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I have had a Nikon d750 for a year or so, and 6 months ago it took on a bit of saltwater damage. It still works, but twice in the past it wouldn't power on, once for two weeks and once for two days.

Now it is at a point where it takes around 5 minutes to power on, and when i switch the camera to 'off' or standby, it completely powers off as if the battery drops out, then it takes another 5 mins or so for it to power back on, if it does at all. So I have switched the standby timer in the settings to 'infinity' so it just stays powered on.

I am taking it in to have it looked at, I just hope the damage isn't too fatal. I wonder if anyone has experienced anything similar to this, or can help me diagnose the actual problem. I have tried different batteries, and everything else possible really. Camera itself works fine, just power issues.

thanks in advance.

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2 Answers 2

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Can I do anything about a Nikon... (with) saltwater damage?

Since Nikon does not sell internal repair parts to other service centers or to end users, and does not repair water damaged cameras themselves, your options are very limited. Beyond a simple disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly from a third party repair service there's not much of anything you can do. Perhaps if a part needs to be replaced you might find a shop with a parted out camera that contains the part your camera needs.

Some might cite this 2013 Petapixel article as evidence that Nikon will service saltwater damaged cameras and lenses. However, the "Nikon Service Center in Taiwan" that did the repair shown in the article is not an actual Nikon authorized service center. As the home page of their website clearly states at the bottom of the page [retrieved on 6 March, 2018] :

NRC CO., LTD. ©2015 All Rights Reserved.about me
We are not an official service provider for Nikon Corporation

Further, since 2012 Nikon has stopped selling replacement internal parts to non-affiliated service centers or end users. They did start selling external parts only, such as grip covers and battery doors, again in 2013.

Unless the shop still has a part in inventory it already had in 2012, if such a repair were attempted today the necessary 'new' parts would need to be cannibalized from another copy of the same lens, possibly only from one from the same production revision and running the exact same version of the lens' firmware.

According to Roger Cicala, the founder and overall technical guru at lensrentals.com¹, saltwater damage is more devastating to cameras and their internals than just about anything the gear his company rents encounters on a regular basis. He covers it in depth in this blog entry, but he has also mentioned it in many others.

¹ Probably no one in the world oversees a larger inventory of cameras and lenses that are used to take photos, rather than being stored in a warehouse as inventory to be sold, than they do.

At Roger's company, they don't even part out unrepairable cameras with salt water damage due to the concern that there may hidden corrosion in those parts. Normally, those guys part out just about everything - even some full frame cameras with a single scratch on the sensor get parted out to repair other cameras in their vast inventory:

Lensrentals insider joke: What do you call a D800 with a scratched sensor?
... Parts. Because at $1,800 for a sensor replacement . . .

But in the case of salt water damage:

But the amount of salt and corrosion here and on the bottom means we wouldn’t trust anything in this camera, ever again. It can’t even be a parts donor — the chance that those parts will eventually corrode and fail is too high. That’s why many service centers won’t repair water damaged cameras; they have to give a warranty after the repair and chances are very high something they didn’t replace is going to fail during the warranty period.

I would be surprised if Nikon factory service would even repair a camera with internal saltwater damage, since they'd then be on the hook for additional repairs within the guarantee period as other internal components subsequently fail.

From the same Lens Rentals Blog entry cited twice above:

Most service centers won’t work on a water damaged camera, even if you pay them. Some won’t even open it up to look inside if they see evidence on the outside.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Good detailed answer. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 4, 2018 at 5:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ The error behaviour described just might be fixable without spares, could be an intermittent solder joint or a disconnected bog-standard capacitor... not trivial to fix though, a skill level of 0.2 to 0.5 rossmanns might be needed..... \$\endgroup\$ Nov 26, 2018 at 10:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @rackandboneman Have you ever repaired a PC board that has been exposed to salt water? Even if you repaired the current fault, if the PC board has been exposed to salt water there are many other connections that are only a matter of (very little) time before they too will fail. That's why pretty much no authorized service center will work on them. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Nov 26, 2018 at 19:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ I doubt that it would still power on at all if the saltwater had gotten into that many places... it's pretty much a nothing to loose scenario anyway... \$\endgroup\$ Nov 26, 2018 at 23:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Repairs requiring that level of skill aren't usually free... If the OP had the needed skills this question would not have been asked. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Nov 27, 2018 at 0:33
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Salt water is very destructive. It is likely something is corroded in a way you can not fix yourself. Send it for repair.

They may or may not decide that it's worth doing — you may be in for repair costs greater than the value of the camera. But, Nikon does do service on salt-water damaged gear, as evidenced here.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ If it has been water damaged, Nikon service won't touch it with a ten foot pole. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Mar 4, 2018 at 0:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MichaelClark Not for free for sure. You mean they won't even fix it for money? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Mar 4, 2018 at 7:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ Not even for money, according to Roger Cicala at lensrentals.com. He should know. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Mar 4, 2018 at 21:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ 1) That was Taiwan, where (lack of) warranty concerns may be different for repairs than elsewhere. 2) That was Taiwan, where the cost of labor is nowhere near as large a factor in the cost of repairs as in the U.S. and Europe. 3) The article is dated over five years ago. Since then Nikon has stopped selling replacement parts to outside repair shops and 'decertified' many non-Nikon owned service centers that were once affiliate service centers. 4) Roger's statements are much more recent than the article. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Mar 5, 2018 at 13:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ This guy didn't have much luck when he sent his salty D750 in for the shutter recall. \$\endgroup\$
    – Blrfl
    Mar 5, 2018 at 13:24

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