[Wasp]

Some great ideas on this thread! Time for me to rethink my own chaotic storage arrangements.

[Lowell Goudge]

so.... what do you do with your equipment?

I know - like me, you've kept your lenses and stuff in various bags or bins, even some of us have used cabinets, etc for storage....

kinda like me - I had a wall-mounted shelf unit that I managed to fill with bins and tubs of stuff:



and I hated it...

I labeled the bins, rearranged them, etc.... and was just never happy with it...

so, while working from home and looking at it (every day, day in, day out), I decided to find a better way to do this...




firstly, I needed a big box to house all the equipment in - so I bought a mobile workstation:



this should be enough space for now and for future expansion/additions to my LBA.... but how to store the lenses in it?

you can't just have them loose and rolling around in the drawers - so.... buy some foam!


I bought two sheets of poly-foam (essentially upholstery foam) but then found the biggest hurdle in the project:

how do you cut circles out of foam?

we tried knives (exacto and others), scissors.... even a hole-saw mounted on a drill....

that went poorly:



(hole-saw = bad idea)

I even bought a 'hot knife' - essentially, an electrically-heated blade that is for cutting foam, but had a devil of a time getting circles... plus, where it melted the foam, it left a greasy residue that was unacceptable...


back to the drawing board....

To cut perfect circles in foam you need thin wall tubing. Just grind the edge sharp. Compressing the foam will help but is not vital. You can also lay the lenses on their side, then you only need to cut straight lines. I moves most of my gear to France years ago in a standard 2 cubic foot movers box, by alternating layers of foam, with solid layers inter mixed for ones with cut outs for my gear. Same principle,

[pepperberry farm]

To cut perfect circles in foam you need thin wall tubing. Just grind the edge sharp. Compressing the foam will help but is not vital. You can also lay the lenses on their side, then you only need to cut straight lines. I moves most of my gear to France years ago in a standard 2 cubic foot movers box, by alternating layers of foam, with solid layers inter mixed for ones with cut outs for my gear. Same principle,

nice!

I'm hoping to never need that info, but will remember it (I still have all the upholstery foam I didn't use)

[UncleVanya]

Where did you source the foam you ended up using?

[pepperberry farm]

Where did you source the foam you ended up using?

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06W5BM2FN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1


I used the 50mm (depth) foam

[ramseybuckeye]

Very nice idea! The pick and pluck foam was a good idea, and you received a lot of good desiccant ideas for this continuing project. I bought a cheap cabinet at Menards a couple years ago, it's overflowing with bags, and other gear, just a few lenses, most of them have ended up residing in a couple of bags with desiccant. I did get a dry cabinet on a B&H deal zone deal a couple months ago, but it's only 30L, can't store much in there, but I like to put gear in there after using it, especially when using in the rain, on a boat, or high humidity. At least now everything is in one room of the house. I need to get rid of more stuff that came with used lenses and cameras, like bags and straps, old filters, odd lenses that won't fit Pentax, and just general odds and ends. I did actually get rid of some bags and cases when we moved, either went to the Habitat store or Goodwill.

There are a lot of companies that make these tool chests, one of them ought to pick up on something like this as a new niche product. Of course a new tool box like this might be a hard sell for photographers, that could be lens money!

[Sakura]

No wonder i can't find any descent lens at ebay anymore, you own them all

Man, what a collection

Neat project! More ambitious than anything I’ve seen before.

In most of the USA with modern heating and cooling indoor ambient humidity should be around 40%. Anywhere you store lenses with reasonable care should be dry enough to inhibit fungus. I store mine in drawers lined with rubber mesh for a tool cabinet. Go bags are on a shelf and long lenses in metal cases are in my closet. Everything has a handful of small desiccant bags scattered in.

[Sandy Hancock]

Like @monochrome, I just use a household chest of drawers. Humidity is consistently pretty low indoors here.

The first full width drawer holds my Full Frame bodies and lenses, while the next one is dedicated to APS-C and 645. The bottom drawer holds tripods, flashes, filters and other what not.

Two half width drawers at the top have lens caps and stepping rings on one side, and compact cameras like the Theta, GR, WG, and the Q system on the other.

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

I bought two sheets of poly-foam (essentially upholstery foam) but then found the biggest hurdle in the project:
how do you cut circles out of foam?

Find soup cans the size of your lenses, most of the time after cutting off the rim with a hacksaw they are sharp enough to use as hole cutters

[csa]

When I was cutting foam for camera cases, I would freeze the foam, making cutting much easier, and the lines better.

[ChrisPlatt]

I remember getting flamed in photo forums when I suggested storing lenses in one's sock drawer.

Practically any dresser will do. However monochrome's solution is "wife-friendly",
and an antique is less likely to have off-gassing concerns.

Chris

[leekil]

There's no reason for the humidity to be any different from what it was with his previous storage method – that is, ambient. I would think that any lens can be stored in a standard controlled household environment.

Does fungus require darkness to grow, as mold does? That would be a difference from the transparent tubs, with his new storage method.

[robgski]

Very cool idea.

I would prefer to store mine in a vertical orientation, and I am thinking about getting these caps so I can identify the lenses more quickly

LenzBuddy? - Custom Lens Caps

[rogerstg]

Very cool idea.

I would prefer to store mine in a vertical orientation, and I am thinking about getting these caps so I can identify the lenses more quickly

LenzBuddy? - Custom Lens Caps

Nice looking, but I would find it bothersome to have to keep the rear cap with specific lenses. As I change lenses, the lens coming off gets the end cap of the lens going on.
Besides, except for a few of the smaller primes, I seem to recognize my lenses based on height and girth.

[UncleVanya]

Nice looking, but I would find it bothersome to have to keep the rear cap with specific lenses. As I change lenses, the lens coming off gets the end cap of the lens going on.
Besides, except for a few of the smaller primes, I seem to recognize my lenses based on height and girth.

I use a label printer.

Labeled by -vanya_42nd-

I particular like using them in cases where I use double caps to stack two lenses together.