**t it, it’s weatherproof) and kept shooting – until the camera stopped running actually.
It was about that wet when it failed to switch on. It had its fair share of water droplets but it was still very far from my evening shower Sinatra karaoke show. I was quite surprised to find some water in the battery and SD card compartment too. The Tamron lens put up a better fight though, which was again surprising, given there are a few dust particles in it, discrediting the manufacturer’s weather resistance claims. This time no water, no fog, no whatever, it apparently survived the beating without any scars.
At the hotel I had yet another shocker to face: despite having them packed up in a plastic bag and in an on-paper-waterproof rucksack, all my photo gear was crazy wet: a Nissin i40 flash, a Tokina 11-20 lens, and two Nikon primes (yup, slightly overdid on gear…). All that survived thankfully without a hassle after a good drying, although the Nissin was barely wet thanks to its little pouch. There’s one thing that didn’t come home though: an aftermarket battery succumbed to the water treatment.
Conclusions? Well, pulling out your $1500 camera gear in rain is already a stress management exercise, and $1500 is not expensive in camera terms, so I definitely wouldn’t test manufacturer claims if I had a full frame imager with some decent optics on it. You can do it more reponsibly with cute little “camera raincoats” or better yet, just by putting away your equipment and relying on your second best friend when it comes to snapping away in the rain: your IPX-rated smartphone.