Dry Cabinet
A well kept lens will have high trade in value, if no fungus found in the lens, but how to protect your lens?
- Dry Cabinet
- Dehumidifier
- Silical gel
- Keep your lens in a dry places
As Malaysia is a high humidity country, the most effective way to avoid fungus grow is using Dry Cabinet. Silical gel is good for travelling.
All About Fungus
Ideal environment for fungus growth
- Relative humidity of at least 60% and reaches its optimum growing rate between 70% and 80% RH, which is the common humidity reading in our tropical climate.
- No or litter air flow
- Darkness
- Temperatures between 10 and 35°C
- Places meeting all the criteria above: Camera bags and Store rooms
Why investing in a dry cabinet?
- The cost of cleaning just 2 infected lenses is already higher than the cost of a dry cabinet
- If the expensive coating on the glass is infected, this coating will be removed as well during the cleaning process. Thus, the optical quality of the glass will deteriorate (introducing more purple fringing, ghosting, flaring and etc)
- Since a lens is so compact and precise, 100% restoration is difficult to be achieved after dismantling your lens for cleaning purposes. Thus, mechanical quality of the lens might suffer as well (introducing more distortion and front/back focusing problem)
- Considering all these effects, why not invest in a dry cabinet now? Just treat it as an insurance for your 10k++ equipment.