How Weatherproof Are Olympus Cameras?

Words and pictures by John Lehet

Recently TOP had some comments about the weatherproof qualities of Olympus pro gear. I can tell you that it's hard to exaggerate how good these cameras are at keeping the wet out. I think I might have subjected mine to the ultimate test.

Even though 90% of my exposures are made with a Sony full-frame body, I keep and carry an Olympus E-M5 Mark II. I use the Olympus for various reasons: it's easier to get greater depth of field with it when that's a consideration; the Olympus Pro zooms are the only zoom lenses I own; the IBIS is fantastic; and it's compact.

And it's extremely weatherproof. Though I've owned Olympus weather-sealed bodies for a few years now, my first real test came in the Summer of 2015, squatting on the edge of a pond one misty morning. I had been using the Olympus, and it was in my open bag. With the Sony to my eye, I heard a "plop."

It was not a frog.

The Olympus with ƒ/2.8 zoom attached had fallen into the pond, into a few inches of water. I quickly scooped it up and dried it off on my shirt as best I could.

It was fine.

Knowing that the camera had survived that, I felt confident using it on a beach in driving wind and a deluge the following Winter. The atmosphere and storm-whipped waves compelled me to photograph madly. I usually don't mind getting soaked, but I don't like to ruin camera gear. So I kept the Sony and its lenses back at the house we were staying in, and used the E-M5 Mark II with the 12–40mm ƒ/2.8 and the 40–150mm ƒ/2.8 Pro zooms. I got soaked to the bone. Of course, the camera and lenses were fine.

A shot taken with the E-M5 Mark II in wind and pouring rain

During this period, I had gradually developed the practice of carrying more gear than I had previously. The main problem with that was that the E-M5 Mark II body didn't always settle into its compartment in the bag anymore.

The day of the first big snow last year I did a lot of photography, in three sessions. I used the E-M5 Mark II and other cameras within walking distance in the first session. I drove someplace I thought might be good for a second session, and for the third session I was closer to home again.

Still snowing the next day, I went out again, and reached for the E-M5 Mark II in my bag. It wasn't there. I couldn't find it anywhere. Tracing my steps from yesterday I would only be slogging through eight to ten inches of new snow. If I was going to find the camera I would have to feel it with my foot. There would be a lot of ground to cover, kicking at acres of new snow cover. Hopeless.

So I wrote my little Olympus off as lost. Sometime later I replaced it with another used E-M5 Mark II body with low use, and I also replaced the 60mm ƒ/2.8 Macro lens lost with it.

First big snow day. Taken with the A7R II

Here in Vermont last Winter we had steady snow cover, but it was not by any means a Winter of powder. It rained as often as it snowed. Hard rain at times, including Winter thunderstorms. The snow has often been wet snow. While March was a Winter month, often below freezing, February was unusually warm, featuring a lot of thaws and rains. I've been painfully aware of this weather, knowing that I had an Olympus EM-5 Mark II with the 60mm ƒ/2.8 Macro lens out there somewhere. But then...

...Four and a half months later...
...I found the lost Olympus!

About two weeks ago, next to the path between the garden and house, there it was: lens-up, during Vermont's final mid-altitude snow melt. It had been out in the elements for four and a half months: four and a half months of hard, atypical, changing Vermont Winter. Raining and snowing, freezing and thawing. I grabbed it out of the snow and immediately took the lens off to look inside the camera and through the lens. There was some wet fog on an inner element, and condensation on the sensor glass. I took out the battery, which was dry. Camera and lens, separated, were placed in a sunbeam on a warm windowsill for a while, as I prepared a large glass jar with dry desiccant. The lens quickly cleared, and of course the sensor glass dried quickly.

The next day was maybe too soon to check, but I couldn't help my curiosity. I put the battery in, put the lens on, and powered it up.

It worked perfectly.

Well, not perfectly. There is still one little problem. The power switch does not power the camera off. Because I have never learned to use my left hand to turn that camera off (every other camera in the world has a power switch on the right side of the camera body), I've always been prone to keeping it on (by accident) and relying on it going to sleep within seconds of inactivity. That still works, so that's how I continue to use it.

For all practical purposes, the camera's function is the same as ever, even if the resale value isn't. I'm still keeping the camera and lens in a jar of desiccant in hopes that that last bit of water in the switch will dry. After this Summer's trip to Iceland I will probably sell the newer replacement body and newer lens for near what I paid, and keep the risk of failure here where it belongs.

