Reading mode: Light Dark

So what is WR worth?

Go to last post
CeeDave

CeeDave

Veteran Member
Messages
2,257
Solutions
1
Reaction score
1,623
Location
Quincy, MA, US
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?

--
Chris
Selected photos at https://500px.com/ceedave
A couple of Fuji cameras and assorted X-mount and adapted primes
 
Last edited:
CeeDave said:
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
 
CeeDave said:
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
Since Fuji does not sell two versions of each lens you are more likely to buy a lens based on its properties than because it specifically offers WR.
 
I've shot with protection on WR bodies that have failed for some (Olympus, Sony), but I've been relatively unscathed or fortunate (one user error issue). Eventually I shed the Sleeve or plastic bags out of frustration, and since I had a backup body or two I took more and more chances.

By the time I bought into Fuji I bought into WR and shoot relatively carefree. I still worry I'm rolling the dice, but odds seem to be in my favor. We hear about the failures more than those that withstood.

It's worth, IMO, whatever they're asking. It's just a option that has more value to some than others.

.

.

.

.

.

.

20180301-_XP20161-X3.jpg


--

...Bob, NYC
.
"Well, sometimes the magic works. . . Sometimes, it doesn't." - Chief Dan George, Little Big Man
.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobtullis/
http://www.bobtullis.com
.
 
Last edited:
I don't know how it is with the non WR bodies and lenses, but I have been under the rain, with heavy splashes from a boat breaking waves in a crazy windy river in the Patagonia trusting the WR to hold. It holded. WR works or I was lucky? IDK...really don't, but I'm not afraid anymore. But I don't buy anything without WR. I'm not a carefull person. And even tough I have only WR lenses, I almost need a sealed chamber to change lenses. I have to be sure that there's no possible pollution in the process.

--
I like photography because it gets me closer to some kind of art
https://500px.com/mauro_laserena
 
Last edited:
CeeDave said:
How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
 
I think it is nice to have, but it is not a feature I rely on. If I know I'm going to have to shoot in the wet I'll use my old standby of a plastic bag. The WR means weather RESISTANT not weather proof. How resistant depends on many factors, including luck.
 
Water, sand and wind generally don't treat electronics well, so I'd definitely prefer a seal or two if I can afford it! However, I think trying to spec out weather sealing is an exercise in futility. Simply put, weather sealing adds a physical barrier that non-sealed bodies don't have. How effective that barrier is under any of the myriad conditions it could be subjected to is simply not measurable, in my opinion.

I will say that I had to send a malfunctioning X-T10 in to Fuji repair after an evening at a blustery beach in Oregon a couple of years ago. I think some sand blew in the front control dial area, which is unprotected. Shortly after it was repaired I sold it for an X-T1. Now I'm back to an X-T20 for the upgraded specs. However, I will probably look at selling it and getting an X-T2, partially for its WR. I'll probably get the 16-80 when it comes out too :)
 
It depends on the camera and a the user, I suspect. WR weather/water resistant isn't water proof, so I wouldn't rely on it in extreme conditions, unlike a mechanical camera.

Thats said, I went hiking with my first DSLR, a Nikon D5100, in Scottish rain. As anyone familiar with Scottish rain will tell you, it's a unique kind of drizzle that gets everywhere—you end up wet no matter how well dressed for the elements you might be. My D5100 survived, despite getting wet and despite not being sealed like Nikon's pro gear.
 
For where I live it’s a very very valuable feature.
 
Hi Chris,

It influences my buying, but isn't an overriding factor. Given the choice of identical features, one sealed and one not sealed, I'll always pay extra for the sealing. Unfortunately we rarely get that simple a choice. Eg, if you want a Fuji 23mm and f1.4 or say a 60mm macro, there's only an unsealed option. I bought the sealed XT1, but bought those two lenses anyway. I'm just careful with them.

I've lost two film SLRs to moisture. Neither were sealed. One was an accidental and very quick dunking while in a day pack. The other was splashed by spray. Both on the sea. In both cases, the ingress wasn't massive and wasn't via the lens. The damage was caused by very small amounts of salt water getting under the top dials. It shorts out the contacts and kills your camera. In the time it takes to get it to a repairman, corrosion of the contacts and PCBs sets in very quickly. Meanwhile, you have no camera and in remote locations, you can't buy another.

I'm just as conscious of sand and dust. In many ways it's worse than water. Many people have no grasp of just how penetrating the dust that wells up in arid places and deserts can be. It can kill precision mechanical components like zoom mechanisms and AF and it certainly doesn't evaporate. I used to work in a B&M camera store. Every summer compacts would come in that weren't working. If it appeared to be a mechanical jam and the cause wasn't obvious, the next question was always - "Have you taken it to the beach?'..... It only takes a few grains of sand.

