A while back, I mentioned a couple of Cooke Speed Panchro Series 2 lenses by Rank, Taylor Hobson. I have since had an enquiry for them from I think another red user in Brazil. These lenses have had fungus and the coatings were a write-off due to etching. Whilst this person seems anxious to aquire the lenses, I do not want to be causing a problem for him. He might be better advised to use good stills lenses if he cannot afford newer cinema primes.
Given that the current enquirer may be using a Scarlett or Epic, my question is, after a fungussed lens is used on modern digital cinema cameras, there is according to previous responses here, a risk of infection moving into other lenses.
If a digital cinema camera is in prolonged household storage between jobs, is there a risk of fungus getting into the OLPF/IRF panel in front of the sensor between the sensor and rear surface of the panel?
Here is my email reply with personal details omitted. Any additional comments and warnings related to the lens type and fungus in general would be much appreciated. I am not over-anxious to see the lenses sold as they may go into a kit of my own if I eventually step across the threshold into red territory. Whilst they are essentially mine as a sort of gift/loan because they were unusable and I could fix them, the actual owner could use the cash their sale could yield.
QUOTE:
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The Speed Panchro Series II lenses are the property of cinematographer/DoP ***** *********, who bought them with an old ARRI 35BL. He bought a newer lens set which he later sold with the camera. The Cookes were his backup set. They were in storage for about 30 years in Western Australia and Indonesia. They were in bad condition. I cleaned them as best I could.
The lenses are very old from around 1945 - 1955. They have the ARRI standard mount. They can be made to fit PL with a PL adaptor. Focus can be tricky to learn with them as the lens barrel tries to turn inside the ARRI mount. They are labelled "Rank Taylor Hobson". They are the Cooke design for Speed Panchro II but according to *****, they may have been licence-built and not genuine factory Cooke lenses.
I must talk to ***** about sending to Brazil and his price for them. I must ask for the shipping cost to Brazil.
The lenses have been infected with fungus. A while back, I emailed another Reduser.net visitor **** ******** about them. I also talked about them on reduser.net. Another visitor there mentioned that it is not good to use lenses which have fungus because they will spread the fungus to other good lenses in your kit.
This fungus may spread to the OPLF/IR filter in digital cameras. I am not sure about that. I will ask on reduser.net.
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END OF QUOTE.
Digital cinema cameras are a new fellow on the scene and it is yet probably too soon to know if fungus will infect them or not. I am prompted to this notion through observing dead fungus, which when cleaned off, had etched in an old Panasonic Tube camera on the blue filter behind the lens mount after a long period in storage.
Given that a lot of original Red One cameras being advertised for sale seem to have very low hours up, one might anticipate that in future, some Epics and more likely Scarletts in private ownership may also not be heavily used and spend some time packed away. It might be something for Red/Epic.Scarlett owners who do not use their cameras heavily and live in damp climates to consider.
Any advice or cautionary stories will be appreciated. The enquirer for the lenses will also likely read here as his email to me was prompted by another reduser thread.