The Olympus has risen: Honeybee and squill

Over the last few days I've used that lost-and-found camera and lens to make over a hundred exposures. All perfectly fine.

So if you know someone who's wondering whether Olympus means it when it says its cameras are "weatherproof," this Vermont photographer's answer is: oh, yeah.

John

John Lehet was our most recent print sale artist. Here is his website.

©2017 by John Lehet, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

adamct: "I started reading this post pretty skeptical. I was expecting another story about holding a camera under running water or getting caught in a giant storm. I was wrong. That story is pretty amazing. I know how wet this winter was, and how great the temperature swings were.... Thanks!"

scott kirkpatrick: "Olympus has been careful about weatherproofing for a long time. Way back when the Olympus E-1 was new, there was a legendary example. A hard-working PJ had assembled a work kit of an E-1 and the basic lenses of that era, 11–22mm, 14–54mm, 50–200mm, and 50mm macro, and it all lived in a single capacious bag. Her faithful dog, feeling a bit neglected in favor of all this useful gear, decided to make it his own, marking the bag and all of its contents as only dogs can. It took about a week for the unusual smell to be tracked down to its source, but everything was soaked, rinsed clean—and continued to function flawlessly."

John: "I think my Olympus just surpassed my 1DX in the trust I put in it. Thanks!"

DB: "Notes to self: a.) replace long-serving E-M5 with E-M5 II when convenient; b.) don't lend John Lehet any photographic equipment."

John Lehet replies: Unfortunately this is far truer than you know. Though I had a multi-decade stretch of zero disasters, recent months have been off the chart. Since mid October I've had some crazy losses. I also lost a Zeiss Loxia 50 somehow—tumbled out of bag. And in late December I had a very expensive Zeiss Loxia 21mm pickpocketed out of my bag at night in the crowded city park where I took this picture.

On one outing this winter, I fell into this river, but only knee deep. I managed to fall onto the bank as I fell through what I thought was solid ice, but which was only a crust made of ice crystals.

I managed to fall onto the bank and not into the river.

Then another outing, I slid down the bank on my back along the side of a frozen waterfall. It turned out the soil was basically ice, and almost as slippery as the fall itself. I had just lost one of my ice cleats from one boot. The debris on the ice at the bottom of the fall is all stuff that came sliding down with me. I was very lucky to have managed to stop there, since it dropped off even more steeply just below.

In that case my Mindshift Rotation Pro backpack protected my gear perfectly, even though I ripped a coat and some jeans in the slide.

The bigger and tougher pack instead of carrying two bags, as I had been, I think is going to help a lot.

I think the cause of my disasters is largely that I am so heavily using so much gear. My gear isn't as simple as it used to be, and lately my use is exponentially greater. Also, in the fall my father died, and I think the grief was a kind of disability in terms of functioning normally.

Someone joked about a GPS. In fact after these mishaps, my adult children, wonderful people, got me for Christmas a Gear Eye from Kickstarter. It hasn't shipped yet, but I think it is due soon.

Colin Work: "I can't give any objective measures, but as a sailing photographer, I've written off a number of allegedly weather-sealed Canon items due to rough conditions at sea. I decided to give Olympus a try and in some three years of year-round sailing in sometimes horrible conditions, I've not had a water related issue."

Comments

[Bill Mitchell]

another good reason for "one camera, one lens."

[David Dyer-Bennet]

How do you treat your camera after salt water exposure (assuming that's the ocean in the first photo)? Bucket of distilled water, or just wipe it off, or something in between? I remember the guidelines for an accidentally-dunked film SLR being to keep it wet and in fresh water until you could get it to a repair place.

(If that's not the ocean, but you have a procedure for handling salt-water exposure anyway....)

[David Cope]

Amazing story, glad you were reunited. Even my ancient Olympus E1 is very well sealed. There are YouTube videos of it being cleaned under a shower, and someone put one buried in a tropical tank alongside another make ( sorry can't remember which brand) and the E1 worked fine, but said other camera didn't.

[Daniel M]

I an glad you have recover your Olympus in good shape and still in workable condition. You need to add a GPS location devise to help you finding your disperse equipment :-) !
Your story have just reassure me of the durability of the Olympus OM-D series and as an outdoor user myself I really appreciate to learn it.
Thanks for the post.
Daniel M
www.photodanielm.blogspot.ca

[Jeff]

I hope your insurance policy is as good as your camera brand....only a matter of time.

