Canon 6D weather sealing tested (unintentionally)

After work on Wednesdays, I play co-ed softball. I usually have to leave right from work so I normally have all my equipment in the car with me. I generally leave it locked up since there are kids and dogs running about the fields and that is a recipe for disaster. This last Wednesday was different as there were no kids or dogs in attendance, and only a few of my teammates adult family members in the stands.

I was excited for the chance to break out my 6D and new 70-200 f4 IS and take a few sports action shots. When I was in the field, I would have to entrust the camera/lens to the watchful eye of one of my friends in the stands. She agreed to guard it with her life.

Everything was fine for the first game. I got some good photos and everything worked well. Towards the beginning of the second game more people started to roll in and I became more nervous. I had no time to return the camera to the car before the second game started, so I decided to leave it again with my friend, while trying to keep an eye on it from my shortstop position.

After the first half inning of the second game, I noticed 3 high school aged girls sit down next to my camera. That's when my greatest fears were realized. One of the girls set down a raspberry iced tea next to my camera and then promptly knocked it right over, spilling the liquid over the top of my camera and lens. Luckily, the cup had a lid, so only a few ounces spilled out - just enough to give me a heart attack.

After a few minutes of freaking the f#ck out and wiping it down with napkins and shirts, I ran it back to my car hoping that the sealing held up. When I got home, I crossed my fingers and threw the power switch. Everything fired up and functioned normally. I breathed a sigh of relief. The body will be going back to Canon in the near future for a clean and check to get all the sticky residue from the places that I could not get it. I've also got a call into my insurance company to get a quote on insuring all my gear (I know, I know...I put it off for waay too long).

Just wanted to share with others to hopefully learn a lesson from my mistakes and reassure people that Canon's weather sealing is pretty good.

A few pics from the game (pre-incident):

so i see this is where 6D fails with its "only" 1/4000sec shutter speed. or is this due to f4 and not enough shutter speed, seeing as it somewhat in shade

edit: sorry for the offtopic, i just couldnt help myself

No EXIF. Maybe the OP will tell us the settings.
But even if I shot softball/baseball with a body that does 1/8000, I'd actually leave room for some bat/ball motion blur to make it a little more real. If the action is totally frozen, it often looks kinda fake.

Powering electronics up after a spill is a bad idea. Your really should have let it completely dry(like for a few days) if you really wanted to be safe and smart about it.

Not to rain on your parade(sorry bad pun) but the unit may still fail down the line because of the sugar water, if it did make it into the camera. However, I highly doubt that it did. If it was sitting Ina pool of it, maybe, but just pouring it over the top would probably not make it into the body - here's hoping anyways!

Todd Lambert wrote in post #16055978
Powering electronics up after a spill is a bad idea. Your really should have let it completely dry(like for a few days) if you really wanted to be safe and smart about it.

This.

Cool pics! I'm glad your camera is functioning! I like your pics! Here is one I took of my niece. Post more if you have any prior to the incident.

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you should zoom in more. leaving this much space around the subject makes the picture boring. especially in sports. drama comes from close shots or cropping, if you dont have the reach.

You're lucky it was raspberry iced tea. Had it been peach iced tea, it would have been game over (pun intended) for your camera.

LowriderS10 wrote in post #16056412
You're lucky it was raspberry iced tea. Had it been peach iced tea, it would have been game over (pun intended) for your camera.

Lol!

whothafunk wrote in post #16051995
so i see this is where 6D fails with its "only" 1/4000sec shutter speed. or is this due to f4 and not enough shutter speed, seeing as it somewhat in shade

edit: sorry for the offtopic, i just couldnt help myself

I think it's more of a creative decision; i actually like the motion blur on the bat.

whothafunk wrote in post #16051995
so i see this is where 6D fails with its "only" 1/4000sec shutter speed. or is this due to f4 and not enough shutter speed, seeing as it somewhat in shade

edit: sorry for the offtopic, i just couldnt help myself

w0m wrote in post #16057593
I think it's more of a creative decision; i actually like the motion blur on the bat.

I took whothafunk's comment as sarcasm. Perhaps I was wrong.

whothafunk wrote in post #16056374
you should zoom in more. leaving this much space around the subject makes the picture boring. especially in sports. drama comes from close shots or cropping, if you dont have the reach.

I think it's a great shot

This is why, if I'm not using my gear and it is not in my hands - it is in the protected storage. It takes 10 seconds only to in and out in total.
I'll give it to another familiar to me person only if they are going to use it and keep in their hands.

Thanks for the replies guys. I don't think I was at my max shutter speed. I'll have to go back and double-check.

The camera seems to be working fine. I've shot about 200 frames with it over the past couple of days and everything seems normal. However, just tonight I was charging up some batteries for a job tomorrow and I threw one in the camera to check some the space left on some cards and the camera did not come on. I took the battery and card out, reinstalled and it fired up fine. Of course it's making me a little paranoid.

I figured if any damage was done, I would have seen it by now. Some of you are saying that it can still malfunction down the line? That worries me. I plan to send it in for a clean and check soon. Hopefully that will at least help.