So yes, I'll pay for sealing if it's available. And I'll buy the lens I want if it's not and just take good care of it. It's probably best not to place too much reliance on it anyway. I look at it as a desirable last line of defence, not Fort Knox.

Cheers, Rod
 
CeeDave said:
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
What WR is for most of us, whether valid, or not, is an added sense of security.

For the most part I don't find myself shooting outdoors in torrential downpours. However, In the part of California where I live, and shoot, we have a windy, dusty, and smoke filled environment, the added protection from dust, and other particulate pollution is invaluable. Now the question is, is the perceived successful minimizing of particulate intrusion/pollution due to the use of WR lenses on a WR body, or the care and precaution taken with handling, including lens changes in windy, dusty, smokey conditions.
 
Len-O said:
CeeDave said:
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
What WR is for most of us, whether valid, or not, is an added sense of security.

For the most part I don't find myself shooting outdoors in torrential downpours. However, In the part of California where I live, and shoot, we have a windy, dusty, and smoke filled environment, the added protection from dust, and other particulate pollution is invaluable. Now the question is, is the perceived successful minimizing of particulate intrusion/pollution due to the use of WR lenses on a WR body, or the care and precaution taken with handling, including lens changes in windy, dusty, smokey conditions.
Click to expand...
Thanks, everyone, for sharing your views. It has been interesting and informative for me. Roughly, there seem to be a couple of views,
  1. WR is very important and desirable, indeed essential to some.
  2. WR is desirable, but not decisive over other attributes.
Category 2 is where I’d put myself, in that I won’t “sidegrade” my earlier purchases (23/1.4, 35/1.4, and 60/2.4 [that would be an upgrade to the much larger and more expensive 80/2.8 because there is of course no WR 60 macro]). I am considering the 50/2 just to give me a WR middle focal length to my 2 WR lenses (the Mighty 16 and Nonpareil 90) without selling or having redundancies with my current selection, which I’m pretty happy with.

As someone with a statistical bent, I wish there were some at least approximate description of the effectiveness of WR, even if qualified extensively, along the lines of “On a properly maintained and mounted WR camera and lens combination, the unit is designed to meet the ingress protection spec IPxy” or (here’s my statistics coming out) “WR reduces ingress of sand and dust (IPx) from 10 percent of test cases (nonWR) to 1 percent, and reduces water ingress under IPy conditions from 25 percent to 5 percent.” Then I could actually say, for my use, what WR is worth. The port, battery, and card doors are even harder to seal than the lens mount, and are probably as tough as control dials (buttons are easier).

However, this kind of test and statement is hard to do with all the ports and doors we expect in cameras and the features we want on lenses (although it might be possible in a camera with inductive charging and onboard memory with only wireless data transfer, and all internal focus and zoom).

I don’t want to go back there, but I have fond memories of my never flooded Nikonos 5, which was a durable (though inconvenient) jungle cam with its 35 mounted.

All the best,
 
CeeDave said:
Len-O said:
CeeDave said:
I have lost cameras to moisture, but only one was not while diving. I like the idea of sealing, especially since it rains hard and often here.

But, unlike a watch or a phone, cameras with interchangeable lenses don’t seem to have any actual Ingress protection specified. And in my experience and from what I’ve heard, there is no enhanced warranty.

With this vagueness and lack of backing up the WR rating, how much extra is it worth paying on a lens? Ten percent, more, less?

How much does the WR rating influence your buying decisions?

Just curious. For me, I’ll shoot carefully (water resistant pack, plastic bags, inexpensive rain covers, towels, and not tempting fate), at least for now, and keep my older, brighter, nonWR lenses...not sure about future purchases, though.

WR: Senseless spec or a truly valuable feature?
Click to expand...
What WR is for most of us, whether valid, or not, is an added sense of security.

For the most part I don't find myself shooting outdoors in torrential downpours. However, In the part of California where I live, and shoot, we have a windy, dusty, and smoke filled environment, the added protection from dust, and other particulate pollution is invaluable. Now the question is, is the perceived successful minimizing of particulate intrusion/pollution due to the use of WR lenses on a WR body, or the care and precaution taken with handling, including lens changes in windy, dusty, smokey conditions.
Click to expand...
Thanks, everyone, for sharing your views. It has been interesting and informative for me. Roughly, there seem to be a couple of views,
  1. WR is very important and desirable, indeed essential to some.
  2. WR is desirable, but not decisive over other attributes.
Category 2 is where I’d put myself, in that I won’t “sidegrade” my earlier purchases (23/1.4, 35/1.4, and 60/2.4 [that would be an upgrade to the much larger and more expensive 80/2.8 because there is of course no WR 60 macro]). I am considering the 50/2 just to give me a WR middle focal length to my 2 WR lenses (the Mighty 16 and Nonpareil 90) without selling or having redundancies with my current selection, which I’m pretty happy with.

