I recently bought a used lens on eBay. It arrived with slightly smeared glass. I cleaned the lens, front and back, and looked through and saw little squiggly lines 1mm or so in length a few places around the edge of the front element. Cleaned the front some more to be sure, and confirmed that the little squiggly fuzzy lines are on the back side of the front element. Fungus I said. Actually what I said first was something else that rhymes with hoover. As Wendy would say.
So I email the seller and tell him I don't want fungus. Fine, he says, send it back. I could clean it, I says, but I could not be sure of sanitizing it, and I don't want the fungus to spread to my other lenses. How about a professional cleaning? The seller is willing to have me get an estimate for a professional CLA of the lens. But he is also ridiculing the notion that a lens which is all fungused up is in any way a danger to other lenses. Like, "how would the fungus get out to 'infect' the other lenses!?!?" Tell me I am not crazy! Tell me I am not repeating a myth, that fungus is "contagious" and destructive. Even better, give me the URL of an authoritative source on this topic. Thanks. Stan - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
