Fungus In Lenses

[Flauvius]

What can be done - short of disassembling a lens - to arrest the growth of fungus in the interior of a lens' sealed glass elements?

Flauvius

 

[Donald Miller]

What can be done - short of disassembling a lens - to arrest the growth of fungus in the interior of a lens' sealed glass elements?

Flauvius

Some people have indicated that extended exposure to direct sunlight and even heavy UV exposure has helped...this is all heresay to me because I have not tried it myself...

Fungus will eventually attack the elements and coatings to the point that irreversible damage is done.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

You can put the lens in a hot dry climate with no humidity so as to deprive the fungi of the moisture they need to grow. This will prevent further damage but its not really possible to completely remove the fungus without having a shop dissassemble and repair the lens. If the growth has really taken hold, its possible the multi coating on the lens may be etched or disfigured.

 

[Daniel Lawton]

Looks like Donald beat me to it. lol

 

[JBrunner]

I heard freezing it, but again, hearsay.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

I picked up a Vivitar Series I with a motor drive for AF and it was a basket case. Looked more like a petri dish than a camera lens. Mongo fungus!! So I decided to disassemple the beast and used "Chemical Warfare" to eradicate the vile spores.
Found a web site that showed how to take apart a Vivitar lens and printed off the instructions. Chose a clean work area,wore cotton gloves and made a magnifier out of a bent coat hanger , magnifing glass and duct tape. Attacked from the front and made sure I stacked the parts upside down so they would go together in the correct order. Made a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia (50:50) and used Q-tips to apply. Slow and steady. Cleaned away the offending gunk,cleaned up with windex and a micro-fiber cloth. Reassembled and Voilla! Bang on sharp,fungus free lens.
Tried direct light for 5 days....nada. Even put it in a 35o c. oven....nada.Fungus is sort of like tooth decay. Ya gotta get to the root of the problem .

Just my 2 cts.
Mike

 

[Paul Sop]

I rescued several lenses from my friends basement. Some, I noticed today, have fungus in them. It is so sad, for they are such beautiful lenses. One has had the multicoating eaten away quite badly. Another, is a super wide angle, and the edges may have a bit of fungus. I am wondering:

Q1: Is it possible to remove the multicoating entirely? How much worse (i.e. a bit, a lot, hugely) worse would the image quality be?

Q2: What does fungus look like on film? I.e. how noticable is it? Will it make for entirely holga-esque ultra-distortions, or just crap up the image a bit?

Q3: Is the fungus contagious? My environment is dry to normal. Should I keep these other lenses in isolation? Can the fungus travel and cause health issues? It does smell a bit funny. I soaked the lens caps in amonia, and cleaned the lenses with alcohol, but they still smell a touch funky.

It's so sad really.

 

[Jim Noel]

if you are brave enough, or have the inherent skill, to disassemble the lens, the best thing I have found for eliminating fungus is Listerine. Use a micro cloth and rub gently. It will remove some coatings, but not all. Personally I would rather have a lens free of fungus w/o a coating than a coated one with fungus.

 

[John_Brewer]

If you can sepeate the cells easily you can soak it in formaldehyde. http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/FO/formaldehyde.html