Ways to store enlarging lenses ?

[jk0592]

I have used different cameras over the years. This has resulted in a growing collection
of enlarging lenses, such as 50mm, 80mm, 105mm and 150mm.
Most of these are just sitting in plastic bags, and stored on the dry side of the darkroom. But the dry side is not so dry,
humidity has a way of invading any volume of air in the darkroom.
So, are there any better ways or places to keep the lenses in good shape for a long time ?

[Bob Salomon]

Why not get Rodenstock or Schneider enlarging lens cases?

[Luis-F-S]

All my lenses are in a 25 CF safe in a climate controlled room. All are on lenseboards on shelves. L

[John Kasaian]

I don't keep my collection of enlarging lenses in a dark room.
I don't store any of my lenses where there is moisture.

[Jim Noel]

My lenses stay in the drawer of a desk in the darkroom. Some have been there since the 1970's and show no signs of deterioration of any kind including fungus and rust. The darkroom is part of the overall house temperature control system.

[jk0592]

Why not get Rodenstock or Schneider enlarging lens cases?
Thank you, I was unaware that these could be purchased separately. I will enquire.

[RSalles]

Do you forget your dog in the supermarket parking lot? Don't do it with your lens neither: carry it back to the 35% humid env. box and both of you will be friends, able to work together until the curtain falls down,

Cheers,

[Kevin Crisp]

What if the lens is a dog?

[neil poulsen]

I of course use the enlarger lenses in my darkroom, which is off the garage. I store them in the house in a cabinet.

[Jim Jones]

Food containers can provide protection against a humid environment if the lenses are dry when sealed in the containers.

[Drew Wiley]

I never store lenses in the sink room, or even use an enlarger there. But I do live in a climate with nearly constant fog. Camera lenses as well as my numerous
enlarger lenses either go on well-ventilated shelves in other areas, or if used less frequently, into cabinets and containers containing little dessicant buckets.
Except for silica gel, you need to be extremely careful that the dessicant never touches anything other than itself and its immediate container. There are numerous
brands, such as Dri-Out, and they work longer than silica gel, more affordably, but can't be baked out for re-use. If just a few lenses are involved, I recommend
silica gel tinted with an indicator dye. It goes from blue to pink as it slowly asborbs moisture, then you bake it dry again for about 20 min in an oven.

[MrFujicaman]

Tupperware and silica gel

[jk0592]

Lots of good information here! Thanks!

[Kirk Gittings]

Do it the way my students do........throw them in a box, no caps, in a big pile. :)

[jk0592]

Do it the way my students do........throw them in a box, no caps, in a big pile. :)

A school must have a better budget for replacing equipment than mine!

[Duolab123]

I never store lenses in the sink room, or even use an enlarger there. But I do live in a climate with nearly constant fog. Camera lenses as well as my numerous
enlarger lenses either go on well-ventilated shelves in other areas, or if used less frequently, into cabinets and containers containing little dessicant buckets.
Except for silica gel, you need to be extremely careful that the dessicant never touches anything other than itself and its immediate container. There are numerous
brands, such as Dri-Out, and they work longer than silica gel, more affordably, but can't be baked out for re-use. If just a few lenses are involved, I recommend
silica gel tinted with an indicator dye. It goes from blue to pink as it slowly asborbs moisture, then you bake it dry again for about 20 min in an oven.

Beautiful San Francisco, fog with a not so slight amount of sodium chloride. Not only must one be wary of fungi but corrosion, especially where two dissimilar metals come in contact this can be a big problem. I recently saw a fabulous old Hasselblad that came from a house on Long Island, unmarked perfect condition except for the latch on the film holder insert, completely corroded and frozen. We couldn't fire because we couldn't insert the holder.
I keep a dehumidifier in my darkroom set to DRY all year round and use ac when it's warm here in the Midwest. If I get my big sinks wet I squeegee them dry.I try to keep most of my lenses in bubbles in a separate room as much as I can but I use a 3 lens turret and I leave it on the enlarger.
If your not using anything camera related do what Nikon and the rest do airtight container and a bit of silica gel and run the AC!

[Duolab123]

I should also mention that here in Iowa indoor humidity isn't as much of a problem, it's either 0 degrees and zero humidity or so hot that you need ac, but in the summer I save the dehumidifier water to use for soft water in making fixer etc. I've seen local guys total their lenses in a basement darkroom from fungus. Mike

[HMG]

There is a device called a "Golden Rod (http://www.btibrands.com/brands/golden-rod/)" that is used to reduce humidity in gun safes. Basically a small heater that raises temps in the safe a few degrees. A small incandescent bulb would do the same.

