Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/03/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 4:09 PM -0800 05.3.30, Feli wrote: >Thanks Karen. Let me give you a little more information. >I'm going on a trip for 4-6 weeks. Unfortunately it looks like I >will be hitting the beginning of the monsoon season, where I am >headed. I will be on the road for the entire time and will be staying >in hotels. I'm taking two M cameras, 3 lenses and a mountain >of film. If it was me, I'd stock up on silica or lime dessicants. In Japan, as I said, each can of Nori comes with a huge satchet. But in the States, I buy mine in industrial sizes here: www.desiccare.com They sell industrial grade ones. Last year, I bought two of their shipping container dessicant packets, for use in my storage unit in Saint Paul; as well as smaller packets for my camera bags and indicator strips. They were very quick in shipping. They're a good company that mainly sells to companies. In the field, I would keep several of the small packets in my camera bag. That keeps the general humidity in the bag down. I'd recharge them every now and then. If you don't have access to an oven or microwave, sitting them in the hot sun or in front of a hot incandescent bulb will dry them (slowly). The problem I find is that my bag gets wet. So at night, I'd hang the bag to dry and take all the cameras and lenses out and put them in my hard-sided suitcase with a large satchet of dessicants. Hard sided suitcases are relatively air tight. Remember to recharge your dessicants. They're worse than useless if saturated -- they'll actually elevate the moisture level. The worst thing you can do is to keep your cameras + lenses in a camera bag that's damp or wet overnight. If your bag gets wet, dry it immediately. Hanging it in the sunlight will help kill any bugs in it. Karen Nakamura http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/ http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/ --