There’s a big fuss this morning because all the photography YouTubers have simultaneously uploaded their OM Systems OM-3 reviews – it looks a great camera, I want one but it’s two grand, so…

However, I notice quite a few of those reviews show the camera wet, and that is because they say it has an IP53 rating so it can be subjected to as much water as you like, I get the impression they’re saying

I don’t think people understand IP ratings – the Ingress Protection code (IEC 60529) – the first number is solid particle protection, usually assumed to mean dust ingress, but this could include hands, fingers, and even large ants according to the table on Wikipedia ( @futurebird have you been editing this table perhaps)

The second digit is liquid protection, and this is perhaps the more complex test

An IP code of IP53 means solid is ‘5’, which is dust-protected (but not dust-tight), and the liquid is ‘3’ which is only spraying of water, not even splashing of water, and not weather protected (or it’d have a W suffix)

It doesn’t mean it’s a bad rating, but I get the impression that as long as a thing has an IP code of IP followed by any two numbers people imagine it to be totally underwater-able and that’s simply not the case, they seem to be ignorant of what the actual numbers imply, as long as there’s some numbers (either that or they think it’s fifty three, which is quite a lot in the same way that fifty three biscuits is rather a lot)

What I’m saying is that the cameras they’re showing covered in water are probably not ones I’d want to buy second hand off them ten years into the future, it’d probably have actual water damage inside it (like my Nikon F4 did, I mistreated that, thinking weatherproof meant weatherproof every single rainy day I had the opportunity to take it out to get wet, and that killed it in the end)

#IPratings #IPcode #IEC60529 #OMsystems #OM3 #camera #IPratings #IPcode #IEC60529 #OMsystems #OM3 #camera