Alcohol is good at removing many things that are oily or greasy, fingerprints, tar, etc. It won't touch anything water based such as pop (soda) beer, etc. Windex contains water, alcohol, detergent and a touch of ammonia. Simply swab it on, wait a bit, wipe it off and polish with breath and a very soft cotton cloth, works very well. The ammonia component is said to be dangerous to coatings but as long as it's not allowed to sit for hours no problem. I have at least 10 different solvents and cleaners here, Windex has been one of my 3 most useful. Alcohol and lacquer thinner are the other 2. The most expensive ones, such as Ecilpse lens cleaner, see little use.
** DO be sure lenses are 100% dry before re-assembly, otherwise the fungus will re-occur. ** A blow dryer works well. A small cabinet with a few tiny (1/8"/3-4mm) holes top and bottom and a small light bulb in the bottom is a very simple and effective 'dry cabinet' for lenses and such. A 4 to 7 watt 'night light' bulb is usually adequate for 2 cubic feet or less. 5-10 degrees F above ambient is about right. Keeping lenses in their leather case in an area that can get damp is the worst possible storage as it creates a nice cool, damp environment that fungus just loves. Plastic bags are also bad unless the lens, and air, are dry when sealed up. A camera bag isn't the greatest place for long term storage either. ;-( Don > -----Original Message----- > From: David Mann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 2:39 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: fungus amungus? > > > On Dec 27, 2005, at 6:03 AM, Don Sanderson wrote: > > > With Windex there is no heavy rubbing, it disolves the fungus > > easily. > > How about isopropyl alcohol? > > I recently found what looks like small spots of fungus on the rear > elements of a couple of my lenses. Gave them a good scrub with an > alcohol-soaked tissue, wiped the residue off with a dry tissue, blew > out the dust then left them in the sun to catch some UV rays. > Hopefully that's all they'll need. > > I have another couple of lenses with internal fungus... just a small > spot near the centre of whichever element it's on. I'll probably > disassemble one but the other's an FA and I'm not sure I want to deal > with little pieces of lens springing off into the carpet. > > Today I shifted my lens shelf out of the wardrobe where it used to > reside. I had it in there as the door is lockable for security. I > suspect there may have been some moisture rising from under the > floor, and it doesn't help that we had some unusually humid weather > recently. > > I've been wanting to do some work under the floor (moisture proofing > and insulation) so I guess I'll be doing that a bit sooner than I > originally intended. > > - Dave > >
