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What exactly does mold find so interesting inside my lenses?


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To mitigate the 7 major lens aberration, opticians construct the camera lens using a array of lenses. Each element will have a different power, some strong some weak, some positive, some negative. Additionally, some are made using a very hard dense glass, others less dense. Some elements are air-spaced apart, some in direct contact with its neighbor. Lens elements in direct contact are routinely cemented together. The cement must have special optical properties. For decades, a resin made from the sap of the Canadian Balsa Pine was used. This is clear strong resin is organic and thus food for beasties (mold & mildew). Nowadays, optical cements are manmade resins. Besties find these artificial resins lest tasty but sometimes the besties are tempted to dine.

 

Often its crazing due to separation - can look like mold etc.

Edited by alan_marcus|2
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I've noticed that some of my Mamiya TLR lenses are very susceptible to fungus. It's always on the inside surface of one lens, but not the other. The bugs obviously have a very discerning palette when it comes to optical glass types.

 

Discriminating fungi & molds ONLY dine in the finest of lenses? (why settle for less, right?)

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