Will it hurt a lens if it freezes ?

[Timothy]

Does anyone here know if it might hurt an enlarger lens to freeze it ? I am wondering if it might damage the glue holding the elements together.

Tim R

[naturephoto1]

Does anyone here know if it might hurt an enlarger lens to freeze it ? I am wondering if it might damage the glue holding the elements together.

Tim R

Tim,

Perhaps others know better. I would presume the adhesives holding the elements together in an enlarging lens would be the same or very similar to those in our taking lenses.

I know that many of our taking lenses in the different formats are used and should be designed to take freezing and colder temperatures.

Are you planning on intensionally freezing the lens?

In any case when our cameras and lenses get cold, it is normal practice to let them warm up slowly as allowing them to equilibrate to ambient temperature in their cases or in something like a zip lock bag. As much as possible, we want to stop condensation from forming on the equipment and lenses.

Rich

[George Papantoniou]

I wouldn't freeze my lenses... I don't even freeze my subjects.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Out of curiosity, why would you want to freeze an enlarging lens? Is it stuck to a lensboard, and you want to mount it on another enlarger?

[Timothy]

Well the reason I have been thinking about, it is to prevent fungus. I have a thing on the wall in the darkroom to indicate relative humidity and it shows over 50 percent most of the time. I even leave the exhaust fan going just to circulate the air but there are limits to how much you can do that. I thought that occasional - say, one or two days a month, freezing of the lens in a ziploc bag would be an effective way to prevent any fungus from forming.

Tim R

[David A. Goldfarb]

Better than that, leave it on an open windowsill occasionally. The UV exposure will kill fungus.

[srs5694]

Another few possibilities for fungus prevention in enlarger lenses:

• Remove the lens from the enlarger after every session and store it in a room with lower humidity, if you've got one.
• Remove the lens from the enlarger after every session and store it in a box with some silica gel.
• Put a dehumidifier in your darkroom to control the humidity. This should also help control paper curl and speed up the drying of film and paper.

[pnance]

Freezing could give you the reverse effect, during warm up moisture will condense on the lens (even internal parts) unless prior to freezing you had desiccated the lens and placed it in a impermeable bag which couldn't be removed until after reaching room temperature.

[tommy5c]

you might even be able to make a UV box with a growing lamp to keep your lenses in if the window is impractical.

[PhotoJim]

Freezing the lens isn't likely to help much. The spores survive freezing just fine.

Dehumidification while you aren't using the darkroom is probably the best bet.