Homemade Dry-Box for Camera Equipments.

Hi folks!
It has been awhile since the last article I wrote about photography. Yeah, why bother? Photography is about photographing not writing.

In fact, the best practice is to go onto the field and shoot. You can share the accumulated experiences with others later in the writing- if you have the mood or feel like sharing. I only write when the mood is there...

Mumble and grumble, comparing your equipment with the latest D300 or D3 will not do any good. It will only improve your comparing skill...

Folks, people will look on to your pic-tures not the pic-xels! Just get over with it...

What do I shoot?
Almost everything. But capturing 'historical moments' is now become my priority. Sure it will not gimme money, but I got the pleasure and satisfaction in return. Yeah, I know every moment is historical, again it is very subjective.

So,how do I know that it has that historical value? Actually I don't really know..:-) But I just got the feeling that the photographs I took will ripe overtime, the longer the better - like wine. Depending on the subject.

Shooting with vintage.
Anyway, shooting with vintage camera is somewhat cool! Just like driving the old classic beetle VW...How would you describe it now? So it is authenticity, that I need not the fancy-mancy pixy or stuff like that. You know what I mean...

Now that I've shot so much using my vintage OLY Rangefinder (either 35RC or 35SP) and sometimes with my classic D2H (with the fixed Nikkor 24mm mounted on) almost makes me forget that my other equipment at home need a good storage to keep them dust free and dry.

Challenge in tropical country.
Everybody knows that(not really) Malaya is a genuine tropical country. Where the oldest rain forest in the world! located.

What do you expect? Besides the rain forest, it also has the perfect climate for fungus to grow and for the virus to spread on. Not only to humans but also to the electronic devices. You will know that it is time to get FUNGY when the people around you start to get cold and fever.

However, to be honest, I don't really care so much about the fungus if I put my equipment on free-airflow shelve with incandescent light on for 24/7 (The incandescent bulb is warm enough to dry the air). But I really care about my electricity bill :-) and to prevent someone from being electrocuted...

Again, these valuable equipment eventually have drained-out your pocket. So, why not put them in a proper storage?

Time for a proper storage.
OK, for that to happen, what choice do I have?

A closet - wooden, steel, plastic material?
A ****ing expensive dry cabinet?
A factory made dry-box?
What about the ideal price?
How about dehumidifier?
Am I gonna invest a lot more for it?

Frankly speaking, I don't wanna spend more on closet, dry-cabinet with hygrometer or such. I just need a simple one...just to keep-dry the container, relieving it from dust and spider web.

Apparently, I know what will become the problem - if i choose to put the equipment in wooden closet. Experience, actually make you wiser.

It happened a long time ago when my leather jacket and my Dr Martens boot start to have many white dusty spots on it. It was the Attack of the Fungus!

I can tell you that, even you put 10 packets of 'thirsty hippo' in the closet, it won't do the job! The fungus won't go away. Especially during the rainy season.

Therefore, a wooden closet will not do the job properly, it is not air-tight and get dampened easily.

Just imagine what the moisture can do to your camera equipment. It is quite daunting aint it? Especially to your lenses.

The silica gel behaviour.
The silica gels in the Dri-Box that I bought previously were pink in colour. The salesman did not tell me that I need to re-heat it back until the color turn-out to deep blue. Pink means it cannot pick up anymore moisture.

Not until I found this website : SorebentSystem.com, which tells me more about the behaviour of the Dri-Box.

Lucky me, if not for the website I will be forever dwell in astray...:-) Cmon guys next time please be sincere and informative when you sell your product...don't just behave like sucking leech making money from the unfortunate people!

I also stumbled upon many dry cabinet option in the Internet. Most of it are made by Wonderful. Well the price is also wonderful.

At last, I think it would be better for me to make the dry-box my self (DIMS - Do It MySelf). Furthermore, the one that they show on the Internet doesn't look so complicated anyway.

Homemade Dry-box in the making.
The concept is simple. Make the container air-tight and moist free.

So what I need now is an ice-box, enough Dri-Box or selica gel and a moisture absorber. (I can use plastic aquarium as well, but I don't like the transparency)

I use thirsty hippo as hygrometer and to identify the humidity in the container and to test how tight is the box.

FYI, thirsty hippo is very sensitive to moisture. It will absorb water much easily, better that the dri-box.

However, it can actually release it back to the contained environment and will be the main source of water inside the box. (You need to constantly check this thirsty hippo to know the moist level and ditch it once it soaked)

The ingredients for my homemade Dry-Box are:
1. Coleman Ice Box Storage
2. Wonderful Moisture Absorber 220 g II.
3 Five Dri-Box - celica gels.
4. Masking tape and cloth tape to seal-off the container mouth edge.

So simple aint it?

Now, lets go on with the trial and error experiment.

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First trial.
1. Camera equipment in the ice box + thirsty hippo without tape sealing edge.

Duration of test:
Overnight - 29/04/08 - 30/04/08!

Thirsty hippo condition:
Soaked with water.

Conlusion:
No good!

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Second trial.
1. My camera equipment in the ice box + 5 Dri-Boxes+ 1 Wonderful Moisture Absorber + container's edge sealed and tightly closed!

Duration of test (update 17/06/08):
- Overnight - 30/04/08 - 01/04/08 -still dry- no sign of water.
- 2nd night - 01/05/08 - 02/05/08 -still dry- no sign of water.
- 08/05/ 2008 -still dry- no sign of water.

-23/05/2008 - still dry - no sign of water.

(Most probably I will update this part weekly until the hippos are fully soaked with water. But in doing so, it will affect the hippo condition as every time I open the box, it will catch in moist from the external air. There will be pros and cons of this test).

Conclusion:
So far, it looks promising. For two days the hippo is dried. I can still hear the beads cricking!

updates:

17/06/2008 - (I threw in microfibre towel inside the box and leave it overnight)

This external element (clothing) seems to have an affect on the hyppo and the dry-box. It soacked the hyppo! So, dont put anything else in the DRY-BOX accept your camera equipement!

(Do insert extra Dri-Boxes, as sweat from the strap contributes to moist too).

I conclude my test today 17/06/08 - it's working and reliable. Thanks for reading! 

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DIMS Homemade Dry Box Picture:
This is how my Homemade Dry-Box looks like. I was in hurry :-)



So what?
After this long winded story about history, climate, vintage and storage, I guess it's time for me to confirm that, up to this stage, my homemade Dry-Box is reliable for the camera equipments.

It will keep things dry, dust free, spider web free, save my money and I can leave home without worrying that somebody will break-in my house and look for camera in the icebox. Because it doesn't scream camera storage!!..:-) and is very low in profile.

But again, of course I've got the house insured just in case they read this while looking for Cokes..:-)

End.