it´s sealed and waterprooved. it´s made of magnesium. it´s olympus and it´s payed.

Dropped in a stream, dropped and bounced down stairs, dropped on concrete and barfed on by a cat, used in areas with blowing salt water, and in strong winds in very cold conditions near waterfalls with water freezing on the camera, lens and tripod. Repeatedly tossed into a a seat in the car. Not intentionally mistreated, but accidents happen. I use my camera daily and solid build is my first desire in any camera.

Old E300 has gone to hell and back and it's still working.(batteries froze, lenses got broken, but the body somehow survived) But I always have some worries cause i know its not weather proof (neither is e520 that i use now). As far all the extras give me an sealed E300 with E3 moving screen for under 1000$ and I will be happy.

Prefer weatherproofing, treat my cameras like babies. In camera processing and settings, don't care, I can ignore them. Usually firmware and the like weighs very little... :)

I think I may have once got a fingerprint on my UV filter. Other than that, I keep it clean and pristine. :)

Dropped my E-500 with the 50mm macro lens facing down during a softball game. Fortunately, at the last 0.1 second I stuck my foot out, just enough to cushion the camera body a tiny bit, causing the lens tilt slightly so that it doesn't hit the ground at 90 degrees. However, the lens still hit the ground and the UV filter shattered, lens ring bent. The body guard died, but the President lived. Phew!

i usually take good care of my gear but due to my extensive use of it, especially on long hiking trails (+ climbing) accidents do happen, it's just a fact of heavy use, but certainly not abuse, sometimes due to my negligence like forgetting to zip up my backpack, sometimes due to to inclement weather like icing terrains; i'd prefer my gear to be weather proof but if I have to decide between weigh and the former I'd take lesser weight so the E30 is more desirable to me than the E3 even though I'd gladly keep the E1 body and replace the sensor + LCD ...cheers ;-))

I try to look after my gear, but I also use it within its limitations. That means my E-3 gets soaked by sea spray, rained on, sand blown and anything else the marine environment tries to throw at it. As long as I can tolerate it I expect the camera to survive it. And so far it has!

My E3 has been rained on quite a bit which has not bothered it. However recently it got a complete dunking at the ocean. I rinsed it off with fresh water at home and everything seemed fine. a couple weeks later it was telling me battery was low when they had just been charged overnight. Then it went completely dead. Upon investigation, saltwater had made it's way past the weathersealing for the grip and had corroded one of the battery connections way up in the cam. I cleaned as best as I could and got it to work again. Then the LCD filled up with water as one of the two set-screw tabs broke (a known issue at DPReview). These are where you use your thumbnail to open LCD and are used for sandwiching the LCD cover. The LCD worked fine but there was water in there. It would drain out OK but fill back up when out in the rain again.

I sent both cam and grip in for warranty and OLY would not honor either item. They wanted $119 to fix the grip which I said no to as it still worked. Then they at first said the LCD would be under warrenty but when the camera came back the bill was going to be $619 but Olympus was kind enough (sic) to cut the bill down to $300.

I feel a little ripped off.

Wow... Off the topic here: What caused the 'dunking at the ocean"?

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