I recently bought a Minolta 7 and 50mm macro on eBay. When they arrived, I looked through the VF and it looked very fogged and low contrast so I sent it off to a good repair shop for a CLA.
He called me a couple of days later and said the 50mm was full of fungus and I told him to throw it away. He said the Minolta body was ok, and CLA'd it and returned it to me.
My question is - should I be scared to put my beautiful mint rare valuable Minolta Alpha lenses on this body? Could the body be "infected"? Could it infect my lenses? If there's any risk, it would be pretty cheap to buy a replacement body.
The body must be infected too, but will the spores spread to the lenses? Normally it takes 3 days of continuous exposure to high humidity above 60% for fungus to start developing. If you don't live in an excessively humid area, or if you have a dry cabinet, the risk should be minimal.
Thing is...pretty much EVERYTHING has the spores in it. Yes, all those clean lenses you own has fungal spores in it. The key is not leaving it in conditions that will cause them to open and grow.
Jman13 wrote:
Thing is...pretty much EVERYTHING has the spores in it. Yes, all those clean lenses you own has fungal spores in it. The key is not leaving it in conditions that will cause them to open and grow.
That is exactly what I think.
And it is very hard to clean something like a lens or camera body to get all those spores away.
Some time ago I talked with a Zeiss service guy. He told me that Zeiss had machines to make a good fungus cleaning, this equipment is no longer working. They have done a bit of fungus research back then.
My first lens with fungus was one I bought new, and I didnīt visited fungus "infected" lenses with that one. So the fungus spores where most likely not from a lens, but probably from humid environment of a farm :-)
Yes, fungal spores are everywhere. Usually what seems to make it grow is dark conditions and relative humidity above 60%. I'm currently in the Philippines where the relative humidity is always above 70% year round and fungus is a major problem here in old lenses and frequently develops in relatively new ones.
jonrock wrote:
Yes, fungal spores are everywhere. Usually what seems to make it grow is dark conditions and relative humidity above 60%. I'm currently in the Philippines where the relative humidity is always above 70% year round and fungus is a major problem here in old lenses and frequently develops in relatively new ones.
Thanks for the advice LightShow but I already have one. They have cheaper ones available in Asia made by Taiwanese manufacturers.I bought it after I kind of freaked out after buying a Olympus Pen-F 38mm f1.8 and 100mm f3.5 for $90 (which is a really a good price compared to how much they go for on eBay) only to find out they both have severe fungus infections. In the humid environments of Southeast Asia since the temperature is always above 70 degrees Fahrenheit and it rains constantly for half a year due to the monsoon season, it is very easy for lenses to develop fungal infections.
Yes spores are everywhere but there are MANY different species of fungi. Each species is different and not all of them can live off the coatings on camera lenses (I assume what allows them to grow on glass is the coatings). Most spores could land on a camera and never ever generate because that is the wrong food source for them. What we do know is that the right fungus was in your lens and so the right spores are in your camera. That is a much more dangerous condition than any ol' spores
