[Fishyshot]

I did a dumb thing and let a guy familiar with go pro use my camera for a quick picture/video under water. He was very nervous in the water and somehow opened the battery/card compartment. The video and pictures he took were ok on the card (I noticed the pics were upside down) but my the camera is shot. I rinsed it in fresh water immediately but the salt water already invaded the interior. Is there any chance this can be fixed or did I just learn a $300 lesson that these cameras are tough but not idiot proof?

[jatrax]

I suspect opening the battery compartment would allow water to enter areas that would normally be kept dry by the water proofing. If it was fresh water I would think there would be a reasonable chance of drying it out, with salt water I suspect things will be far less certain.

You have already rinsed with fresh water so that is the first step. Now get a box of dry rice and put the camera in into a sealed tub of it. You can also use silica packs but you would need a lot of them, they only absorb so much. Change the rice out in a day or so. I would let it go at least a week, then try it to see if it was successfully dried out. These things are chancy, no guarantees. But there have been several people post here with similar stories that ended well. One person lost a k-01 into the water and was able to retrieve it and using the above method (and silica packs) was able to bring it back to life.

Good luck.

[Giklab]

Why should this be a $300 lesson for you? Get him to buy a new camera!

[Tanzer]

You did right to rinse the camera out, but you want to make sure you really, really get all the salt out, even if it means soaking the camera in fresh water for a while and swishing it around. The salt water was under pressure, so it probably got into all the little nooks and crannies, and just rinsing it under a tap will not get enough of the salt out.

One challenge is that because the camera is sealed around all the other openings, it will be hard to dry it out, even under a fan, in rice, or using some other dessicant.

Another major challenge is that you won't be able to clean the inside of the lens, if it has any residue. Even if you get all the salt out, there might be some lubricants that were displaced and settled on the lens.

Note that the WG-1 is an older model, and better models from are available now, from Ricoh/Pentax a well as the other manufacturers. For example, the Ricoh WG-20 is readily available to you in the US (if I read your profile correctly) at Target retail stores, for under $200, and it looks like it is currently on sale for $159.99. The WG-20 is intended to be a lower-cost model than the current top-spec Ricoh model, the Ricoh WG-4; but from what I understand, the WG-4 it is based on the Pentax WG-2, so it should still be more capable than your first-generation WG-1.

Of course, since your buddy should be buying, you could always go for the WG-4. which does run about $300, similar to (or even a little less than) what the original WG-1 went for