Potential lens fungus problem

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winyadepla

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Hi

I was wondering if anyone can help me.

After being away for a couple of months I got home and as it was a nice day I thought I would get the camera out. Checking it over as it hadn't been used for a while I spied what looked like a little 'spider' mark on the outside of the UV filter covering around 4 square mm. I think it is lens fungus. I have taken the UV filter off and have disposed of it. There is no sign of any fungus at all on the lens itself.

I have disinfected the lens cap and will dispose of the camera case incase it contains spores.

I am a little annoyed as I packed it away with three sachets of silica gel in the case thinking it would be safe.

Do you think my lens will be okay?

I have access to various UV lights at work so I will give all the optical surfaces a good blast with UV radiation. Which I understand will kill off any living fungus.

Anyway I hope it will all be fine.

Keen to hear what you think.
 
Sounds as if you're doing all you can to prevent or rectify the problem.

I wouldn't worry too much as long as it was limited to between the filter and the front lens element you should be relative safe, especially having done the UV treatment.
 
Well unless you live in a clean room there is no way to avoid fungus, the spores are everywhere, so throwing away the filter and case is a bit drastic, you could have just washed them in soapy water or use lighter fluid on the filter.
 
Out of curiosity, how long was the kit in storage for?
 
On the OUTside of the filter..?

I wouldn't worry...all kinds of hamster-poo gets on mine...just wipe it off and carry on...

I wouldn't throw anything away and besides, the only way to prevent spores settling on anything is by putting them in a vacuum or a Star-Trek style containment field...lol

Just check your kit once a month if you're not using it & take out the batteries etc...Normal stuff...
 
Silica gel can only absorb a finite amount of moisture and it will start absorbing this moisture once it has been removed from its sealed bag or taken from the oven. Chances are, most of the silica bags you find in packaging for other goods will already be saturated.

Either buy new bags which are sealed in an airtight wrapper, or cook your bags before use. 1 to 1+1/2 hours at 110-120'c in the oven would drive off all the moisture, without melting the glued edges of the paper or fabric type bags, allow them to cool off then seal the kit you want to protect inside a ziplock bag with a sachet or 2. Seal any spare gel in small ziplocks for later use, squeazing out any surplus air. Simply lobbing a few used sachets into a permiable fabric camera bag will do very little .

We used to use several kilos of freshly baked silica for packing aero engines for storage or transport, which effectively go in a very large and thick ziplock bag.
 
on the outside use a lens tissue with the ubiguitous mr muscle slime killer or such

i had a little spore like thing behind my front element on the next element in
how it got there i dont know...it was that wet norwegian cruise last july i think

i dismantled the front element from the lens barrel and gave it a clean

its part of maintaining i suppose
 
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