Yeah, I found that kind of trollish as well.
It really boils down to this, the M8 is too new in the grand scheme of things to make a judgement call in regards to the long term, harsh environment type of assignment. But the Canon cams, wow, what a doozy of bad PR for the much heralded "Seals".
Example, many gear heads love to say how the 5D does not have weather sealing and the 1-series does. That would be true and the seals on the 1-series are a bit of a help, but not a fix all.
Well then....it is not as sealed as they think it is and if you sit around in the rain, snow or mist thinking you have a diving bell of a camera, you WILL get bit, period. I just have to laugh at how many amateurs and even some pros just tout weather sealing as the second coming. It is *SO* not.
You see, I shoot in the foulest of the foul weather for a living, -35 to 130, dust, rain, tons of snow and high altitudes. In 97 I was using my new F5 in a rain storm and just let er' drip. After about 30 minutes, the readouts started to wig out pretty bad. I had to quit for the day and let the camera dry out in the film drying cabinet overnight.
In contrast, I just got done doing a 4 day stock shoot in very heavy snow and some very cold temps, -10 at sunrise at 12,500 feet up. I used a pair of 5D's and kept them protected and maintained in terms of exposure. I did not miss a single shot in having to go the extra mile to protect them.
I can not emphasize enough how lame some of the arguments in favor of weather sealing are. They simply have no clue if they think they are immune to failure because of thier much lauded weather sealing. And as for the folks that claim that they have never had a failure even in heavy rain, it is just a matter of time before they do.
It will fail, they all do if you just stand out there in the rain getting soaked and think you are the king of the world.
Weather sealing is a minor advantage of one camera over another. If you abuse it and do not protect your gear, it WILL FAIL!!!
I for one think that the 1-series cams failed due to one of or both of two things:
1. Too much moisture over the entire camera and lens.
2. No protection while changing lenses, batteries or CF cards.
Weather seals do not seal, they marginally prevent. That is it, nothing more.
Reality has finally smacked pompous "Seal-heads" in the face.....about time.
Sailor Ted said:
SEVERAL cameras failed due to the fact it was COLD outside and WARM inside the ship. You can't very well leave your camera in a cold but dry location on a PUBLIC cruse ship due to THEFT so in they went with predictable results- so much for the Canon's weather sealing. The interesting point is that the OP grossly overstated the Leica failure and did not mention the Canon failures- in fact he intimated just the opposite. This of course is only interesting until you research the OP's past posting history. This post was put forth as typical flame bait and is resulting in the typical flame war.
PS. One M8 (perhaps two) were brand-new and this camera does suffer from EFR (early failure rate). Had these cameras been pre-tested for an initial 1000 exposures I am certain they would have shown their issues, been replaced by Leica, and then all the M8's would have performed as well as the M8 that was shot in all types of weather with no ill effect, as has been my experience with my M8.
