Help, my camera has a bug (it's not what you think)

Hi
This is an old trick used by Photographers in the manual camera days. ie no electric shutters or auto focus, go to a pet shop buy a cat flee collar break a bit off and put it in a box with your camera with the lens off, but put the lens in too, leave for a couple of days, it worked in the old days.
Regards Phil.

I’ll try that. Thanks!

Its no good, I know this is very serious, but I can’t help it.

I keep visualising; you have the camera to your face, looking through the view finder. The cat flea/fruit fly turns round, looks you in the eye, down the lens, as big as a house, with a sheepish grin & waves at you.

You jerk the camera away from your face, with an expression of incredulity, blink once or twice, look again and he’s gone!

😀 😀

Thanks for reminding me. :rolleyes:

Its no good, I know this is very serious, but I can’t help it.

I keep visualising; you have the camera to your face, looking through the view finder. The cat flea/fruit fly turns round, looks you in the eye, down the lens, as big as a house, with a sheepish grin & waves at you.

You jerk the camera away from your face, with an expression of incredulity, blink once or twice, look again and he’s gone!

😀 😀

Hi
This is an old trick used by Photographers in the manual camera days. ie
no electric shutters or auto focus, go to a pet shop buy a cat flee collar
break a bit off and put it in a box with your camera with the lens off, but put the lens in too, leave for a couple of days, it worked in the old days:D
Regards Phil.

I had a similar experince with my OM2 20-odd years back and they went of their own accord. PMN’s probably right. OM2 still working BTW.
Actually spotted the little blighters on the press day at Farnborough. Guy from General Dynamics spotted my consternation and had a look…there’s something about the phrase “Sir, you’ve got bugs..” that just rolls around with a deep southern US accent!

especially if you’d been eating any fruit and dropped it in the camera while changing a lens!

Anyone who drops fruit in their SLR while changing lenses deserves to have their camera filled with bug larvae!

Paul

I’m no bug expert, but 3 or 4 months seems quite a long time for such a tiny insect to stay alive, never mind starve and stay alive!

It must be feeding on something, and had some little bugletts. They usually lay about 200 eggs, so your camera would be well infested by now, especially if you’d been eating any fruit and dropped it in the camera while changing a lens!

http://www.a1reptiles.com/a1ffcare.html

Now for a few months my camera has had some difficulties focussing on long distances. Always thought it was a problem with the DoF of my lense. Took the lense into the shop and they could not find a problem with it. So the problem has to be with the body… could the bug be the cause? Any risk of shortcircuits?

Regardless, how do I get it out?

As the lens can focus manually without any electronic commands from the camera I can’t see how a bug within the body itself can cause the problem. I’ve heard of people having such creatures in their camera before and the general advice seems to be just leave it to its own devices and eventually it’ll disappear. I don’t think it’s likely to do any physical damage unless it manages to get inside the mirror box and ends up in either the mirror or shutter mechanism. Leaving the lens off for a while may enable it to wander out of its own accord, but that brings its own obvious problems. Best buy some Sensor Swabs before trying that one!

Paul