Aargh!!! The dreaded wet tropics strikes: fungus on my 40-150 fav!

Hen3ry wrote:

There are some practical difficulties in applying appropriate remedies. The silcagel is the go, obviously, I'll have to look for a supply when I visit Australia again in a couple of months (at the end of the wet season!). I’ll have to work out how to dry it, though -- I live in a village without a lot of mod cons. Likewise getting it cleaned -- that can’t happen until I go back to Oz and then it could well cost a bomb. I'll see.

I've already tried putting the lens kn the bright sunlight, thanks Rol. I hope it has killed the fungus so holding it for the time being.

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Landscaper -- I used to worry about equipment and exposing it to the elements. Then I started to think about the pictures. You're going to the wet tropics? How much will you spend to get there and be there? You might never pass that way again. And there might be dozens of pix you just didn’t have the equipment on hand to do justice to. You’ve spent a lot of money to get to your destination(s) and now you’re missing the pix.

I finally came to the conclusion that if the gear wasn't there to take the pix, then the gear was a waste of money and storage space (with some special exceptions, of course). The 40-150 has lasted through a year and a half in the tropics and has given me many memorable pictures. It got caught with the fungus this year only because of a exceptionally wet wet season plus me spending time out in it which I shouldn’t have done.

C'est la vie! I can always get another lens, but if I miss a picture because I don't have the right lens with me, I might never get another chance to take that picture.

By the way, if you’re staying in air conditioning, you have no problem really. You'll gallop around during the day taking your pix, then the air con will dry everything out at night.

Cheers, geoff

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Geoffrey Heard
http://pngtimetraveller.blogspot.com/2011/10/return-to-karai-komana_31.html