How to remove a fungus from a target
There is nothing as frustrating as discovering that inside one of your objectives a fungus has grown in one of the internal elements. Lens fungus is commonly found on old lenses. No matter the brand, build quality or price. If moisture stays on the lens for too long, fungus can appear.He hablado con bastantes personas que han compartido conmigo sus intentos personales de tratar de limpiarlo usando varios limpiadores y paños para lentes. Déjame ahorrarte el tiempo: no se puede eliminar el hongo con una solución estándar para la limpieza de lentes. El alcohol, el líquido para encendedores y el etanol (por ejemplo, el vodka) tampoco funcionan. Una combinación de un gran esfuerzo y cualquier combinación de las soluciones anteriores sólo provocará arañazos, daños en el revestimiento de las lentes y frustración.
Hoy, quiero compartir con ustedes una forma simple y que no daña cuando se elimina los hongos de sus lentes. Si estás dispuesto a esforzarte y hacer algo nuevo, puedes quitar ese hongo que estropea cualquier lente y quizás, devolverle la vida a un objetivo clásico.
Advertencia: Este recorrido implica el desmontaje del objetivo. Si no te sientes cómodo con este tipo de proyecto, tal vez quieras hacer que te reparen la lente en un servicio técnico. Toma la decisión que creas oportuna.
Hoy, quiero compartir con ustedes una forma simple y que no daña cuando se elimina los hongos de sus lentes. Si estás dispuesto a esforzarte y hacer algo nuevo, puedes quitar ese hongo que estropea cualquier lente y quizás, devolverle la vida a un objetivo clásico.
Advertencia: Este recorrido implica el desmontaje del objetivo. Si no te sientes cómodo con este tipo de proyecto, tal vez quieras hacer que te reparen la lente en un servicio técnico. Toma la decisión que creas oportuna.
How To Repair Canon Camera Lens Error
- JIS screwdriver set: For lenses built in Japan you will need a screwdriver set with the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS). They look like a Phillips / Phillips head screwdriver but are slightly different. The pitch and depth of the tip of the JIS screw heads are different from those of regular screwdrivers and trying to use anything else to remove them would be a mistake. I bought a nice set of this type of screwdrivers made in America here for about 15 bucks.
- Desk Lamp: I use two different curved arm lights: one is an LED spotlight that provides strong directional lighting, and the other is a multi-LED spotlight with a white diffuser to provide shadow-free lighting. IKEA is a great place to buy lamps like this.
-Piece Plate: I bought a $ 2 white plastic plate from a local home goods store.
- Soggy plate: I think I paid about $ 3 for a small white ceramic bowl for dessert.
- Tweezers: Anyone will do.
- Nitrile gloves: These will help prevent your fingers from drying out from the antifungal solution, and help keep your lenses clean while handling the lens elements.
- Safety glasses: Yes, I know, but you only have two eyes, so you better protect them.
- Hydrogen Peroxide: You can buy it at any pharmacy.
- Household ammonia: I paid a few dollars at a home supply store for a gallon (1 gallon-3.78 liter). Try to find ammonia that is odorless. I have used scented and unscented ammonia and haven't seen any difference in performance, but it always makes me feel a bit apprehensive to have an extra chemical (the perfume) in the mix when applied to the lens layers.
- Cotton balls.
- Microfiber lens cloth: This has to be extremely clean. Do not use one that you have carried in your pocket or camera bag. Any specks of dust or sweat from your skin on the fabric will break off and find its way to the internals of your lens, leaving you immensely frustrated and unable to achieve a flawless finish. I keep my lens restoration clothes in airtight plastic bags when not in use, and replace them often.
- Lens blower (cleaning bulb): I use a $ 10 Giotto Rocket Air Blaster brand I bought here.
- Cup of coffee, with caffeine: Flavor of your choice.
- Music: I recommend the album Tokyo Adagio by Charlie Haden or Blue in Green by Alan Broadbent.
Alright, let's get to it! For this post, I bought an old Konica Hexanon AR 40mm f / 1.8 lens from my local camera store. At first glance you think, “It doesn't seem that bad”…
But if you give it a little light, you will see that this is a particularly complicated case of fungi since they are in the group of rear elements. This is the worst place for them to be because it will totally affect the quality of the image. The mushroom is not on the outside of the rear element, it is between two elements inside the lens.
you may also be interested in How to Remove Scratches From Camera Lens
Time to get down to it. Your lens is most likely not the same as mine, but the process will be very similar, especially if your lens is old, manual focus, and Japanese. I highly recommend that you use a camera to document each step so you have references for later when you reassemble the lens.
