fredmiranda.com

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site

New Feature: SMS Notification alert

New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist

FM Forums | Canon Forum | Join Upload & Sell

end

Archive 2008 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

fraga
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #1 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

I would like to thank everyone for their support and for the help.
Much apreciated.

I have emailed my dealer and sent him a link of this thread, and he told me he would try to contact canon in Germany to see if they can clean the lenses under warranty. I trust Canon Germany much more than Canon in Portugal.

I will have to consider all the options about storage. Have to, or else it might be a question of time before the problem arises again.
I also had a Canon Hand Strap E-1 inside the bag, since I removed it from my previous MIII when I sold it. I looked at it today and it was rather dirty on the inside part, looked like fungus as well. I took some pics, will post them tomorrow.

Chas, good thinking about the bag. Hadn't thought about that.

Will, about the rice, wasn't aware of that! Very interesting.

Oysterboy, nothing in particular against Canon in Portugal, I just don't know if they have qualified personal for the job at hand. Besides, they are a private company that represents canon in Portugal, not a ramification of Canon Japan.
And if I have to ship everything for another country, I would rather send it to Germany, where I bought it from. From what I've read on these foruns previously, Canon Germany is suposed to have one of the best calibration centers in Europe, so I'm sure they will be more than up to the task.

Stits, thsnk for the info!

AGeoJO, yes, around two months, give or take a few days or maybe even weeks. If you are indeed curious, I can look up in my computer for precisely how many days.

Regarding the siliga gel, I had 13, yes 13, not 1, not 3 but 13 small silica gel packets inside the bag!

Thanks for all the links guys, much apreciated. Will read them carefully.

I am quite sad right now...
This is most disturbing, to say the least.
It is even making me think twice about spending all that insane amount of money on a 500 f4IS...

I think I would have a heart attack if something like this happened on a 500mm.

P.S.
BTW, I took the sugestion of letting the sun go through the lenses in the hope of killing the fungus.
As I tried to point them directly at the sun to maximise the effect, I placed them over a pair of old trousers and a sweat shirt.
Guess what happened?

Will start a new thread on this tomorrow, since I will be at work for the rest of the day.

Nov 19, 2008 at 02:14 PM

M Vers
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #2 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

fraga wrote:
Guess what happened?

at least they weren't new clothes...haven't you ever fried ants with a magnifying glass when you were younger!? Good luck to you and be sure to let us know what the outcome is.

Nov 19, 2008 at 02:45 PM

RDKirk
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #3 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

And lastly, if you're in a climate with that much humidity, I'd invest in some sort of storage where you can control the humidity - maybe a sealed case and toss in a bunch of bags of moisture absorbing salts (what new lenses get shipped with normally), OR something else that's simple but works is dry rice. If you put some in a bag of some sort that has a fine mesh to allow the rice to absorb the moisture but not big enough to let the rice fall out, that WILL keep things dry.

I lived a number of years in places like Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Fooling with silica gel is an inefficient way to deal with the problem in a long-term situation. The best method is to get a "dry cabinet," which uses mild heat to reduce the relative humidity.

Cheaper and just as effective is to get a cabinet and mount a low-wattage incandescent light bulb (20-40 watts or so) in it. In the past, I've commandeered kitchen cabinets and mounted light bulbs in them. Keep the equipment on the shelves--cover it with well-washed cloths to keep off dust.

The basic rule is to prevent your equipment from being in an atmosphere of 70% relative humidity or greater for eight hours or more. All you have to do is break the cycle for a few hours out of every 24 to keep fungus spores from sprouting and growing.

Never store equipment for very long in closed bags or closed cases--that's like putting them into humidors. You can try to keep the containers filled with activated silica gel, but you have to be sure you're using enough and you have to keep re-activating it every time you open the container. In a long-term situation, it gets to be more effort than desireable.

Get some inexpensive hygrometers and measure storage areas in your house or office. Sometimes humidity can vary enormously even in the same room (typically, the corners near the floor are more humid than the center of the room). If you have a room that drops below 70% humidity for at least eight hours a day (which is common if you have modern condenser air conditioning), then all you have to do is keep your equipment on shelves or drawers in a cabinet with a bit of airflow.

Nov 19, 2008 at 05:29 PM

Alistair Watson
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #4 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Ouch, those pictures were enough to check the humidity monitor I have in my storage cupboard!! I run a dehumidifier in the same room to keep the moisture levels low.

Hope Canon DE can fix these without too many problems, good luck!

Nov 19, 2008 at 05:53 PM

Tim Ashton
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #5 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

jcbenner wrote:
You might let the sun shine directly through them for a few hours to kill the fungus and at least stop the spread of additional fungus.

+1. Natural UV is the enemy of fungus
And then get them away to Canon
If the fungus is relatively recent it can be cleaned off but if it has had enough time it will eat its way into the lense coatings and that means replacing the elements.
That good news is it is a lot cheaper work wise on primes than iit is on zooms
Good luck
Cheers
Tim

Nov 19, 2008 at 09:06 PM

orangefirefish
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #6 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

It seems like a good idea would be to permanently keep your lenses in a bag of rice

Nov 19, 2008 at 10:51 PM

Jonathan Knight
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #7 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

The post shouldn't read "Warning: long post" it should read "Warning: Due to the graphic nature of this post, viewer discretion advised"

This just pains me to see something like this, especially because you have obviously worked hard to buy and enjoy all of this gear that you will now have to spend a significant amount of 500L savings to fix.

Very sorry to hear this and hopefully Canon can get you fixed up. Sounds like you have gotten some good advice to prevent future problems. Curious as to why it took this long to manifest itself, but it certainly looks like the fungus is fairly "thick" at this point which seems strange to me that you haven't noticed before.....Does fungus grow that fast on a lens? Doesn't seem THAT conducive of a surface for fungal growth...

