fungus, how bad is bad?

[nsalman]

most of my lenses are fungesed.

is it true that once a lens kena fungus, you can forget about the lens? Or can it still be salvaged?

Anybody knows where to get a lens cleaned? How much? Reliable ones please.

Not just minolta lenses but third party too....my fav, 20-35 tokina.

Thanks.
Salman

 

[TMC]

TCW.

It is bad when the fungus has eaten into the coating. It is salvageable if it is in the inital stages of invasion.

 

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

u can try selling your lens to Timberwolf.... he loves fungus...

 

[nsalman]

and how do I know if it has eaten into the coating? and this timberwolf... he loves fungus? really?

 

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=167085

 

[Timber Wolf]

LOL
DCA :hammer: TimberWolf

No lah. I was trying to get better bokeh. Made a remark that somehow my sch's tamron lens with fungus gave better bokeh than my 24-70EX (it does!) and they thought i love fungus. Crunchy white fungus with cheng tng is good though =)

QX

Bring it to TCW, i think they can help.

 

[Tetrode]

and how do I know if it has eaten into the coating? and this timberwolf... he loves fungus? really?

Generally, if it the fungus is like a spider's web, it can be cleaned off w/o leaving a mark.
Anything worse than that usually means the coating will be affected/etched.

I've bought lenses matted with spider web like fungus before but once cleaned, the element coatings were not affected.

 

[nsalman]

brought to tcw... quoted $70 roundabouts...

tot of sending me two minolta primes to minolta... or tcw should be able to do the job?

thanks.

 

[sulhan]

Hieee...

Fungus attacked on lens my or may not be "end of the road situation". It depends greatly on its extent.

I have in herited a couple of lens in the past which are really bad and had tried some option slike:
- getting km to clean (i think ~$60-$80++)
- Self clean.

In any case, if the fungus grows really-really bad, then there is a risk of coating degenration due to fungus already etched into the coating.

Most modern coatings may be "ORGANIC" and done to processes like vapour deposition. Hence its basically a really thin film of coating on the lens. In cases where fungus has etched into the coating, if the fungus is cleaned, it will leave a "map" like foot print of its presence in the past. Though such degradation may have minimal effect at times (not all the time) - cosmetically it looks bad form the outside due to the patchy anti-reflective coating.

I have done some "feat" on some no value old manual lens that had fungus (hand me down lens) growing from the edges - from paper gaskets lens separator separators. After removing the fungus the etched coating looks bad. So i ended removing the coating it self. It made the lens look really good. No more patchy marks. Testing out the lens.....hahaha....cant see any difference.

So my best advice........use the lens often. Dry box does not mean you're safe. The mor eyou use your lens and get it out in the sun the better. One tip from some old birds....for extendable zoom type of camera.....if you go to "pollen infested" place like where there are lots of flowering plants - like during spring time. Try to zoom in and out a few times to flush any posibility of pollen sucked in the lens once you leave the area...

Happy shooting and happy holidays...

rgds,
Sulhan

 

[apchoo]

I have done some "feat" on some no value old manual lens that had fungus (hand me down lens) growing from the edges - from paper gaskets lens separator separators. After removing the fungus the etched coating looks bad. So i ended removing the coating it self. It made the lens look really good. No more patchy marks. Testing out the lens.....hahaha....cant see any difference.

Hi Sulhan,

How do you remove the coating? Do you use some kind of solvent?

 

[sulhan]

Hi Sulhan,

How do you remove the coating? Do you use some kind of solvent?

You wanna know...?

Hahahha you will be surprise...!!!!! I basically use the alcheapo lens cleaning kit solution that usually selss at camera shops that comes along with a red bottle with white cap and a cloth with a bunch of ear buds!!!!!!!:bigeyes:

Be careful....these cheap cleaners are bad for the lens coating. It softens the coating.......on some lens. After finding about the ill efffects of those cheap cleaning solutions I now only use the liquid (if i have to) that was sold at the old(now closed) fotoguide.

If need to really use liquid - use Isopropyl alcohol - IPA.

Now i mainly use lens pen.

rgds,
Sulhan

 

[apchoo]

You wanna know...?

Hahahha you will be surprise...!!!!! I basically use the alcheapo lens cleaning kit solution that usually selss at camera shops that comes along with a red bottle with white cap and a cloth with a bunch of ear buds!!!!!!!:bigeyes:

Hah! I have 2 bottles of this stuff from years back. I never threw them out but never used them either ;p . I'll label them as "De-coating Solvent" :bsmilie: .

Now i mainly use lens pen.

Great product :thumbsup: ! And with microfibre cloth and blower is all I use.

 

[Tetrode]

Use pure distilled water. Cheap and doesn't leave a residue of minerals.

IPA should be 99.9% pure otherwise,for 70% proof IPA you get a haze from deposited minerals from the water content.