[howard cubell]

When you head to Iceland, be sure to take VERY water resistant equipment. You will need it! I know as my medium format camera and back failed after 3 days.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

John Lehet: the Incarnation of John Cameron Swayze for today's Olympus Camera Company!

Quite a tale!

[Kivi Shaps]

That is a hellava a story. I have a weatherproof Pany kit (GX8 and 12-60). Been through a lot of sea spay down here in Florida, Everglades mud. Next time it snows here in South Florida, I will try out the 4 month snow thing just to keep you honest.

[Geoffrey Heard]

Wonderful story, thanks John and Mike! Now I'm trying to work out how to run a parallel test on my Panasonic gear here in the tropics. We have the rain, but lack the snow -- and even my sad old fridge would be hard put to keep it cold enough in the freezer! LOL.

I've posted a link to this on the DPReview m43 forum -- everyone is always asking about weatherproofness so you should get a few people coming for a look. :)

Cheers, Geoff

[Henning Wulff]

Last August my wife and I went up into Canada's Arctic (70-76°N) on a small 'expedition' ship. Daily outing were on Zodiacs with all participants bundled up in head to to waterproof clothing with some warm layers underneath. It was right around freezing, plus or minus a degree or three, and it was windy, and when on the Zodiac, wet from salt water spray.

For photography I had two Olympus bodies; an EM5mkII and an EM1mkI with mostly Olympus pro lenses plus the Panasonic 100-400. I kept a UV filter on the lenses I could (didn't work on the 7-14) and kept them at the ready since wildlife and shot opportunities don't keep appointments. The onboard 'bird and wildlife photographer' kept his Nikons in cases during most of the Zodiac trips, taking them out only when we slowed down and splashing seemed unlikely.

With the Olympus IBIS I got many good shots from the moving Zodiac with the 7-14, 12-40 and 40-150, and even with the 100-400 and its optical stabilization I managed many technically excellent shots at full tele. I just wiped the front filter or element regularly when they got splashed.

When we got back from trips and changed, I often took a shower after being cooped up in the waterproof clothing for a few hours, and to wash the salt water spray off the cameras, I took them into the shower with me (no images were made!!!!). All the equipment worked fine then and still does.

Getting rid of all the salt was very important, and knowing the Olympus' were truly water resistant made this an easy decision. Never before have I had cameras that were this water resistant. If there is a picture to be made when it's stormy and rainy, this is the camera to take!

[Stephen Scharf]

Wonderful story by John. I can't say that I am all that surprised, though I am very happy John got his camera back. I think this environmental challenge would as likely be met by a pro Canon, Nikon or the GFX/X-T series of Fujis as well. I read of a story this earlier year of an X-T body and WR lens that were completely submerged underwater when the owner fell overboard while boarding a boat in SE Asia; both camera and lens were fine.

The one question that ran through my mind after reading John's story was, "I wonder how a Hassy X1D would have fared?"

[Rick]

This Olympus challenge cannot go unanswered! Mike will be defending the honor of the Panasonic GX8 by leaving his outside by the creek this summer, reporting back to us late fall.

[Jan Steinman]

On top of weatherproof, Olympus has a long history of durability.

I went on a waterfall shoot with some friends from Germany, in their rental car. The woman and I took our cameras out and put them on the trunk lid. Her husband had his gear in the trunk, and he was inside, opening the glove box, and… you guessed it; he popped the trunk latch.

I won't identify her camera, except to say it was one of the Big Ones with two "n"s in their name. Her zoom lens literally broke in half! The back latch opened, and a day's worth of film was spoiled. The back was bent, and would no longer close.

I picked up my unharmed Olympus OM-4T with the unharmed 24mm ƒ2 lens, took the cap off, and took a photo of her wrecked camera for the insurance company.

While I don't recommend this as a test, the modern OMD line seems equally durable!

[Bill Van Antwerp]

I can attest that even modest exposure to salt water (flooded underwater housing) will kill even the EM-1. Salt is way worse than just water; for a bit of salt water exposure you should rinse with DI water then dry it out (any of a number of ways), Lenses nowadays are also quite quickly killed by slat water exposure.

[toto]

I have a silly (or perhaps not-so-silly) thought - would a metal detector have helped locate the camera?

[Dave Pawson]

Now that's what I call an advert for Olympus. Much better than most professional ones! Thanks.

[Arg]

Hey, the E-M5II with 1240PRO is my main camera. Cleary I have been wasting my money for the past 2 years. Time to start drop-kicking it into duck ponds.

