Is dry cabinet necessary ?


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majere2sg

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Mar 31, 2003
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Is dry cabinet necessary and useful ? Can anyone recommend a decent one which I can keep for my Sony F717, plus a couple of filters and the telephoto convertor. Does it eats up a lot of electricity and increases your bill ? Thanks.
 

in singapore, YES. if you don't, you'll have a nice collection of pet fungus living in your lenses within a couple months. but you dont' really need the nice electric powered ones... just get an airtight box and fill it with some silica gel. good and cheap. i think you can get a cheap one at carrefour. as for silica gel, it's just a few bucks and you can recycle it with a microwave.

GJ
 

Confirm must have! Don't put your equipment at risk!
 

Read that some overseas user build one with light that is on 24 hours. This is to use UV light that stop/kill all fungus activity. Some uses UV light(black light). Anyone tried this method here?
 

It's must have.

Lens repair cost about $50 per lens multiply by the no of lens you have. Buy a small one around $100.00 and have peace of mind.
also can store your $10,000 ginseng, birdnest, $10,000 dollar bill etc :p
 

If just an F717 and a few filters I guess a small airtight container (tupperware or big dumex or milo tin also can) with some silica gel will do.

If still want to buy electric dry box, then Carrfour is the best place for the DRI-CABI .

Singapore definitely must have dry box. Don't bother with those tricks from places like states or UK where the weather is very different, they are are either cold and wet, or hot and dry, both situations fungus cannot grow. Even if their weather do get humid sometimes, the duration is usually short, so not too bad. some of the tricks like your UV light method may work in those countries. In Singapore we have a rotten climate, everything rots here.

I recently got hold of a box of cameras and lenses from a relative who didn't bother with keeping dry. Oh what a heartache it was to see all those equipment going to waste!!
:cry:
 

Go to the photoshop at the first floor at the row of shops diagonally from carrefour, I was there two days ago and saw they are selling those white/blue plastic dry boxes for S$19.90 or so. I have several of these together with some of their Dry-cabi (which they are selling) and they are just fine for your Sony. It also has a humidity meter built-in and I think they are quite accurate. Buy a box of silica gel as well from that shop, nice people.

Hong Sien
 

Originally posted by E1g3
It's must have.

Lens repair cost about $50 per lens multiply by the no of lens you have. Buy a small one around $100.00 and have peace of mind.
also can store your $10,000 ginseng, birdnest, $10,000 dollar bill etc :p
wow.. $10,000 ginseng and $10,000 dollar bill must use safe liao.. under lock and key.
 

Originally posted by hongsien
Go to the photoshop at the first floor at the row of shops diagonally from carrefour, I was there two days ago and saw they are selling those white/blue plastic dry boxes for S$19.90 or so. I have several of these together with some of their Dry-cabi (which they are selling) and they are just fine for your Sony. It also has a humidity meter built-in and I think they are quite accurate. Buy a box of silica gel as well from that shop, nice people.

Hong Sien

Thanks, tomorrow I should be paying a visit to carrefour and then to the photoshop you mentioned to see which is better :)
 

I am using a airtight box with silica gel...but wat should be the percentage for the humidity reading on the hygrometer be? I heard that if too dry, the rubber will spoil, and if too humid, there goes the lens...so any advice?
 

Dry cabinet is a MUST. Buy once and buy an electric power one.
 

I think this might work to prevent fungus from starting to grow on your lens. But since most lens have UV coating, if there is fungus on the lens the UV light cannot penetrate in.

Originally posted by Xiao_shin
Read that some overseas user build one with light that is on 24 hours. This is to use UV light that stop/kill all fungus activity. Some uses UV light(black light). Anyone tried this method here?
 

Originally posted by Ansel
I think 40-55% r/h is what's recommended.

55% like a bit too high...40-48% should be fine...
 

Originally posted by blizzy
using a dry box and silica gel..... the r/h keeps hovering at 20%
is that too low?

20% like too low leh... heard that the coating on the lenses might dry up?
 

Originally posted by blizzy
any idea how i can raise the r/h %?
put less?
i already put much less.... still 20

Put lesser silicon gel and open up to play with the camera once in a while loh...
 

tot last time got a post in dunno what website to show what RH is needed for diff things?
anyone got that web add?
 

When at 20% all the time, your film, leather and other plastic parts can become crispy (brittle) over time. Not good. Not sure about the coating of lenses though. This was the selling point of the dry box when I decided to buy it.

I think when I bought my toshiba dri-cab 9 years ago, it came with a user manual or information sheet that has a table that shows what kind of humidity is required for what kind of things. Unfortunately I don't know where that sheet is now (almost ten years liao!). Don't know if the new ones come with a similar table. Check with those just bought one and see.
 

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