Hello OMers,
I smiled when I read Joel's post about dunking his OM2S--not at his
(or the camera's) misfortune, but at a similar incident I had. I
dropped my OM4T into a stream in 1990. I quickly pulled it out from the
foot -deep stream, opended the back, and shook out a fair amount (as in
tablespoons) of water. I looked through the viewfinder and watched as
the display flickered out. Further effort showed that the camera was
absolutely dead--no LED, no shutter action, nothing. The camera was sent
to Olympus Repair, but they returned it as "not repairable due to water
damage." I bought a new OM4T and left the dunked one in a drawer for a
decade.
A few years ago I picked up a winder, and I wanted to try it out. I
attached the winder to the "dead" OM4T, hit the button, and, to my utter
amazement, heard the shutter release. "What???" I thought. I started
to install new batteries and heard the 4T sound "beep beep" as I
tightened the battery chamber cover. The display in the viewfinder
light up as I pressed the shutter release button half way down, and,
trying various shutter speeds, the "dead" 4T seemed to have returned to
life.
The local camera repair shop quickly verified that the manual speeds
were right on, so I put in a roll of film and took shots at various
speeds, f-stops, lighting conditions, delayed shutter release, and with
or without a flash. The shots all turned out just fine, and the camera
has returned to near full time use.
I wouldn't recommend dunking your own 4T in a stream as the "clean"
portion of a CLA. But this 4T got WET. And it recovered! Amazing.
Makes one wonder what effort was made at the OM repair facility to test
out this camera.
Anyone care to top this Lazarus tale?
Best wishes,
Dean
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