As someone with a statistical bent, I wish there were some at least approximate description of the effectiveness of WR, even if qualified extensively, along the lines of “On a properly maintained and mounted WR camera and lens combination, the unit is designed to meet the ingress protection spec IPxy” or (here’s my statistics coming out) “WR reduces ingress of sand and dust (IPx) from 10 percent of test cases (nonWR) to 1 percent, and reduces water ingress under IPy conditions from 25 percent to 5 percent.” Then I could actually say, for my use, what WR is worth. The port, battery, and card doors are even harder to seal than the lens mount, and are probably as tough as control dials (buttons are easier).
Click to expand...
You could start a youtube channel... ;)
CeeDave said:
However, this kind of test and statement is hard to do with all the ports and doors we expect in cameras and the features we want on lenses (although it might be possible in a camera with inductive charging and onboard memory with only wireless data transfer, and all internal focus and zoom).

I don’t want to go back there, but I have fond memories of my never flooded Nikonos 5, which was a durable (though inconvenient) jungle cam with its 35 mounted.

All the best,
Click to expand...
 
I would pay extra for good weather sealing of camera and lenses.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ar...d850-vs-sony-a7riii-canon-5div-olympus-e-m1II

BUT

"One thing that is clear is that the camera industry needs some sort of standard for levels of weather resistance. There's clearly a wide range of performance in this area, and without a definition, "weather resistant" is a meaningless term. To quote The Cynic's Photography Dictionary, "Weather resistant - A term that consumers falsely define as 'weather proof' and camera companies accurately define as 'the warranty doesn't cover water damage.'"
 
Just curious: how do you keep your front element dry? I have shot a few times in rain and spray and always ended up with a wet front element after a while (and AF sometimes stopped working due to the blurriness). I have a cloth with me, but standing in the rain I never get the front element really dry.

Nice images by the way.
 
Last edited:
As nice as it sounds, my reality is that if it’s raining, I’m really not out standing in it, much less taking pictures.
 
dpcane said:
As nice as it sounds, my reality is that if it’s raining, I’m really not out standing in it, much less taking pictures.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. My definition of weatherproof is "camera in bag... neither bag nor photographer sitting in the rain." If it's raining, I'm not out taking pictures either.
 
JS Burnie said:
I would pay extra for good weather sealing of camera and lenses.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ar...d850-vs-sony-a7riii-canon-5div-olympus-e-m1II

BUT

"One thing that is clear is that the camera industry needs some sort of standard for levels of weather resistance. There's clearly a wide range of performance in this area, and without a definition, "weather resistant" is a meaningless term. To quote The Cynic's Photography Dictionary, "Weather resistant - A term that consumers falsely define as 'weather proof' and camera companies accurately define as 'the warranty doesn't cover water damage.'"
Click to expand...
This. Except I don’t believe in cynicism.
 
CeeDave said:
JS Burnie said:
I would pay extra for good weather sealing of camera and lenses.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ar...d850-vs-sony-a7riii-canon-5div-olympus-e-m1II

BUT

"One thing that is clear is that the camera industry needs some sort of standard for levels of weather resistance. There's clearly a wide range of performance in this area, and without a definition, "weather resistant" is a meaningless term. To quote The Cynic's Photography Dictionary, "Weather resistant - A term that consumers falsely define as 'weather proof' and camera companies accurately define as 'the warranty doesn't cover water damage.'"
Click to expand...
This. Except I don’t believe in cynicism.
Click to expand...
The video linked above is interesting and useful, but even so does not give a reliable measure of actual use by any and all users over time. The best it can do is inform a prospective purchaser of the possible capabilities and limitations of the WR gear. The "frozen Olympus E-M1" videos probably sold a lot of cameras for Olympus, but their "freezeproof" marketing does not necessarily apply in all usage situations and environments. Which leads to my next query:

Even if there were standardized tests, how could a consumer prove that the conditions the camera failed in actually fell within the limits of the test? For example, if a camera seal is rated to withstand 10mm of water at a certain pressure for a certain amount of time, how can a consumer shooting at the base of a waterfall or in light rain for half an hour prove that the amount and pressure of water fell within the limits of the lab test? If a lens seal has a similar rating with 100 twists of the sealed zoom ring, how can a consumer prove they performed less than 100 twists? There's no way to do this, so warranty claims would be futile. The camera companies simply cannot verify that their gear failed within their lab test limits.

I certainly prefer the idea of seals and gaskets over none, but I will still be careful in how I use the gear. I live in an area and often shoot in areas where wind, rain, snow and water can be a factor in my shooting experience. I tried to like my Panasonic G85 and WR lenses, which were an affordable WR alternative to my Fuji gear, but I definitely prefer Fuji over other brands. I think an X-T2 and possibly the 16-55 or the 16-80 next year are in my near future...

--

Chris
Selected photos at https://500px.com/ceedave
A couple of Fuji cameras and assorted X-mount and adapted primes
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top