Nov 19, 2008 at 11:16 PM

fraga
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #8 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Again, big thanks to everyone for your help and support.
Much obliged.

Jonathan Knight wrote:
This just pains me to see something like this, especially because you have obviously worked hard to buy and enjoy all of this gear that you will now have to spend a significant amount of 500L savings to fix.

Thanks Jonathan. I even don't own a car. I ride a motorcycle to work everyday, even if it's raining, so I can save for photo gear.
When I noticed the fungus, it just felt like, like we say here in Portugal, being stabbed at the heart...

Jonathan Knight wrote:
Curious as to why it took this long to manifest itself, but it certainly looks like the fungus is fairly "thick" at this point which seems strange to me that you haven't noticed before.....Does fungus grow that fast on a lens? Doesn't seem THAT conducive of a surface for fungal growth...
Well, the culprit must surely have been the fact that the lenses were left unattended in the bag for nearly two months. The bag was in a room that rarely sees any daylight and, on top of that, in a corner, with other stuff around. With humidity levels always high, hardly any light, it was a fest for the fungus.
I'm pretty sure the fungus were not visible before.

Maybe because I have to make such sacrifices to able to afford good gear, I have become somewhat of a gearhead. I love to stare at the 85L. I really do. It's such a beautiful lens, with all that amount of glass. I honestly prefer the 135L, focuses faster and I believe my 135L IQ to be slightly better than my 85L (and my 85L is very good, even wide open). Not saing all 135L are better than all 85L of course.
But I just love to look at my 85L. In fact, a few days before selling my MIII, I took some pics of the 85L, even tried focusing on a subject through the 85L (had great fun doing so), and if there were any visible fungus then I would have surely seen it.
When I show my gear to someone, usually the first thing I do is take the caps of the 85L and show them all that glass!

RDKirk, that's some amazing info, thanks a lot!

Regarding the hygrometers, I didn't know about them.
I googled it and found some links.
Do you know of some trusty online shops that sell hygrometers at a good price?
I found some when I googled hygrometers, but was just curious if you have any personal experience whit them and if you could give advice on some models.
Thanks in advance.

Great help from everyone.
Also some very kind words. Means a lot to me.

Nov 21, 2008 at 08:03 AM

RobertLynn
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #9 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

A few different sites have said that UV light kills fungus. Maybe spending a few bucks on a UV lamp and every week or so just shining the light down each lens for 2-3 minutes may help.

Seems tedious, but man when you work so hard to afford that gear. I was telling my wife about it, and it's just a shame that this kind of stuff happens to good hard working people.

Nov 21, 2008 at 08:26 AM

fraga
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #10 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

RobertLynn wrote:
A few different sites have said that UV light kills fungus.

Yes, I noticed that too.
But I read somewhere someone raising a very pertinent question.
Won't the lens coatings block the UV rays?
I mean, quality sunglasses (and even most cheaper sunglasses too) effectively block UV rays, right?

Nov 21, 2008 at 02:38 PM

abam
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #11 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

silica bead packets in your gear bag will help to prevent that in the future. change them every few weeks to make sure they're functioning

Nov 21, 2008 at 02:51 PM

Ian.Dobinson
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #12 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

fraga wrote:
Yes, I noticed that too.
But I read somewhere someone raising a very pertinent question.
Won't the lens coatings block the UV rays?
I mean, quality sunglasses (and even most cheaper sunglasses too) effectively block UV rays, right?

If that was the case then it would make a UV filter on the lens even more of a pointless excersise.
I would think that shades have a uv filter coating on them

Nov 21, 2008 at 08:25 PM

moondigger
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #13 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Most kinds of glass block most UV wavelengths. I do not know whether the wavelengths fatal to fungus are passed by the glass used in your lenses or not. And UV filters are a pointless exercise.

The best solution is to send them to Canon for a professional cleaning.

The best way to prevent this from happening again is to to control the humidity in storage.

Good luck.

Nov 21, 2008 at 09:38 PM

Hanh
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #14 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Hi Luis,

Since the fungus appeared on the lens within the last 2 months, your lens' coating should be OK.

I cleaned at least 5 lenses that have such fungus like the ones you shown and they don't come back after the cleaning. It is very easy to clean and kill these fungus. I did lots of research when encountered the fungus. Finally, the consensus that I got is using 100% acetone. This will clean the glass, rid of the fungus and no harm to the coating at all.

The only difficult part is getting to the lens element that has the fungus. When using 100% Acetone be careful not to touch it at any of the soft paint inside the lens. It will peel the paint off!

You should be at ease that any qualified lens repairman can clean this fungus.

The only question is how much...Some are really inexpensive as little as 20 dollars per lens and the expensive ones should not be more than $100.00 dollars per lens.

Good luck,
Hanh

Nov 22, 2008 at 09:54 PM

Ron Hew
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #15 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Luis,
Please get yourself a dry box. I never leave my gear in a bag for days let alone weeks. Camera gear/lens need to be in a good ventilated place/room or inside a dry box when you don't use them.

Nov 23, 2008 at 02:10 AM

Lithian
Offline
•
Upload & Sell: Off

p.2 #16 · Help! Fungus? Warning: long post, 11 pics

Some stuff i'd never thought of in this thread, i'd always thought it would take years of bad storage to occur.

I checked out the link to Zeiss tho, did anyone else read that last bit? It goes through a strict storage routine and then at the end

"cigarette ash can be used as a polishing aid"

what what what?

Nov 23, 2008 at 09:08 AM

1 2 end
FM Forums \| Canon Forum \| Join Upload & Sell 1 2 end