Four-Thirds toughness

[rickbarbosa]

<p>Any experience with either Olympus or Lumix 4/3 in adverse weather or dangerous environments? Looking to replace my Nikon DSLR for a more efficient and discreet set up, but also needs to endure a lot of wear and environmental abuse. </p>

[akira]

<p>If the environmental sealing is a necessary feature, Olympus E3 body and SHG/HG lenses may be the only possible choices among the 4/3 body/lens lineups.</p>

[godfrey]

<p>As Akira said, if rough conditions ... wet and dust, lots of beating around, etc ... are what you need to contend with, you need a pro body. That's when I pull out the E-1 (and will get an E-3 someday soon) and my pro-class Olympus lenses. </p>

[meissner]

<p>Lets see last summer, one of the renaissance faires I went to turned into a torrential downpour for about an hour. I had the E-3 with the 14-54mm lens, and kept on shooting (we don't need no stinking plastic bags :-)). Later in the same trip, I went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride at Niagara Falls where you go into the falls itself, and do get rather wet, and took both the E-1 with the 11-22mm and E-3 with the 50-200mm lens. Both cameras are still fine today.<br>

Now, I do suspect that if you routinely go into harsh situations, that sooner or later the seals will fail, just like some jeep owners have to get pulled out of really remote locations because they keep pressing the envelop.<br>

That being said, the E-3 is a full sized DSLR (probably about the size of the mid range Nikon DSLRs unless you use the portrait grip), and the splash proof lenses aren't that small either. So, I'm not sure whether it will give you discrete like the micro 4/3rds cameras that you might be thinking of (E-Px, G-x).<br>

Olympus does make a line of weather sealed point & shoot cameras (the tough series), though a generation or two before, when I looked at the tough series, I felt the image quality was lacking (comparing it to other p&s cameras, and not DSLRs). A lot of people would like Olympus to come out with a splashproof micro-4/3rds camera.</p>

[rickbarbosa]

<p>The E-1 looks about the same size and build quality as my Nikon D200. It's not what I was looking for, but definitely worth considering if my current set up ever fails. I don't really expect any camera to be perfectly dust or moisture free, especially in the type of conditions I will put it through, but its got to endure some abuse. <br>

The E-Px, G-x cameras are about the same size as my old Nikon FE, FE2, and I guess that's what I miss. Situations gets intense, and wrestling the mid size DSLR out of its holster and making adjustments on the fly takes a lot longer than to used to when I carried these old film cameras. My environment is in the wilderness, on wildfires, and I still need to do my job safely, so if the situation is too dangerous, the last thing I need to be doing is wasting time messing with gear. It's a distraction to me, and to those I'm working with as well. The point & shoot tough series look discreet enough, but lack the controls, etc. A splash- proof m4/3rds Olympus sounds pretty good to me also. Thanks for the input, guys. </p>

[tony_lunn]

<p>I used an Olympus m4/3 E-P2 in extremely dusty conditions for three weeks in Nepal last month, with kit 14-42mm and 4/3 40-150mm lenses. While it's not weatherproofed, it survived well and still works fine. Sometimes I kept it in a Ziploc plastic bag, most of the time I didn't because I needed rapid access. <br>

So while the m4/3 is hardly a rough-tough camera even existing models can be used with reasonable precautions. I didn't try using it in Himalayan thunderstorms--for those I used it under a roof overhang so it got only occasional splatters. A potential hazard is the collapsible lenses being hit from the side when fully extended. </p>

[godfrey]

The G1 with four lenses fits in the same bag that I could only barely squeeze the FE2 and two lenses into. Part of it is that

the lenses are more compact but the body is too, by a healthy margin.

 

The E-1 with 11-22, 50 and EC14 fits in the same bag and is about the same weight as the FE2, but you don't need to

carry film. :-)

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I was on a boat on the Lake Wilson reservoir doing some fishing with a friend. My E-1 and 14-54 mm fell from my hand and sank in about three feet of clear pure water. My friend used his fish net to swoop it out. Dried it off with a towel on he spot and gently with a hair dryer when I got home. Still working, knock wood. I don' t recommend that treatment. The seals all held on the E-1.</p>

[rickbarbosa]

<p>The G1 sounds like a durable enough (and small enough) to look into. The Pen E-Px series looks more like what I'm looking for, though. The GF1 looks about right too, although I'm not sure if it can handle the environment. I've looked into all cameras mentioned here. Nice to have so many choices. Never looked too deeply into the M4/3rds systems, so it's nice to learn about it at least. </p>