'Crystals' inside my Canon EF 100mm Macro USM Lens

meland wrote:

Landscapeforfun wrote:

SarahBK wrote:

Landscapeforfun wrote:

Looks like a classic case of fungus to me. Not sure if the lens is salvageable or not.
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-Adam
https://www.flickr.com/photos/90719248@N04/

Did you full-view the picture?
I'd have imagined the hyphae would have been so much thinner, and being a living organism it would grow over a long period of time.. and wouldn't be so isolate..

I don't see a whole lot of other options for what it could be. I'm sure if you put it in a dark damp place it will spread. Your best bet is to have it repaired ASAP before it gets any worse or etches the glass.

I'm afraid that lens may have had it. The fungus will have damaged the coating and/or the cement between the lens elements. Re-coating is not really practical or cost effective so the only hope is replacement of the affected lens groups - but with the cost of those and the labour in fitting and recalibrating the lens .................... ! It may be cheaper to write the whole lens off and to buy a replacement. Might your insurance cover it perhaps?

You need to be mindful that if it has affected this lens it could also have spread to others. Get everything into the driest place you can find and google 'how to protect camera equipment against humidity'.

Yeah - that's why I wasn't keen on considering servicing. Especially since the guy at the camera store was not convinced what the problem was, and wanted to pass it on to the technicians without even knowing what could be done to it.

Thankfully none of my lenses have anything like it, despite having been stored with it for ages, before this ever happened and after. I guess I will keep it separate from now, just in case.

Well, besides a ton of silica gel packets, not sure what else I could put in my lens bag to keep humidity out.