Using my JIS screwdriver, I removed the 4 screws holding the chrome lens mount.
After removing the lens mount, the aperture ring will be free for you to remove from the lens body. To access the rear lens element, I didn't need to remove the diaphragm ring but figured I could clean it too while taking out all my tools.
A tip: between the aperture ring and the body of the lens there is a small steel ball that has a coil spring or a leaf that pushes it from behind, with which you have to be careful because it can launch that ball to either side. You can tell where the opening ball is by looking for the series of cut notches on the ring. When you turn the aperture ring on a lens, the click you feel between each aperture setting point comes from the interaction between the ball and those notches. I suggest that you place your hand on that side of the aperture ring while moving it away from the lens body. In my case, there was enough grease and dirt that was holding the ball in place.
With the aperture ring removed, I was able to clean the rear of the lens body. I recommend doing at least a preliminary cleaning on the go. This will help keep dirty parts away from other parts of the lens as you progress through disassembling the lens.
A lens removal wrench is a simple tool. It has two steel bars in which the two bars of the key can be separated for a correct alignment with the ring you want to remove. The screws that are in the bars of the wrench are used to lock the tool in the necessary width. This particular lens removal wrench has both the blade and the needle/holding end. This lens has a couple of notches on the retaining ring. The end of the key in the shape of a flat knife is used to remove this type of ring.
Once the retaining ring is removed, the rear lens element is accessed. There are several ways to remove the glass: First, tilt the lens down in your hand to see if it falls off. Most of the time it will. If you can't get it to drop, you can try partially reattaching the retaining ring and using a blunt, non-metallic object to tap the side of the ring gently - just enough to get it moving.
In the worst-case scenario, I had to flip the lens over, remove all elements/groups from the front lens, open the aperture blades completely, and use a soft silicone sponge to press the rear glass from inside the lens. I've only needed to do this once, so don't be discouraged. That possibility exists, and I want to explain it to you so you don't get caught off guard.
In the case of this lens, the rear element just fell into my hand. This is a very thin piece of glass that would take very little time to break. I used a soft cloth or lens cloth to place all the rings and glass in the order they are removed. Pay close attention to the concave/convex shape of the crystal so that you have no doubts as to what position it will be placed in when you go to put everything back together.
Take a look at this photo. You can see that the glass that remains on the lens is the glass that has the fungus in it. The first piece of glass I took out had some scraps, but nothing like the second. Let's get him out of there.
The construction of this group of lenses requires a spacer ring between the most posterior element and the inner element. To remove it, simply tilt the lens in your hand. You may have to tap the front of the lens to remove the item from its mount. Be careful, as sometimes the inner element comes out with it. In this case, it did not. If you ever feel like more than one thing falls into your hand, STOP.
Put down the rest of the lens and carefully evaluate what you have in your hand, and in what order and orientation it was. Next, place each piece on its fabric, making sure not to allow any metal or other pieces of glass to touch the face of the item (s). The internals can have some very soft layers that are scratched very easily. A slight scratch on the coat is not the end of the world but it is best if you can avoid it.
Here we have the inner and back element with all the mushrooms. Covers practically the entire concave surface of the glass. See the black around the edge of the glass? Sometimes that thing comes off or falls off when the item is soaked in the solution. This layer of black is there to reduce internal reflections. If it starts to flake or peel during restoration, I recommend removing anything that flakes and re-covering it. I have achieved a good result painting it with a black permanent marker.
The edge of the glass is not polished so the ink from the marker sticks very well to it. I usually apply it 2-3 times to make sure I get a nice black finish. You can use a strong directional light source to shine the light through the lens glass while looking at the edges just in case you either wouldn't have covered the entire area well. An advantage of the permanent marker is that it will not alter the diameter of the glass, so you will have no trouble getting the item in place.
I have some medicine syringes that I use to measure the amount of liquid, but if you don't have them they are not necessary. Our mix consists of equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia. In the past, I have used the cap on an ammonia bottle to measure equal parts of each chemical. Wear gloves and goggles if you can, and be sure to work in a well-ventilated area. Ammonia fumes are quite strong.
