Anybody experience lens fogging this bad?

During a summer trip to humid Okinawa, I had my Canon 40D and kit 28-135 f3.5 IS lens in my air conditioned hotel room. Next morning I stepped outside in the bright sunshine on the balcony to take a few pics and my lens got all fogged up. Problem is, it wasn't the usual fogging on the outer lens, but the lens elements INSIDE the lens housing had fogged up.

I had to leave the lens outside for almost 30 minutes to heat it up enough to evaporate the fogging in the inner lens elements.

Question: will this leave any residue on the inner lens elements which may affect picture quality? I presume the moisture that condensed on the inner lens elements was pure 100% water (like distilled water), so when it evaporated back into the air inside the lens it would leave no residue.

How would I avoid this problem in the future? I wouldn't want this to happen with my $$$$ Zeiss zoom lens. Is it that the cheap kit lens did not have adequate weathersealing?

that happened to me during a cmaping trip. It took a while, but the moisure did eventually evaporate and left the lens as it was before. I now put my lens and camera in a big plastic zip lock bag and let the temp equalize somewhat when I know I am going from one extreme to another. It works pretty good.

p.s. the camera is probably the component to worry about in this case. A little too much moisture and maybe things will short out.

Yeah, that's humidity for ya... common stuff here, and something I fight all summer long. Best tip is to let the lenses acclimate slowly. I do this by putting the windows down while driving, before I get to my destination. The plastic bag trick also helps, but no matter what, going from cold to hot/humid will cause this to happen. I've been thinking about keeping my gear in my garage (it still gets hot in there, but nothing that would cause damage to the gear) - this way my gear would always be warmed up and ready to go and as long as I was careful with the AC in the car, I wouldn't have any issues. It's now the end of summer here, although last few days have been atrocious for humidity, but I may try this.

I have a lens suffering from fungus due to this I believe. Didn't let it sit in the sun and evaporate totally, I put it in a bag not long after and I guess it was a very bad idea

It still works great, but I guess the resale value is near zero. Thankfully I love it enough that I wouldn't want to tell it anyway.

Clevor wrote in post #8831007
During a summer trip to humid Okinawa

Say no more. Happened just about every time I took my camera out of the (air conditioned) car. I thought it was the sea-mist at first... but no!

I've had it happen taking gear from a nice, cold air-conditioned broadcast truck out into muggy south Florida weather at Homestead.

The lens fogging happens whenever I'm traveling in humid climates during summer such as Japan, Hong Kong, Guam, Singapore, Phillipines, but usually I just get fogging on the exterior of filters and inner lens which face the inside of the camera (and also the viewfinder). Or perhaps also on the exterior lens under the filter. This goes away in a few minutes, or I just wipe it down with lens cloth to speed it up.

Other situations is when it's winter in Japan and I enter the tropical hothouse of a botanical garden.

But I usually don't have trouble with the inner glass elements. I suspect the weatherproofing isn't that good on the 28-135 f3.5 IS kit lens so humid air can infiltrate and that causes condensation.

I normally store my lenses in an air-conditioned environment (I live in Okinawa and I run my A/C all year 'round!) so I shouldn't have fungus problems (knock on wood).

Generally fungus is synonymous with mold conditions. If you can't run A/C continually where you live, and if you cycle hot and cold temps which produce condensation, than mold will be a problem.

Yep happened on my on my recent trip to the Philippines, missed some great shots traveling around for the first part of a trip because of it.

Happens to me almost every time I go camping.
I had the lens fogged up for almost an entire day recently , but that was on a camera that was "waterproofed". I made the mistake to seal it while it was still not fully acclimatized.
I haven't noticed any issues from this yet.

Does this happen to L lenses also? I have a 70-200 2.8 IS and 17-40. I run my A/C all night and shut it off in the am. I wonder if the change in temperature will affect it. I haven't seen any problems for now.

Yes, it affects all lenses. I had it happen to a 24-105 recently.

had that while I was in Japan too, happened to all my lenses
yeah took a while before the fog evaporate
thankfully didnt affect anything to the lens afterwards...

best way to help, is that make sure you pack as many as them little packet of pills (which you get when you buy cases, clothes, etc etc) - those things absorb moisture, and if you pack a lot in your bag, it will help A LOT with the fogging...

I haven't found those silica gel packets to be much help. I could fill my bag with them, but here on the coast, it wouldn't matter. If the glass is cold, and it's suddenly pulled out into warm humid air, it's going to fog up. Not much you can do, but slowly warm up the glass.

An ounce of prevention....well that doesn't always work. I got stuck in a torrential down pour in Positano, Italy. My bag got completely drenched. By the time I made it back all...ALL my lense had fogged over internally...even both my "sealed" L's. I actually put a "hair dryer" to them at about 12 to 18 inches and heated up the ambient air temperature in the room and let them dry. They actually completely dried and I have no spotting anywhere! The so called "rain cover" that most camera bags come with are a joke. I know have a menagerie of plastic bags at the bottom of my camera bag..."just in case". Since I live in Alaska I acclimate my gear before I start shooting. I don't try to keep the camera warm, which means I don't get any frosting unless I do bring it inside. Batteries die fast though...