Tiny white bugs in lenses!

OG · 23 Oct 2012 at 17:45

Hey guys

Don't know if anyone else has had any experience of this before... Unpacked all my camera gear for it monthly clean and making sure its all working etc, looking down the barrel of my tamron 17-50 I saw something small and moving! Two tiny little bugs crawling around inside the lens (underneath the front element). Checking the rest of my lenses there are some on the front elements and other deep inside the lenses :confused:

I have no idea how this has happened! There was also one crawling around on the focussing screen of my 7D!

I have managed to get ride of most of them but obviously the ones deep inside my lenses are now stuck there. Any idea how these could have got here at all, I store all my gear in my Dakine camera insert just on the floor. I've read around online and some people have put their gear in the freezer to get rid of them? I know this sort of thing won't effect image quality, its just a little distressing to find your camera gear crawling with bugs haha

Cheers

Raymond Lin · 23 Oct 2012 at 17:50

You must have bugs in your house or went outside shooting one day, put your bag down on the ground and picked some up.

You can send it in to tamron for a service to get rid of it but I don't know if it is economical.

OG · 23 Oct 2012 at 18:01

Yeh.. I have recently moved to a new student house so I guess that might explain, am normally fairly careful when putting my gear down etc. Apparently these bugs are attracted to light so set up my camera torch facing down onto my lenses with the caps off.. lets see how they are looking in the morning! I am not going to send off 5 lenses to sigma/canon/tamron for a service.. would cost me a bomb!

Andy90 · 26 Oct 2012 at 10:57

They're dust mites. Every house, no matter how clean has them. Eventually they find their way into every camera.

Solutions as you have suggested are putting the body into a freezer (wrapped in plastic) for a few days.

Other than that there isn't much you can do.

BTW if you find the fact that your Camera has little bugs in it distressing, I will not tell you that apparently 4kg of the weight of an average Human is actually made up of Bacteria

OG · 26 Oct 2012 at 12:45

Andy90 said:
They're dust mites. Every house, no matter how clean has them. Eventually they find their way into every camera.

Solutions as you have suggested are putting the body into a freezer (wrapped in plastic) for a few days.

Other than that there isn't much you can do.

BTW if you find the fact that your Camera has little bugs in it distressing, I will not tell you that apparently 4kg of the weight of an average Human is actually made up of Bacteria

Good to know

On further inspection they do seem to be everywhere in my room (tablet, keyboard, monitor etc) I didn't my room all that messy/dusty but I'll take this as a sign as it is haha... all camera gear is going into the freezer in zip loc bags for a few days, in the mean time will pick up a de-humidifier for my room and see if that makes any difference!

Thanks for your help

fozzybear · 26 Oct 2012 at 14:03

Owen256 said:
Good to know

On further inspection they do seem to be everywhere in my room (tablet, keyboard, monitor etc) I didn't my room all that messy/dusty but I'll take this as a sign as it is haha... all camera gear is going into the freezer in zip loc bags for a few days, in the mean time will pick up a de-humidifier for my room and see if that makes any difference!

Thanks for your help

Are they very small microscopic bugs? I had some in my kitchen on some black bin bags. I initially thought it was just dust before looking closer and noticing that they were moving! :eek:

They might be flour/grain mites. They love moisture and damp areas. The dehumidifier is a good idea.

Raymond Lin · 26 Oct 2012 at 14:07

fozzybear said:
They might be flour/grain mites. They love moisture and damp areas. The dehumidifier is a good idea.

Have one of these in your bag, totally reusable.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0025OO8DO/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 26 Oct 2012 at 16:11

You are suppose to leave plenty of packs of silica gel in your camera bag. Just thought you might like to know.

OG · 26 Oct 2012 at 16:35

fozzybear said:
Are they very small microscopic bugs? I had some in my kitchen on some black bin bags. I initially thought it was just dust before looking closer and noticing that they were moving!

They might be flour/grain mites. They love moisture and damp areas. The dehumidifier is a good idea.

Yes they look like tiny bits of dust but then you start looking they actually move! From reading around all houses have them, houses that are damp/have higher humidity tend to have more (along with other variables)

Johnny|lucidcomposure said:
You are suppose to leave plenty of packs of silica gel in your camera bag. Just thought you might like to know.

Yup there are some in there, like I have said they are over everything in my room (ok so its not covered, but there's a good few around my room)

I have gone through a few bits in my room and there is a patch of mould on one of my cycling gloves so definitely looks like damp is the problem.. dehumidifer is being bought on payday!

Edit: I realise this has slightly strayed away from photography but thanks for all the suggestions chaps