For each cap of ammonia, add another cap of hydrogen peroxide and you will not be wrong. For this little project, I only needed 5 milliliters of each to get 10 ml. Stir the mixture well. Put a disposable lens wipe or something similar in the bottom of the tray where you have put the solution. This will protect the crystals from being scratched by the dish while soaking.
Gently place the item on the liquid. Let it soak for at least 2 minutes. You may see some bubbles form as the solution eats away at the fungus. After a few minutes, use a cotton ball to gently clean any remaining fungus. It should not be necessary that the pressures should only come out by dragging - we are eliminating the fungus chemically, not mechanically.
If the fungus remains on the glass, you just have to put it back in the solution giving it a little more time. I have had some mushrooms that took up to 20 minutes to remove all (it happened to me with a Leica Summaron 3.5cm, if I remember correctly).
After the fungus is gone, take the glass to a sink where you can run water over it for a while. Don't rub the lens, just let the water run directly over it, on both sides. Once the solution has been rinsed off, use the lens butterfly to remove all water droplets. When the water is gone, use that clean, shiny microfiber cloth to lightly wipe the lens.
Now, inspect the lens under the lamp. Check it from both sides and with different angles of light to make sure that all the fungus is gone and that there is no dust or stains on the glass. If it looks good, set it aside on a clean, soft microfiber cloth and cover it to prevent dust from settling on it. Repeat the cleaning process on the remaining crystals.
Working backward now, I've put it all back together. The front of the lens body was cleaned and blown out, and I inspected the diaphragm ring. It was in perfect condition. Then, I reinstalled the rear element group. Crystal clear, as it should be.
Here is a list of tools and supplies you will need to get the job done:
- Eyeglass Wrench: I bought mine here for $ 16.50. There is no replacement for this tool that leaves no harm in its wake.- JIS screwdriver set: For lenses built in Japan you will need a screwdriver set with the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS). They look like a Phillips / Phillips head screwdriver but are slightly different. The pitch and depth of the tip of the JIS screw heads are different from those of regular screwdrivers and trying to use anything else to remove them would be a mistake. I bought a nice set of this type of screwdrivers made in America here for about 15 bucks.
- Desk Lamp: I use two different curved arm lights: one is an LED spotlight that provides strong directional lighting, and the other is a multi-LED spotlight with a white diffuser to provide shadow-free lighting. IKEA is a great place to buy lamps like this.
-Piece Plate: I bought a $ 2 white plastic plate from a local home goods store.
- Soggy plate: I think I paid about $ 3 for a small white ceramic bowl for dessert.
- Tweezers: Anyone will do.
- Nitrile gloves: These will help prevent your fingers from drying out from the antifungal solution, and help keep your lenses clean while handling the lens elements.
- Safety glasses: Yes, I know, but you only have two eyes, so you better protect them.
- Hydrogen Peroxide: You can buy it at any pharmacy.
- Household ammonia: I paid a few dollars at a home supply store for a gallon (1 gallon-3.78 liter). Try to find ammonia that is odorless. I have used scented and unscented ammonia and haven't seen any difference in performance, but it always makes me feel a bit apprehensive to have an extra chemical (the perfume) in the mix when applied to the lens layers.
- Cotton balls.
- Microfiber lens cloth: This has to be extremely clean. Do not use one that you have carried in your pocket or camera bag. Any specks of dust or sweat from your skin on the fabric will break off and find its way to the internals of your lens, leaving you immensely frustrated and unable to achieve a flawless finish. I keep my lens restoration clothes in airtight plastic bags when not in use, and replace them often.
- Lens blower (cleaning bulb): I use a $ 10 Giotto Rocket Air Blaster brand I bought here.
- Cup of coffee, with caffeine: Flavor of your choice.
- Music: I recommend the album Tokyo Adagio by Charlie Haden or Blue in Green by Alan Broadbent.
Alright, let's get to it! For this post, I bought an old Konica Hexanon AR 40mm f / 1.8 lens from my local camera store. At first glance you think, “It doesn't seem that bad”…
But if you give it a little light, you will see that this is a particularly complicated case of fungi since they are in the group of rear elements. This is the worst place for them to be because it will totally affect the quality of the image. The mushroom is not on the outside of the rear element, it is between two elements inside the lens.
you may also be interested in How to Remove Scratches From Camera Lens
Time to get down to it. Your lens is most likely not the same as mine, but the process will be very similar, especially if your lens is old, manual focus, and Japanese. I highly recommend that you use a camera to document each step so you have references for later when you reassemble the lens.
