fungus in the IS component of my 70-200 lens

[NYCPHOTO]

I dropped off my 70-200 2.8 mark 1 for servicing at Canon NJ and have been told there is fungus in the IS component which will need to be replaced at a cost of $465 ( with cps discount )

They say it's minimally affecting the elements but could get worse ( as fungus tends to do )

has anyone ever heard of this happening?

would you say it's worth repairing or should i use the money to buy a new one?

anythng else i'm not asking that i should be?

btw..i shoot professionally. Up until now..i have found this to be one of my sharpest lens, keeping me from wanting to upgrade to a mark II

Thanks...Arnie

 

[Loswr]

Unfortunate! It certainly happens. Fungus can be cleaned out with disassembly, if they're replacing elements it seems likely those had their coatings etched by the acid secreted by the fungus. Personally, I'd always be worried about recurrence, spreading spores is what fungus does! FWIW, Zeiss won't even fix lenses with fungus, they treat it like Canon treats water damage.

Importantly, you may want to look into your storage conditions. You can't keep spores out of lenses, they're in the air. But you can prevent them from germinating, which they generally do in conditions of high humidity (>70% for >3 days), particularly in the dark. So if you leave lenses in your camera bag in a location without temperaure/humidity control (e.g. a house without air conditioning during a humid summer - and at least in Boston, it's been humid!), that can result in fungal growth.

You can store lenses in well-lit and well-ventilated areas with low humidity, in a dry cabinet (often used for gun storage), or what I do is keep my gear in Storm (Pelican) cases with silica gel desiccant packs. You don't want the humidity too low (that can be bad for some lens components with prolonged exposure, like rubber and lubricants), but silica gel is much less efficient at lower humidities, so if you have a reasonable amount of desiccant it will keep the RH in the right zone. By 'reasonable' I mean something in the range of 200 g of silica gel per cubic meter of case space. I use an Eva Dry e333 for my large case (Storm im2720, like a Peli 1600), 100mm cartridges (Bel-Art F42048-0100) for medium cases, and 60mm cartridges (Bel-Art F42048-0065) for small cases.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

You can likely sell the lens on ebay for $500, so I'd do that, disclosing the condition. There are lots of buyers who do their own repairs for a much lower price than Canon charges.