Help! I have ...fungus!!

[Hawthy]

A few years ago, I gave my step-daughter my old Pentax K100D Super and upgraded to a Nikon D5100. She never used it and I suddenly have it back along with assorted lenses and accessories. After a few days I have fallen in love all over again. Sadly, it will always play second fiddle to the Nikon. It is always good to have a back-up though. A photographic menage a trois doomed to end in tears.

The camera herself is in great shape (even after all these years). However, one lens - a Sigma 28 - 300 f3.5-6.3 has some fungus in the back lens. (I think that it was stored with some silica gel packets, which I understand might not be the smartest way to store lenses. It is not my favourite lens and I could probably get by without it. Indeed, the fungus is not even that noticeable. But I wondered if anyone knew how to get rid of fungus?

[thegrump]

Hawthy .. I had a lens with fungus on the outer lens. I posted it here and the general census was to get rid of it before it spreads.

[Hawthy]

So, keep that lens separate from the others? Or not use it at all?

[Mark L]

So, keep that lens separate from the others? Or not use it at all?

or get rid of it altogether.
Fungus spreads. Do you want the fungilens any where near you non-fungilens??
Even if the lens is kept separate it will go on you camera, fungi spores left in camera .............

[ricktas]

yep, its a kit lens so get rid of it. As others have said. fungi spores are tiny and spread through contact (hands etc) and via air movement. It could easily spread to your other gear.

[Cargo]

Ditto to all above comments !!! Throw it away !!!!
I had the same problem with my D5100 and lenses .... I bought a second hand lens that had fungus without realising it. It spread to my camera & 2 kit lenses !!! I was told "may as well throw the lot "
The upside was I upgraded to a D610 & a new 70-200 .... But .... It was an expensive lesson !!! And I was without a camera for a few months ... hated it !!!
I now own a dry box for storing my camera gear too

Throw it !!!!!
Cargo

[Hawthy]

Ok. Out it goes then. Cargo, the dry box sounds like a great idea for anyone living in Queensland. Will look into that.

[arthurking83]

The other thing you can try(and I also recommend to keep it away from all your other stuff too!) .. but what you can try to do is to leave it exposed to the sun for a few days/weeks.
Fungus hate sunlight and one way to minimise the issue is to expose them to sunlight.

So figure out where your sunniest spot is, and put the lens there for a few days.
You won't clean the lens out like this, but it can be cleaned! .. but you can at least stop it spreading further.

You say it's at the back of the lens: So what you do is to keep the rear lens cap off and place the lens face down, so that the rear of the lens always sees the sun.
Note that with the rear cap now off, the lens will fill with dust over time, so it also needs to be sealed somehow(from ambient dust conditions).

eg. you could place it in a air tight container(decor food type) to minimise the dust.

As already said, this lens is really only a cheap-ish kit type lens, so:

1/. it's not worth the expense to have it professionally cleaned, and even if you did look at that as an option, there is a possibility that the fungus will have etched the coatings or the lens element, so ruining image quality in some way anyhow.
(the coatings on the lens is the food source for the fungus .. that's why they populate on it!)

2/. a replacement lens if you still want that functionality would be cheaper than having it cleaned, and almost certainly a newer version of the lens will have greater functionality and IQ too(probably).

[Liney]

I know it's been a while since this thread was last used, but it was either this or start a new thread.

I was cleaning off the lens I use for macro work today, and noticed a little patch of something when I looked through the lens. It's inside the lens as cleaning the external surfaces didn't get rid of it. It's not much at the moment, just a couple of small circles which are mostly clear but give the impression there is something there.

First off, is this likely to be the first signs of fungus. Second as it is inside the lens can I disassemble the lens and clean it off?

Any help gratefully received.

[jim]

I made the mistake of leaving 3 old lenses in a wooden wardrobe for a year (and in particular through the wet season) and all 3 came up with traces of fungus. I put them on a windowsill ln full sun for a couple of months. Then I threw them out because it did nothing to the fungus, and additionally caused one to completely seize up.

- - - Updated - - -

O. Op s, didn’t read the thread again.

[ricktas]

I know it's been a while since this thread was last used, but it was either this or start a new thread.

I was cleaning off the lens I use for macro work today, and noticed a little patch of something when I looked through the lens. It's inside the lens as cleaning the external surfaces didn't get rid of it. It's not much at the moment, just a couple of small circles which are mostly clear but give the impression there is something there.

First off, is this likely to be the first signs of fungus. Second as it is inside the lens can I disassemble the lens and clean it off?

Any help gratefully received.

Hard to know without seeing it. Fungus does appear inside the lens, on the internal elements, but without sighting your lens, it is hard to say if you have fungus. It tends to look like spider webs, like long thin lines.. sort of like mould. Hard to describe. If you type 'lens fungus' into google and then click the 'images' tab, you can see heaps of examples.

[Liney]

Hard to know without seeing it. Fungus does appear inside the lens, on the internal elements, but without sighting your lens, it is hard to say if you have fungus. It tends to look like spider webs, like long thin lines.. sort of like mould.

Thanks for the response, I had another look today and it doesn't look like the images I've seen on the web. Instead of spider webs or worms (spaghetti?) this is almost like circles in the middle of the glass.

I'll keep an eye on it and see if anything....develops!

[Nick Cliff]

Liney with the fungus apparently if you put your lens in an oven at 66C for 3 hours this should kill most living things.
Some laboratory's treat many items to be used in their labs using these guidelines.
Initially you would be hesitant to do this however with cheap lenses it may work.
This might be the sort of temperature reached in a car on a hot day at Marble Bar on a hot summers day with the windows closed.
The cameras and other lenses are still OK after 5 years or so after a few suspects were added to the collection that have had this treatment.
I keep all lenses isolated in clip-lock bags with drying satchels from vitamin jars.