[Drew Wiley]

If moisture is in the air in that safe, more temperature just raises the relative humidity and makes things worse! All that air is trapped in there if you don't have
a system of ventilation circulating air around things. Safes are for security from theft, and not necessarily smart protection from humidity. You can wipe down
gun barrels with rust-preventing oil. You can't do that to lenses, to prevent mold! But talk about rust! ... I sell high-end woodworking stuff, a lot of German power
tools etc - and this bay of the building faces right into the SF Bay, which is only a five minute walk away. The fog carries a lot of salt. My own lab building,
though quite a bit further from the Bay, is itself right in a wind tunnel where fog is constant all summer long. So I've been forced to learn a thing or two about
dessicants.

[tgtaylor]

I purchased a water-tight Calumet ( think Pelican) case to store all on the enlarging lens. Throw in a couple of dissenctrnts and you don't have to worry about moisture, scratches, or physical damage.

Thomas

[Kevin Crisp]

[QUOTE=Drew Wiley;...more temperature just raises the relative humidity and makes things worse!

I am pretty sure this is backwards. All other things being equal, an increase in temperature lowers the relative humidity. If you have a hygrometer in your house you can watch RH plummet when you turn on the heat in the morning. An air conditioner will make it look like cooling drives RH down, but it isn't the temperature doing that, it is the water being condensed out of the air by the AC unit coils.

If you have 100% relative humidity at 48F, it will be 48% at 60F and 24% at 80F. The idea of those Golden Rods (I've been using 3 of them for years) is that they raise the temperature in the confined space you install them in, with favorable effect on dew point and RH. They are so commonly used in gun safes that safes typically have a hole drilled for the cord. If installed at the bottom of the space as recommended, I'd think there would be air circulation from the 150F rod.

That being said, I think the easiest way to store enlarging lenses is in a plastic container with reusable color changing desiccants. I do this only because, for whatever reason, I have more trouble with enlarging lenses getting internal haze than taking lenses. I keep all my taking lenses in a plain metal cabinet, or in camera bags in the cabinet, with no desiccants, in the darkroom. In So. Cal. the darkroom is generally around 40% humidity all year round and I've never had a taking lens get fungus, nor will I at that RH. The small reusable desiccants can handle a small plastic container with a good seal like the ones commonly found with the blue gasket under the lid. 2 or 4 hours at 250 to 300F and they recharge.

[Drew Wiley]

You seem to be confusing dewpoint with RH. They are related, of course. That's why you need to understand these thing before transferring AC or dehumidier or wall insulation experience from one climate to another. For example, up here in the Bay we've got a drastically different climate (or set of microclimates) than in LA. Your heated rod device wouldn't be of any benefit where I live, or here at my office near the water, but would work analogously to your experience just over the hill where the microclimate is distinctly of the inland Calif variety. Another fact is that nobody around here uses AC (we get that for free from nature). So then there remains a distinction between dry forced air gas heating, and electric heat which doesn't dry the air. All kinds of variables. Then in the mountains you'vegot a different set of issues, which can likewise vary by season. It's always a chore when trying to explain this to people in the East or Midwest, who think in terms of very wide scales of conditions which gradually shift southwards, rather than microclimates, which are the name of the game in much of the West.

[tgtaylor]

Not the correct equation for this but consider the Universal Gas Law:

1. PV=nRT; solving for nR:

2. PV/T = nR.

Where P= Pressure, V= Volume, T= Temperature, n = the number of moles, R=Universal Gas Constant, and T= the Temperature.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh, you don't think I've been through all of this? And the last place on earth I'd put lenses in a damp climate is in a tight Pelican case. Ventilation, ventilation,
ventilation. Only on a very small scale - like a little Tupperware box, do you want to use silica gel. I spent years monitoring this stuff. You can get rolls of colored
paper similar to litmus paper, but that responds to RH rather than pH. Think "microclimates" even in a single room or different sections of a metal cabinet. Imagine you're mildew; what would you do or not do?

[Kevin Crisp]

I didn't appreciate that physical laws are different depending on which part of the state you are in.

Since lenses don't give off moisture, I don't see how ventilate ventilate ventilate makes any difference. If the air used for ventilation is high in humidity....

Small silica packs are fine for small containers. The better sealed the container the better they work. They come in larger boxes, too, good for much larger areas like a small safe (yes, I have tested and yes, it works) and large round silica containers which will easily keep a large safe or cabinet dry for many months. Now if you ventilate that space, of course the desiccant will need recharging sooner, in a high humidity environment.

