The best way to store lenses long term? Vacuum seal?

[hiend61]

A friend who lives in the north of Spain, a rainy and wet area, keep the lenses just in a the driest room of his house and just kept in a Sinar hard case. His lenses are 30 years old and are like new. He avoids keeping them is plastic bags because humidity + temperatures over 20ºC + darknes + no ventilation equals to a magnificent harvest of fungus.

[Corran]

So, you open the box, take the lens out of the bag, remove the caps, put them on the camera, and shoot. Just reverse for long term storage.
If you have the proper size box it can remain on the board!

So the suggestion is to keep the lenses stored in the original factory cardboard boxes while out shooting? Well, hope the light isn't changing...

I don't know how long is "long term" but personally I think the best option is to store it on eBay, preferably with a no-reserve auction, if you are planning on "storing" a lens for a very long time.

[Bob Salomon]

So the suggestion is to keep the lenses stored in the original factory cardboard boxes while out shooting? Well, hope the light isn't changing...

I don't know how long is "long term" but personally I think the best option is to store it on eBay, preferably with a no-reserve auction, if you are planning on "storing" a lens for a very long time.

You love to belittle and read in!

The topic was long term storage, not storing while shooting!

Use your imagination and see if you can tell the difference between the two!

[Bob Salomon]

Bob, and the lenses mounted in Compur shutters? In T?

Same way, also those shipped in Prontor.

Same goes for the lenses shipped from Linhof and Wista.

[scheinfluger_77]

Sal, none of the lenses I've bought from Japanese sellers on eBay was musty.

Ditto

Double Ditto.

[Corran]

Lighten up Bob.

So, you open the box, take the lens out of the bag, remove the caps, put them on the camera, and shoot. Just reverse for long term storage.
If you have the proper size box it can remain on the board!

[Leigh]

I do not recommend any storage strategy that involves putting the lens in any kind of vacuum.

Doing so will allow lubricants to migrate and plastics to out-gas, causing problems that can only be corrected by complete disassembly, cleaning, and rebuild by a professional with appropriate test equipment.

- Leigh

[Two23]

Ditto

Double ditto.

Kent in SD

[pgk]

FWIW I recently got two scarce Leica lenses back from service. I bought them rather cheaply because they were slightly hazy. Fortunately they have cleaned up fine and there is no trace of any damage to the optical surfaces so the risk of buying them paid off. The haze though, was almost certainly as a result of these lenses spending a couple of decades or more in their leather cases inside a cardboard box, and whilst they had obviously been kept in dry conditions, something had managed to create a thin layer on the optical surfaces - the leather?, the cardboard? lubricants? - one or several of these must be the culprit. I have other lenses of the same age which show no signs whatsoever of haze but I suspect that they have been in regular use rather than stored. So my take is that long-term storage isn't a good thing at all. I'd strongly suggest periodic 'airing' and using lenses in order to check them and ensure that they don't sit in the same, still air for long periods of time. I try to cull my lenses so that I don't have many that never get used - easier said than done though.

[Michael E]

I have a bunch of late 1980s Zeiss Jena Tessars (50 to 360mm) still unused in their original plastic bag inside the original cardboard box... I haven't noticed any haze, but maybe I should check gain. But they are not in a shutter, of course.