[Leica] Beat the fungus

[Malcolm McCullough <MM4@mm-croy.mottmac.com>]

Ways to beat the fungus. Based on three years in Singapore  with no air-con 
in the room my gear was kept in, and many more years working in cold, damp 
places.

(Greetings to all the SPLUGgers, hope to be back sometime)

Use your gear and keep it aired - the camera I carried all the time showed 
no sign of any fungus. I was careful to empty and dry my Domke satchel after 
it got wet (frequently). When going up country I used to carry a ziplock bag 
and a few film canisters filled with silica gel and sealed. In the event of 
everything getting very wet the idea was to throw the gear into the bag and 
seal it up with the punctured canisters.

I stored the stuff not in regular use in a purpose-built drying cabinet. 
These are readily available in Sing and I guess in Hong Kong. They remove 
moisture from the enclosure (by condensing it) and evaporate it back into 
the surroundings. They are very cheap to run, consuming only a few watts. 
Tina has mentioned the cheaper way of doing a similar thing - keep your 
stuff in a cabinet which is heated gently. A normal incandescent lightbulb 
(not a fluorescent or energy-saving lamp) is ideal. It isn't the light that 
is preventing fungal growth, it is the low relative humidity caused by 
raising the temperature. In industry this is the normal way of preventing 
humidity damage in electrical enclosures etc. The absolute humidity level is 
unchanged (ie the amount of moisture in the air). The great thing about the 
purpose built units is that the relative humidity level is controllable and 
known - typically around 50%.

Keep your stuff in an air-conditioned room, or at least a well ventilated 
room. (my flat was a little damp, and fungus grew on on a number of things, 
including my large collection of videos.)

Sealing cameras in plastic boxes with silical gel doesn't seem to be ideal, 
but it does work. Apart from the need to keep regenerating the gel, there is 
a danger of over-drying any film that is in the camera. Drying agents like 
silica gel can dry to very low humidity levels.

Regards,
Malcolm