How weather resisitant are OM Z primes?

[dg1]

For you OM veterans, do you consider OM manual lenses to be useable in rainy

weather, snowy, or dusty conditions?

 

The reason I ask is I have purchased a used Oly E-1 with weather sealed body,

but while I have some OM manual focus primes, I don't yet own any of the current

weather sealed digital lenses.

 

Thanks.

[Hector Javkin]

I've had my Olympus system in rather dry California, but the OM-1 and my Zuiko primes stood up perfectly well on a trip to Alaska that included a very rainy Southeast, to Japan during a very cold and snowy winter, to central Florida, on a couple of trips to a rainy U.K, to a snowy winter in Bulgaria. Of course, I tried to protect the camera and lenses as much as possible, but I was still shooting. The only lens that ever failed me on my OM-1 was a Tokina zoom in OM mount.

[matthew_newton]

I haven't used my OM or its lenses in a heavy downpour, but it has held up well under snowy conditions (including near blizzard conditions), blown sand (beaches on windy days) and misting rain (not quite drizzle). I have also attempted to protect the camera and lenses as much as possible, but they still received plenty of exposure.

 

All has seemed well. I would suspect other then immersion in water, long exposure in torrential down pours or using the lens/camera immersed in sand then the lens should hold up pretty darned well. I have never had a lens fail on me, though my experience is only a few short years and never in what I would consider 'the worst' conditions possible, only simply 'bad' on a few occasions.

[patrick j dempsey]

Well since there's no electronics in them they don't really NEED to be. The real question is, it your adapter going to seal off the body from moisture?

[dg1]

Good point Patrick..I was wondering along those lines, but I didn't have the adapter in the equation. I figured if the 4/3rds mount was tight enough for the digital weather sealed lenses it would carry over to the OM lenses..but I haven't considered the adapter. Thanks for bringing that up.

 

I am assuming (or hoping) that in something short of a high pressure spray or downpour the camera to lens mount should be tight enough, but I certainly have no way of knowing.

[godfrey]

The 4/3 pro lenses have a gasket which seals the mount. As others intimated, the legacy

OM lenses don't have much to go wrong in them electrically ... but water inside a lens has

always been a nasty business when it happened anyway.

 

That said, I take the same amount of care to keep water away from my fancy-dancy

weathersealed equipment as I always have for everything else. It's sensible to not risk

water getting in if at all possible. :-)

 

Godfrey

[patrick j dempsey]

I would have a hard time using an expensive piece of electronics anywhere NEAR water no mater what the manufacturers guarantee... call me untrusting, but water + electricy = no-no in my old-fashioned book!