Using my JIS screwdriver, I removed the 4 screws holding the chrome lens mount.
After removing the lens mount, the aperture ring will be free for you to remove from the lens body. To access the rear lens element, I didn't need to remove the diaphragm ring but figured I could clean it too while taking out all my tools.
A tip: between the aperture ring and the body of the lens there is a small steel ball that has a coil spring or a leaf that pushes it from behind, with which you have to be careful because it can launch that ball to either side. You can tell where the opening ball is by looking for the series of cut notches on the ring. When you turn the aperture ring on a lens, the click you feel between each aperture setting point comes from the interaction between the ball and those notches. I suggest that you place your hand on that side of the aperture ring while moving it away from the lens body. In my case, there was enough grease and dirt that was holding the ball in place.
With the aperture ring removed, I was able to clean the rear of the lens body. I recommend doing at least a preliminary cleaning on the go. This will help keep dirty parts away from other parts of the lens as you progress through disassembling the lens.
A lens removal wrench is a simple tool. It has two steel bars in which the two bars of the key can be separated for a correct alignment with the ring you want to remove. The screws that are in the bars of the wrench are used to lock the tool in the necessary width. This particular lens removal wrench has both the blade and the needle/holding end. This lens has a couple of notches on the retaining ring. The end of the key in the shape of a flat knife is used to remove this type of ring.
Once the retaining ring is removed, the rear lens element is accessed. There are several ways to remove the glass: First, tilt the lens down in your hand to see if it falls off. Most of the time it will. If you can't get it to drop, you can try partially reattaching the retaining ring and using a blunt, non-metallic object to tap the side of the ring gently - just enough to get it moving.
In the worst-case scenario, I had to flip the lens over, remove all elements/groups from the front lens, open the aperture blades completely, and use a soft silicone sponge to press the rear glass from inside the lens. I've only needed to do this once, so don't be discouraged. That possibility exists, and I want to explain it to you so you don't get caught off guard.
In the case of this lens, the rear element just fell into my hand. This is a very thin piece of glass that would take very little time to break. I used a soft cloth or lens cloth to place all the rings and glass in the order they are removed. Pay close attention to the concave/convex shape of the crystal so that you have no doubts as to what position it will be placed in when you go to put everything back together.
Take a look at this photo. You can see that the glass that remains on the lens is the glass that has the fungus in it. The first piece of glass I took out had some scraps, but nothing like the second. Let's get him out of there.
The construction of this group of lenses requires a spacer ring between the most posterior element and the inner element. To remove it, simply tilt the lens in your hand. You may have to tap the front of the lens to remove the item from its mount. Be careful, as sometimes the inner element comes out with it. In this case, it did not. If you ever feel like more than one thing falls into your hand, STOP.
Put down the rest of the lens and carefully evaluate what you have in your hand, and in what order and orientation it was. Next, place each piece on its fabric, making sure not to allow any metal or other pieces of glass to touch the face of the item (s). The internals can have some very soft layers that are scratched very easily. A slight scratch on the coat is not the end of the world but it is best if you can avoid it.
Here we have the inner and back element with all the mushrooms. Covers practically the entire concave surface of the glass. See the black around the edge of the glass? Sometimes that thing comes off or falls off when the item is soaked in the solution. This layer of black is there to reduce internal reflections. If it starts to flake or peel during restoration, I recommend removing anything that flakes and re-covering it. I have achieved a good result painting it with a black permanent marker.
The edge of the glass is not polished so the ink from the marker sticks very well to it. I usually apply it 2-3 times to make sure I get a nice black finish. You can use a strong directional light source to shine the light through the lens glass while looking at the edges just in case you either wouldn't have covered the entire area well. An advantage of the permanent marker is that it will not alter the diameter of the glass, so you will have no trouble getting the item in place.
I have some medicine syringes that I use to measure the amount of liquid, but if you don't have them they are not necessary. Our mix consists of equal parts of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia. In the past, I have used the cap on an ammonia bottle to measure equal parts of each chemical. Wear gloves and goggles if you can, and be sure to work in a well-ventilated area. Ammonia fumes are quite strong.
