Are Pentax Cameras *That* Weather Proof?
Jul 9, 2012
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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Apparently they are.
US soldier Alex Jansen took his two Pentax Cameras, The K-7 and K-5 and tested just how weather sealed and dust proof they are.
Although serving in Afghanistan, Alex was short of a real storm a the time of taking the video. He “compromised” by pouring a bag of sand on the poor bodies and rinsed them off in the showers. The cameras survived. Twice.
It is quite impressive to see a sub $1000 DSLR go through such an abuse and tough it like a big guy. Having watch the video, I am not really surprised at the lack of a strap.
If you’re interested, here is the list of gear that went under the test:
PENTAX K-5 + D-BG4 Battery Grip + DA* 16-50 f/2.8
I wonder if CanoNikon are ever going to compete in that category, I would love to see a weather sealed D7000.
Alex Jansen posts regularly on the Pentax Forums – some insightful reports from Afghanistan.
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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3 responses to “Are Pentax Cameras *That* Weather Proof?”
rather old post about a video regarding Pentax digital cameras WR performance, which i had seen in its own time but i didn’t know about this particular page until i reached it by accident now … so, i hope you’ll forgive the late comer me! ;-)
a couple things so obvious not everybody needs mentioned but well, maybe some people will like them anyway:
1. i happened to test Pentax WR products durability too, but by accident …
and here’s how the story goes: i have a K-7 and a K-5 cameras by Pentax but only one genuine Pentax BG-4 battery grip that fits both … so i bought a second 3rd party one for $50 and it was good enough as long as it did work but it’s not WR … it even has the extra advantage of being lighter in weight because it’s all made in plastic, while the original Pentax one is made of the same Titanium alloy as the cameras, which is yet another reason why it’s not cheap really …
then a few years ago i was photographing at a beach, having both cameras with me when i somehow got a little more adventurous and eventually attacked by the ocean waves and everything was wet … not ‘drown’ of course but quite wet … so, i dried the cameras all up and tested everything and found out they all worked very well as they did before but for the cheap 3rd party (no-name brand) battery grip! :/ it simply stopped working altogether and a few parts just dropped out although there was no hard impact involved in the ‘attack’ …
so, it’s now lying there in a bag somewhere, good only for parts perhaps … the battery holders may still be usable but didn’t test them and maybe the whole thing is repairable too … but is it worth it?
morale: in case of sensitive tools like this, always go with the original product no matter how costly it is!
2. of course WR products, by Pentax or anyone, are just what they are: Weather Resistant … but it doesn’t mean we can *abuse* them really, can we?!
just because they’re waterproof for example, it doesn’t mean we have to keep using them under the rain, especially heavy rain … besides, they’re not “waterproof” really, they’re just ‘splash’ proof … or if they are dust-proof too, it only means we can use them under windy conditions with many dust speckles in the air and not quite worry they’ll get into the camera and jam the mechanism but it doesn’t mean we can also actually ‘wrestle’ with them and put them to hard tests, does it?
anyhoot, here are pictures of the cheap 3rd no-brand name battery grip after it broke down … (the broken battery compartment lock thing happened long before the ‘ocean waves attack’ though, after about a year or so of use and say more than a total of 20K shots on both cameras together …) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5dfcec340e1386b20deb00485c78cb403badbffefae063b397bbd5b1e7e8bec.jpg
another shot … https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf11ee2337545d322449e580dfb2dc65df6a9d55106ac45fa4d56a28bc39e62c.jpg
and another … https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee3f39773236fefe643b42586e3f59e451bbddb6902e242fdc7648892b0c182b.jpg