[HMG]

If moisture is in the air in that safe, more temperature just raises the relative humidity and makes things worse! All that air is trapped in there if you don't have
a system of ventilation circulating air around things. Safes are for security from theft, and not necessarily smart protection from humidity. You can wipe down
gun barrels with rust-preventing oil. You can't do that to lenses, to prevent mold! But talk about rust! ... I sell high-end woodworking stuff, a lot of German power
tools etc - and this bay of the building faces right into the SF Bay, which is only a five minute walk away. The fog carries a lot of salt. My own lab building,
though quite a bit further from the Bay, is itself right in a wind tunnel where fog is constant all summer long. So I've been forced to learn a thing or two about
dessicants.

True - if in an airtight safe or cabinet. Mine isn't (and is not a fire safe). I don't remember the #s, but I did test before and after and the difference was significant. Although not a truly precise test as I had to measure of a period of a couple of weeks and there may have been some change in the environment.

[Duolab123]

These heaters for gun safes have always confused me. The dewpoint doesn't change. The RH changes with temperature. If the safe is full of air at say 60 degrees F with a dewpoint of 50F and you close the safe and raise the temperature to 100F the safe would either pressurize (not) or lose some air, so V is fixed so by PV=nRT would give PV/RT=n Since P,V,R are constant. Then n is inversely proportional to T so as T goes up there is less n (moles of water saturated air inside the safe) So in theory you have less water to react with the contents. Dew point would stay the same but RH would drop.

Having said all this Baloney I think I would go with Silica gel w/indicator and a sealed container.

I've always used Drierite desiccant (dusty as all get out) in the chemical labs I've worked in it's anhydrous Calcium Sulfate w/ Cobalt Chloride indicator as the Calcium Sulfate becomes fully hydrated, the Cobalt chloride turns from Blue to Pink (anhydrous CoCl2 is blue when it absorbs water it forms CoCl2 6H20, Cobaltous Chloride Hexahydrate a Rose colored compound) both Drierite and Silica Gel are easily regenerated in an oven , capacity is directly related to how much you use, so sealing the object to be protected in a container will make the desiccant go a lot farther.
Probably stating the obvious, I'm sure there are a lot of ways to cope with this that work. I've always been lucky so far.
Best Regards, Mike

[Drew Wiley]

I'm still laughing over this thread. So I'll rephrase things: what is considered "humid": hot and damp, as in an Amazon rainforest, or cool and damp, like an
Alaskan rainforest? Garsh. Or go to Portland where it's normally cool and damp, but then for a few weeks each summer, when it actually hit 90 degrees: Hoooooomid, miserably humid.

[redrockcoulee]

Relative humidiy is the percentage of water in a parcel of air compared to the maximum amount of water that the air could hold at that temperture. Warm the air lower the RH. There are charts in first year geography texts where you can figure out what the RH will be if you warm or cool the air. That is why it is so dry in a house in the prairies in the winter, relatively dry air comes into to the furnace, gets warmed by 20 to 50 degrees C and becomes very dry.

I never worry about fungus as the air is dry year round except for the few days it does rain and even then it may only be for part of the day. I would store my lenses in the cases they come in but that would mean taking them off the lensboards each time. My original lenses I got in 1974 are still totally fungus free and have been packed away in various storages, been in darkrooms in basements and attics and moved home 13 times. But the air is dry. If I lived in Vancouver or Seattle or Toronto or Montreal I would definetly look at things differently.

[Daniel Stone]

Home Depot, and most "safe" stores/dealers carry dessicant products that can be baked in your home's oven when they reach their saturation point. As Drew mentioned, the ones that have the color changing dyes added are helpful in knowing if/when it's time to do it. Very simple, and more earth-friendly(less waste in the long run that way).

TBH, if you are in a relatively "neutral" climate, I'd just keep the lens(es) in an open-air type situation, like on a shelf when not in use. As Drew mentioned, VENTILATION is critical to reducing/eliminating the chance of fungus becoming an issue.

-Dan

[ac12]

I "think" one factor in how the golden rod works, is by heating the air, it creates a convection current of air circulation inside the gun safe. Warm air from near the rod rises, and cooler from the top of the safe sinks.

