Water damage = battery drain? Help?

[leon8]

My N80 has recently turned into a battery guzzler. Shooting about 3

or 4 roles a month, I used to get about a whole year out of a set of

lithium batteries. About 6 months ago, I started to have to change

the batteries every 2 months!

 

About that time, I had an incident while shooting at Victoria Falls -

the spray from the waterfalls soaked both me and my camera - like

being in a rainstorm, but the camera kept on working. After a while,

the LCD went out, but the camera kept on taking pictures. I noticed

that there was visible moisture on the inside of the viewfinder. When

I got back to my hotel, I put everything out under the sun and let it

dry. After awhile, the LCD came back to life, the moisutre on the

viewfinder went away, and everything worked fine. Still works fine to

this day.

 

The question is, did the moisture damage something inside the camera

that is causing me to lose batteries so fast? And if so, is it only a

matter of time before the electronics are corroded? The spray from

the waterfaill wasn't saltwater, but then again it wasn't clean

distilled water either? Would this be expensive to repair?

 

Any help?

 

Thanks,

Leon

[todd peach seattle, washi]

Just an educated guess, but yes, I think your markedly increased battery consumption is related to your 'soaking'. I have no idea what it might cost to repair, but I fear if you let Nikon do it, they'll replace one or more 'FPC' (flexible printed circuits) which I imagine will run you $200 or more.

 

Depending upon how you feel about such things, you might just live with the increased 'appetite' for batteries until the camera fails and then turn it in and see what they say. One option is to spring for an MB-16 ($70 at B&H) and then you can feed the thing cheap warehouse AA's.

[Jerry_]

Or if you know the camera will sit for a week or so, remove the battery until you are ready to use the camera again. A battery not in the camera will not drain as your N80 presently does.