Condensation

Peter Rowlands · Issue 25, Jul/Aug 2005 · pp. 42

Products mentioned: Olympus C40, Olympus PT-012

In tropical climates we all like air-conditioning to keep us cool indoors – either on land or on liveaboards – especially at night, but this luxury can bring potential problems with underwater camera equipment. The camera housings in the photo were loaded and prepared in an air-conditioned room and then left there for a while. During this time they cooled down to the ambient temperature. Unfortunately when they were taken outside the higher ambient temperature caused the surfaces on the housings to condense and form moisture on the outside of the glass dome ports. The moisture will remain until the housings warm up and this will almost certainly disappear when they are taken underwater so it is not really a major problem. The big problem which can occur is if you needed to open the housing for some reason. The result would be this moisture forming on the camera and lens and the inside of…