? about fungus

I use a lot of vintage lenses, but I stay away from buying those with internal fungus for fear it will affect my other lenses. Is this sound reasoning? Also, I live in the desert where it's pretty dry.

twoshadows wrote in post #18899249
I use a lot of vintage lenses, but I stay away from buying those with internal fungus for fear it will affect my other lenses. Is this sound reasoning? Also, I live in the desert where it's pretty dry.

I live where heat and humidity are real issues, at least in the summer months. I have way too much glass in my closet to risk fungus spreading from one lens, to a body, then to other lenses. As far as I can recall, I've only had one lens with fungus in it. It went directly into the trash can. No attempt to clean it, no attempt to sell it. Just get rid of it. Most of my stuff is second-hand from EBay and garage sales. I'm not sure what I'd do if something expensive were infected.

twoshadows wrote in post #18899249
I use a lot of vintage lenses, but I stay away from buying those with internal fungus for fear it will affect my other lenses. Is this sound reasoning? Also, I live in the desert where it's pretty dry.

The quick answer is no. All lenses have the fungus that grows on glass probably even before they are packaged up for shipping. It is not passed from one lens to another. It is literally everywhere and when the conditions are met, moisture, temperature, food, the fungus will grow. All you can do is interrupt one of the conditions needed for the fungus to grow. You can't remove the food as it's growing on the lens coating. So as you live in a desert, in the easiest requirement to interrupt is moisture. That is sort of taken care for you by where you live.