Lens fungus- death or curable disease?

[emwalker]

I am wondering if anyone has experience with having lenses with

minor fungus cleaned, and if this is a problem that can be

resolved. I am looking into an old TLR that is beautiful except for

a couple small spots inside the taking lens. It will need a CLA

regardless, and I'm wondering if I should go for it or look for one

for a higher price with no fungus. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks.

[photojim]

If the fungus is stopped early enough, there may be no damage at all. However, after a time the fungus will damage the lens coatings. This is uncurable save by recoating the elements, which is invariably more costly than the lens is worth (there may be rare exceptions but I've not seen one).

 

Fungus is a high-risk proposition so I wouldn't buy anything with fungus unless you are getting a serious discount off the price of one without.

[gary_watson]

Unless it's afflicting something very special(and fixable), I pass on fungus cases, mainly since damage to lens surfaces is really only determined after a tear-down. I'd recommend patience.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here I love to buy cameras taged as having fungus at places where I can actually hold the camera or lens. The really cool thing is that usually it is not fungus, but a nick or dirt. Or it is small amount that doesnt make a hill of beans difference it the real world. The paranoia is great, it radically drops the buying price, taints the worth in teh eyes of the lay public. If folks were selling roofing tools they probably would drop a roofling nailer by 75 percent, because a abit of roofing tar was on the nailer. Folks who are obcessed with fungus seem to never be able to shoot some actual photos to test the lens, They would rather worry. They probably think that gluing a BB on a Mack Truck is radically going to drop the mpg of the truck. A FAR worse problem with lenses is that folks scrub and ruin lenses by improper cleaning methods. Alot of lenses that are deamed to be fungus problems jsut cannot be measured. In bad cases it actually is measureable. Because of these current obscessions with fungus, hackers often swap lenses TLR's, and create a bastard camera that focuses poorly, but looks great. <BR><BR>How do you know the camera requires a CLA?<BR><BR>How do you know that the fungus is really a problem?<BR><BR>

[michaelging]

I just bought a Nikon S2 Rangefinder with a 50 mm f1.4 lens for a very good price on Ebay. The reason it went so low was the fact that the person said there was fungus on the lens.He had a pretty good photo of the "fungus" which looked pretty none fungal like. It turned out the "fungus" was just some oil on the inside of the rear element , that came off the aperture blades that has a little oil on them. The lens cleaned up good as new. I can't say every fungus amongus is this easy to cure.

[erin.e]

Lucky you Michael ;-)

[GerrySiegel]

I have had one lens cleaned and it was worth it because I love the lens. When fungus is small,it is just spots on the surface of the element or rather in the coating on the element or in the cement between elements. When the fungus has gone into a more problematic stage,the spots show radial fingers that are pretty obvious. And at some point,the products of these tiny plants can etch the glass itself. If the spots stay spots,they may be insignificant for picture taking. I guess all fungus is not equal,and you still have to make a decision. Lens disasembly is beyond the CLA stage and gets costly nowadays,for a lot of complex lenses.