I live in Hawaii and fungus ruins lenses. I put them in a dehumidified closet but it does not help much. I have heard heating up a lens occasionally will kill spores and filaments and keep them from growing. Any truth to this? What temperature will do the trick but not harm the lens?
fighting fungus
- Thread starter DrDale
- Start date
subash jeram
Senior Member
Hi I don't know about heating up lenses, personally I won't do that but look up use of ultra violet lights. Hope this helps tc.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I don't think I would try heating up a lens, but that is just me. I store and carry my gear in a Pelican Hard case and I keep the large desiccant packs in the case all the time. I live in Alabama and we have major humidity problem here.
desiccant packs will help reduce some fungus, however what if you currently have fungus in your lens? What you may want to try is placing some foil on the backside of the lens, then using a magnifying lens to fry the fungus. (Just like killing ants) This may help contain some of the growth if already present.
Danno
Senior Member
I would be very reluctant to use heat or UV. UV is very destructive and the wavelengths that will kill the spores will likely not get past the glass to do any good. I worked with it in the HVAC industry and an 1/8" window pane was enough to stop it and we had to cover everything that was in its direct path, not metal, to keep it from going to dust. UV will damage the plastic parts quickly on the outside of the lens. Heat, high enough to do any good, can potentially damage the seals. Descant is the best choice to keep the lens dry.
Just curious as to whether happens overnight, on a weekly basis, monthly ... whatever the duration between when the lens is either new or clean and when the fungus develops. I would think that desiccant packs, combined with a regular cleaning (every other day, perhaps?), would help reduce or eliminate the issue.