Weather Sealing is a Gimmick.

Just for reference here is what IPX1 translates to according to the wiki page for it.

IPX1 translates to:

1. No rating at all for Solid particle protection. That is the “X” part.

2. Dripping water (vertically falling drops) shall have no harmful effect. That is the “1” part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code

So there you have it. In Olympus’s eyes “Weather-Resistance” simply means “Dripping water (vertically falling drops) shall have no harmful effect”. So if you drip individual drops on it then it will still work.

Now let’s list some of the things the weather sealing doesn’t protect against.

1. Vertically dripping water shall have no harmful effect when the enclosure is tilted at an angle up to 15° from its normal position. This means that if you tilt the camera at all then the weather protection could fail and your warranty could be voided.

2. Water splashing against the enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effect. Seriously they don’t even say that it is protected against splashing water.

I think a big part of the issue is due to the fact that most people misinterpret “Weather-Resistance” as “Weather Sealed”. I know I am guilty of that in the thread title. I don’t believe Olympus ever suggests that their cameras or lenses are weather sealed. They just say they are weather resistant. Which in reality isn’t saying much at all.

I have learned a lot from this thread. If I could change the thread title now I would have said “Is M4/3s weather resistance a gimmick?” If the mods want to change it then that would be great.

I think a lot of the angst over this topic was due to the tone of my first post and I will own that. It probably wasn’t the best way to get my point across. However, there is good information here and I don’t want to lose sight of that.

A majority of people in this thread have expressed an opinion that “Weather Resistance” means more than what Olympus has stated it means. In fact the new E-M5 MK II article that was just posted here is full of misleading statements as to the effectiveness of the Weather Resistance.

The problem is not that the weather resistance does nothing at all. The issue is that it doesn’t do nearly as much as most people think it does.

Please note that this thread was placed in the Micro Four Thirds forum. Therefore, it was meant to only apply to Panasonic and Olympus Weather Resistance. Nikon, Sony, and Canon…etc could have totally different interpretations.

EDIT:

Olympus does in fact say their lenses and the new Olympus E-M5 MKII are “Weather Sealed” in their marketing material. However, they switch to using the term “Weather Resistant” in their specifications. Does anyone know if the EM5 MK II is in fact more weather proofed than the E-M1 or E-M5?

Your guess is as good as mine as to what they really mean. To me it just seems totally ambiguous. They put a lot of misleading text in their marketing and then nullify all of it in disclaimers.