For each cap of ammonia, add another cap of hydrogen peroxide and you will not be wrong. For this little project, I only needed 5 milliliters of each to get 10 ml. Stir the mixture well. Put a disposable lens wipe or something similar in the bottom of the tray where you have put the solution. This will protect the crystals from being scratched by the dish while soaking.
Gently place the item on the liquid. Let it soak for at least 2 minutes. You may see some bubbles form as the solution eats away at the fungus. After a few minutes, use a cotton ball to gently clean any remaining fungus. It should not be necessary that the pressures should only come out by dragging - we are eliminating the fungus chemically, not mechanically.
If the fungus remains on the glass, you just have to put it back in the solution giving it a little more time. I have had some mushrooms that took up to 20 minutes to remove all (it happened to me with a Leica Summaron 3.5cm, if I remember correctly).
After the fungus is gone, take the glass to a sink where you can run water over it for a while. Don't rub the lens, just let the water run directly over it, on both sides. Once the solution has been rinsed off, use the lens butterfly to remove all water droplets. When the water is gone, use that clean, shiny microfiber cloth to lightly wipe the lens.
Now, inspect the lens under the lamp. Check it from both sides and with different angles of light to make sure that all the fungus is gone and that there is no dust or stains on the glass. If it looks good, set it aside on a clean, soft microfiber cloth and cover it to prevent dust from settling on it. Repeat the cleaning process on the remaining crystals.
Working backward now, I've put it all back together. The front of the lens body was cleaned and blown out, and I inspected the diaphragm ring. It was in perfect condition. Then, I reinstalled the rear element group. Crystal clear, as it should be.
How To Remove Fungus From Camera Lens
Using a dishwasher toothbrush, I cleaned all the dirt off the diaphragm ring. I applied a light coating of grease (Japan Mark # 30) to the notches to help achieve a smooth, firm click. “Synthetic Moly” car oil works as well, but you must make sure that it is a grease that withstands high temperatures, otherwise you risk a hot summer day liquefying the grease causing it to run off to other parts of the lens.
I soaked the rear lens mount in 91% isopropyl alcohol and gave it a good clean. Each lens is a little different in the way they build the aperture interface into the lens. This Konica lens has the entire assembly buttoned within the lens mount assembly. Some lenses are not constructed this way and are instead a separate collection of parts that must be removed first to free the frame.
Either way, they are pretty simple and consist of a metal ring that is held in tension by a long spring (s). If you ever have a lens that requires removal to release the lens mount, just work slowly and take photos. It is not complicated.
Finally, we put all the elements together and like new again. The total time to complete this cleaning was 2 hours and 1 minute. Including the extra time spent taking photos for this post. img_3098-16
A final image of the powerful Konica Hexanon AR 40mm f / 1.8 mounted, via an adapter, to a Sony a7R II.
About the author: Tom Leonard is a photographer who travels the world 30 days at a time. Share photos of your trips on your Out for 30 websites.
Using a dishwasher toothbrush, I cleaned all the dirt off the diaphragm ring. I applied a light coating of grease (Japan Mark # 30) to the notches to help achieve a smooth, firm click. “Synthetic Moly” car oil works as well, but you must make sure that it is a grease that withstands high temperatures, otherwise you risk a hot summer day liquefying the grease causing it to run off to other parts of the lens.
I soaked the rear lens mount in 91% isopropyl alcohol and gave it a good clean. Each lens is a little different in the way they build the aperture interface into the lens. This Konica lens has the entire assembly buttoned within the lens mount assembly. Some lenses are not constructed this way and are instead a separate collection of parts that must be removed first to free the frame.
Either way, they are pretty simple and consist of a metal ring that is held in tension by a long spring (s). If you ever have a lens that requires removal to release the lens mount, just work slowly and take photos. It is not complicated.
Finally, we put all the elements together and like new again. The total time to complete this cleaning was 2 hours and 1 minute. Including the extra time spent taking photos for this post. img_3098-16
A final image of the powerful Konica Hexanon AR 40mm f / 1.8 mounted, via an adapter, to a Sony a7R II.
About the author: Tom Leonard is a photographer who travels the world 30 days at a time. Share photos of your trips on your Out for 30 websites.
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