Has anybody experienced mould issues on lenses in the UK?

travellingcello

travellingcello

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As per the title, has anybody ever had mould grow on one of their lenses that has lived in the UK?

Most of the stories I hear seem to be of people who have spent time in places like Australia, Indonesia, the USA - places which I guess are tropical and much more humid than the UK, or from people who have picked up lenses from eBay.

I'm just wondering this as I get once-in-a-while paranoia that mould is going to start growing on my gear.

I usually keep my gear in a large camera bag with silica gel so it would seem fine but is there any real reason to worry about mould growing if gear is stored under reasonable conditions in the UK? I mean that I wouldn't go storing it in the bathroom or in a garage or attic, but in normal circumstances?

Also with normal silica gel packets, are they safe to put in the microwave and if so for how long to restore them?
 
I just keep an enormous bag of silica gel in my camera bag to absorb any moisture.

In this country I don't think you have to worry about general weather conditions as we don't suffer from the humidity they do elsewhere. The only thing to watch is moving between environments with different temperatures or humidity levels - for example, if you leave your gear in the car overnight during winter so it got really cold and then you brought it into a warm, humid enviroment, you might risk condensation forming.
 
scottthehat said:
the west country can get very damp, also remeber silica gel needs drting out in the oven or microwave for it to work properly, so regular cooking helps.
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How long does one cook silica gel though? No instructions other than 'do not eat' :lol:

I'm guessing something like 20 seconds in a microwave at full power?
 
I store mine in my camera bag in the living room at normal temps, if I take it out in the cold I make sure I leave it to air when I come in and as yet I'ts hardly ever out in the rain, but left out to dry before its put away. I've got a couple of silica bags in my bag as well. I've only seen 1 lens with mould on and that was a demo of how bad a lens can get with poor treatment.
 
mine are generally on my desktop untill needed to be puit in a bag which has a handful of gel packets in. Everytime i get something ordered adn it has gel packets, they get shoved in my camera bags, they probably all needed baking by now!
 
I lost a Sigma 400mm telephoto a few years ago due to a very bad case of fungus. I hadn't used the lens for a good few years - during this time it sat in its (non-leather) case in my kitbag.

When I finallly got it out to sell it, one of the inner elements was completely covered in fungus - it looked like a thin coating of cotton-wool. Given the age of the lens, it was a complete write-off... I ended up dropping it in the bin :'(

The flat I was living in at the time had a damp problem (mould in the corners of the wall when we moved out), which probably didn't help. My other lenses fortunately didn't get attacked by fungus. This has rather put me off buying Sigma (together with the issue of 3rd-party lenses having to reverse-engineer Canon's electronics and the risk of them not working properly with future camera models).

The best advice I've read is to keep lenses in dry conditions at room temperature, and to regularly use them or at least expose them to light.

A.
 
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I lost a lens years ago to mould/fungus
Our first house had damp and the lens was stored in the wardrobe it got fungus on the elements luckily it was only a cheap zoom
I do use my gear in all weathers but if it gets wet always leave everything out of the bag overnight when I get home :)
 
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