Storage confusion... please help

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Linda
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i have a bunch of kit- lenses and two bodies which I keep on shelves in a living room. There is no main gas fire but there is central heating. Following a door repair to the patio doors, the room is now getting much warmer and I am concerned that this is not a good thing for the kit.

This is further complicated by the other side of the house having a ventilation issue - we have a guy coming to look at installing special extractor fans that senses humidity in both the kitchen and the bathroom upstairs. It is a 1930s house that has been extended. I read conflicting advice: bags / no bags- must have moving air; dry cabinet/ no dry cabinet; direct sunlight / no direct sunlight. We currently run a dehumidifier in the kitchen, once we realised the nature of the problem ( one set of kitchen cabinets was getting musty) as well as regularly ventilating the bathroom (low tech open the window method) ... so can anybody point me to a website that will tell me about this AND / OR tell me what is correct in all these versions of what to do?

Thanks for your help.
 
If you're taking your kit out and using it in fresh air on a fairly regular basis then going on personal experience it will be fine.

I live in a mountainous region which varies considerably with heat, cold, humidity etc and possess a fair amount of varying kit including some that has bellows .....I've only experienced the start of one issue with signs of mildew on some bellows of a camera that had been left folded in a cupboard for several months!!

I was fotuanate to catch it before the problem caused irrepairable damage;

As for SLRs, DSLRs and associated lenses,....never an issue wether they've been stored on a shelf, in a cupboard/drawer, in camera bags or in flight cases., however I do make an effort of "airing" gear fairly regularly ( once a month or six weeks), particularly from Oct through to April if it hasn't seen use.

Don't worry yourself too much about storing the kit...use it and enjoy it!
 
The best choice is probably a humidity controlled cabinet set to about 40% (about 1/2 of the equipment rating)... too high of a humidity level promotes mold, too low dries things out. The debate over light is due to UV light killing molds... but that's really only a factor if the environment is prone to promoting mold. UV also breaks down most plastics/rubber over time so simply storing with a lot of exposure would be a bad thing.

But IME, if the storage environment is "comfortable" (<65% humidity) and not stagnant, then you shouldn't have any issue.
 
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