[Drew Wiley]

Unfortunately, my darkroom does not have forced air heating to dry the air like my house does. It has electric heat. This is much cleaner in terms of dust etc moving around, but won't solve mold issues. So I have to rely on general circulation, dessicants, and keeping an eye on lenses etc. I did get a bit of mold last year growing around the edges of a spare light meter and wasn't amused, though it hasn't affected readings. Things are wet wet this Spring but it's still cool. When all hell breaks loose is when the days warms in April and May and start steaming the soil everywhere. I'm painfully aware of it because of all my clients who confuse air temperature with suitability for certain construction projects. Even indoors things go terribly wrong. They might lay oak flooring in the winter, for example, but forget to install a plastic vapor barrier over the soil in the crawl space. Things will seem fine until the humidity rises and everything buckles. Same goes for basement waterproofing, though basements are rare here. Right now, I have two huge cases of dessicant on hand, unopenend - enough for the
next decade I hope. (Got it wholesale while I still can.)

[Jac@stafford.net]

For fungus to develop it needs enough moisture and heat. Keeping the environment under 50% humidity and 70°F or less is all that is necessary.

[Drew Wiley]

That's all? Simple enough, provided you subtract about a third the habitable earth's surface. And it's almost never up to 70 deg around here, and mold and fungus
grows on everything, sometimes moss too. I've seen moss growing all over decks up here in our hills that were treated with wood preservative just a month before! Think cloud forest. With monsters, too, just in case you've never seen a banana slug.

[ShannonG]

I should also mention that here in Iowa indoor humidity isn't as much of a problem, it's either 0 degrees and zero humidity or so hot that you need ac, but in the summer I save the dehumidifier water to use for soft water in making fixer etc. I've seen local guys total their lenses in a basement darkroom from fungus. Mike
Hi im in Iowa as well ,,Cedar Falls,its good to see other Iowans on here,we may be the only 2 on here.
I keep all my enlarger lenses in a old camera bag on a shelf in my studio (a separate area,my DR is attached to my studio) next to my camera lenses.

[Bob Salomon]

Funny, no one mentions storing them the way that the factories shipped them.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Funny, no one mentions storing them the way that the factories shipped them.

That would be great, Bob, but the package seems to be the first thing to the trash. Plastic is no guarantee that the container is moisture proof. Very many plastics are air permeable. An alternative is a sealed glass jar. There are various sizes available in canning goods departments.

An aside: I had a 'lens in a can', military replacement objective sealed in a real tin can. I opened it years ago and it was stained yellow-brown.

[Bob Salomon]

That would be great, Bob, but the package seems to be the first thing to the trash. Plastic is no guarantee that the container is moisture proof. Very many plastics are air permeable. An alternative is a sealed glass jar. There are various sizes available in canning goods departments.

An aside: I had a 'lens in a can', military replacement objective sealed in a real tin can. I opened it years ago and it was stained yellow-brown.

Jac, that may be true, but we were the Rodenstock distributor from 1986 till early 2015. In all of those years we had not had any lens suffer any type of moisture damage in our warehouse or at a dealer. Additionally, I can not remember any lens being sent into us for service from moisture damage after it was sold. The package that Rodenstock uses for lenses up to, and including, 135mm is very effective, especially if the small pack of desiccant is left in the package and replaced with commercial ones as needed. Even the 150mm, and longer lenses in boxes as well as all of the taking lenses, also did not have damage from moisture or humidity. And that includes all those lenses that we sold to the Pacific NW, Northern and Southern CA, Louisiana, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, the Carolinas, etc. even here in NJ and the tropical (according to the British) DC.

[Luis-F-S]

Bob, I have lenses I bough in 1982 stored on a self inside my safe as described earlier with no issues after almost 35 years in Louisiana. Just kept the safe in an air conditioned room outside the darkroom. The British should have visited DC this past weekend...............L

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... Well, I bought an allegedly mint Rodenstock lens from someone last year that they did conscientiously inspect, then briefly stored in a nice "safe" place,
then shipped it to me. That's all it took. Mold already infiltrating the outer edges, between elements where it can't be gotten to. I UV killed it's spread, put in a
tight dessication box for a couple of months, and now store it MY way, very well ventilated. But I do have to stop the lens down a bit to avoid the remaining
damage.

[Bob Salomon]

Yeah... Well, I bought an allegedly mint Rodenstock lens from someone last year that they did conscientiously inspect, then briefly stored in a nice "safe" place,
then shipped it to me. That's all it took. Mold already infiltrating the outer edges, between elements where it can't be gotten to. I UV killed it's spread, put in a
tight dessication box for a couple of months, and now store it MY way, very well ventilated. But I do have to stop the lens down a bit to avoid the remaining
damage.

Obviously mint to you is not mint to someone else. I repeat, from 1986 till last Feb we had never had a problem with one of our lenses. Admittitely we never handled used lenses. Only factory new ones.