All fungus reproduce by microscopic (translate as too small to see) spores. The method of spore propagation is being carried on air currents. Every time you focus your lens near to far, air (with fungus spores) is forced out of the lens and some into your camera body. (Yes, camera bodies can get fungus too.) Put another lens on the body and focus far to near and you suck air (with spores?) into the lens. Will the spores germinate? This depends on conditions, especially humidity.
I don't take chances. Regards, Bob... -------------------- "Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event." - Samuel Adams, 1771 From: "Stan Halpin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > 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. - 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 .
