Alex Jansen, who is currently on a deployment in Afghanistan, recently created this video showing off the weather and dust sealing capabilities of his Pentax K-5 and K-7 cameras. I know that even though my Canon 1D claims to be 'weather and dust resistant' it would be a cold day in hell before I ever voluntarily did something like this to my camera (and lenses!). Alex is clearly confident in the ruggedness of these two cameras - I will admit that I'm incredibly impressed that the build of Pentax cameras gave Alex the confidence to do this. I'd be cringing every step of the way - he doesn't even hesitate. Would you be willing to do this with your Canon or Nikon?
Alex is currently chronicling his time on deployment with some very eye-opening photos, which can be seen here. Well worth a look!
soldier.... torture ....afghanistan..
great headline....
What about that zoom lens? I think the heat of battle has got to this hero. :)
Both are zoom lenses and both are dust and water proof. :-) But I agree, that left 16-50 looks fragile.
Pentax ftw.
I did not know that, thanks. I know a few heros over there, I'll pass this on.
with the kind of resources at your disposal in the army a few thousand dollars on camera equipment is nothing, covering them in dust and then washing them in a shower is probably more because he could than because he was genuinely testing them. of course, I could be wrong :)
does he always make pictures with the hood/cover still on his lenses?????
Do you not use lens hoods? Is there some "hipster" coolness to not using lens hoods I should know about?
He meant the lid covering the lens, not the hood itself. :)
I just wonder WHY all camera brands don't do this...
I'd pay easily 3-400$ more to get that type of performance on say the new D600....
I hosed down my D3 with a 24 - 70 2.8 after a day on the beach in Cuba. I had taken my gear into enough rain to trust that a pass under the shower would do it no harm. This was over a year ago and I still use it every weekend or so for weddings.
I've put my D3+24-70 through massive rainforest rain and humidity AND dust. Wouldn't do the same with my D800 though :)
Totally agree, love my K-5 wouldn't change to anything else...unless of course the K-3 that is rumoured comes out :)
eh, i still wouldn't shoot pentax....let me qualify that...i USED to shoot pentax...k10d.....then i woke up and moved to nikon....far better glass, and far better cameras...
I shot pentax, then nikon FF and back to pentax.. I like pentax glass and ergonomics better.
This guy shoots some great photos... Do check out his posts over on the Pentax forum if you are even slightly interested in combat photography. Really good stuff.
You can do something similar with an Olympus E-3 or E-5: http://youtu.be/tZwAQ4WHbuM and http://youtu.be/DxoYP749CzQ, pretty impressive!
At the last Photokina, Olympus demonstrated such a thing (holding it under water) live, then I went to Canon's booth and asked them if they would demonstrate it.. "No, it's pretty weather sealed but....", funny to see how they have trust in their own product.