[MarkR]

For a contrarian view, look up "survivorship bias", or better yet, read this: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/

[Hmm, no, I don't think survivor bias applies here. It's not like hundreds of E-M5 Mark II's are being left out all Winter and we only hear about the one or two that survive. This strikes me as a legitimate "torture test," even if an inadvertent one. --Mike]

[Eduard]

That is flat out amazing! We've linked to the article for our Oly users to discover too.

http://cameraswithoutmirrors.com/threads/olympus-e-m5-mark-ii-survives-4-months-in-winter-outside.1143/

[Eli Burakian]

That's awesome. I just got the om-d em-1 ii precisely for the same reasons. I also use zooms on that and primes on my a7rii, but absolutely love using the olympus and I'm psyched to hear that it actually does live up to the hype. And supposedly the em-5 ii isn't even as robust as the em-1 ii!

[Marcelo Guarini]

I only use Olympus cameras, but not for their weatherproofness, I take very good care of them when I'm in the wild. Maybe is time to become a bit careless :-)

Thanks for sharing your wonderful story.

[John Lehet]

toto asks: would a metal detector have helped locate the camera?

Perhaps, but I didn't happen to have access to one. The other problem was that I had walked quite a lot. I'm sure I walked a few miles. And I wasn't sure which session I lost the camera. I posted a photo of the lake. I walked around the lake, and then on the other side of it there was a pumpkin field, still full of pumpkins that were covered with snow. I dashed in and out of that field willy-nilly. It wasn't like I simply walked on a trail. So in this case, I was discouraged from even looking.

Around home I did actually kick around in the snow, but more in places were I had been working. I didn't even explore that in-between zone. The metal detector would have given me hope though. I'm not sure how far the range is for the RFID chips in the Gear Eye, but this was close enough to the house that it might have been picked up by that device. I can't wait to get it. I think that would have found it.

[Jim McKinley]

I can attest to the weather proofing of the Olympus system after having spent eight hours photographing in the rain with my EM5M2. However, that feat was only possible because Olympus lenses were attached. The same body suffered a wet end with a Panasonic lens attached.

[Noons]

Great story! And I don't have any problems believing the EM5MII can take that and more!
Mine certainly has taken a lot as I'm not very kind to gear while tracking around looking for wildlife.
And the EM5 original is still ticking and happy as a bird as a backup!
One thing regarding the switch not working: the latest firmware (2.2, if memory doesn't fail me) has a history of highlighting that problem on EM5MII cameras.
If you upgraded it recently, that could be the issue. It's a quick fix with Olympus service, though.
Great gear, without a doubt. I'm so glad I invested in it a few years ago!

[John Sutherland]

The low end Olympus E510 is not as good a swimmer, as I discovered. It rolled out of the camera bag and stopped partially submerged in the river. There was enough still operating to download the card, but it never took a picture again. Fortunately I still had my film camera with me at the time. I had been planning to upgrade from my first venture into the DSLR world anyway, though maybe not quite so fast.

[MarkR]

Mike wrote:
[Hmm, no, I don't think survivor bias applies here. It's not like hundreds of E-M5 Mark II's are being left out all Winter and we only hear about the one or two that survive. This strikes me as a legitimate "torture test," even if an inadvertent one. --Mike]

Except that's not really what survivor bias is about, is it? Really what this story is about is that all the weatherproofing that Olympus put on its cameras worked at a level beyond what was expected. What we don't know is how many times other users have had their Oly cameras fail due to bad weather. If one camera survives being buried during a harsh winter, and one hundred others break because they were left out for an hour in a light drizzle, then you have survivor bias.

Look, my primary camera is an Olympus. I really hope they are all this rugged and tough. Maybe they are. But you can't evaluate this (or anything) based on anecdotal evidence.

[ronin]

I have this EM5 original that has accompanied me on multi-day hikes in continuous driving downpours accompanied by winds of 30mph. This has included multiple days on the Inca Trail, multiple days along the Hadrian Wall path, and extended horse rides deep into the Colorado mountains.

I keep the body and mounted resistant lens tucked into my jacket, but don't baby it when I want to take a pic. I've shot blind when the monitor is awash or fogged up.

Very dependable, always worked. No reason to move on or "upgrade," it's proven dependable. I took a chance after having owned a couple OM4tn's and Zuiko lenses a couple decades ago and more, which I found delicate and relatively fragile compared to its competition of the day.