A professional storage cabinet with humidity control to protect electronics and lenses

The Ruggard EDC-600L-S Electronic Dry Cabinet features humidity control to help keep fungus away from your lenses and locking doors to deter thieves.

Let's face it, creators like to create—for photo and video work, that means grabbing a camera and spending time in a studio or out in the world. For many photo enthusiasts, including me, it's exciting to pick up a new lens, camera, flash, or other tool and use it to make images for the first time. That's the fun part of work. But getting home and putting everything away in its proper place? That's less exciting but still necessary.

Creators who need professional storage options for delicate photo and video equipment should consider the Ruggard Electronic Dry Cabinet. This industrial storage solution sports a sturdy metal frame, locking glass doors, and humidity controls. And, in testing, the largest capacity model, the EDC-600L-S ($1,949.95), proved a solid choice for storing both vintage and digital cameras. It's especially useful for photographers who live or work in older buildings without central air, because the cabinet's humidity control can prevent fungus from growing in lenses and keep electronics in good working order.

Many approaches are valid for keeping your gear safe in storage: Basic shelving, Pelican cases, and quality camera bags are all good options for many. These methods also offer a level of convenience, especially for hobbyists who may own only one or two cameras and a handful of lenses. For most creators, especially those who keep gear in modern, climate-controlled buildings or who live in temperate climates, shelves and cases make plenty of sense.

But what if you live in an old home without air conditioning or a part of the world with sticky, humid summers? It's the situation I'm in; an old house in the mid-Atlantic where everyone goes on vacation in August. As the idiom goes: It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

After some research, I decided a humidity-controlled storage cabinet was necessary to protect my antique film cameras (most mechanical film models have foam seals and leatherette wraps that can degrade or crack over time), to prevent fungus from growing on the glass of old manual lenses, and to stop humid air from sapping life from delicate electronic components.

Humidity-controlled cabinets are certainly an edge-case category—not absolutely necessary for every creator, but worthwhile for those with specific needs. The Ruggard cabinet is similar to ones you can get from brands such as Forspark, Sirui, and Slinger. Forspark models are generally a bit pricier than those from Ruggard, Sirui counterparts are in the same ballpark, and Slinger options undercut on price.

Ruggard cabinets are available in a variety of sizes based on volumetric storage capacity. I opted for the largest, a 600L model, and had no problem filling its shelves with the photo equipment I've amassed over my adult life; I even found room to dedicate to loaner equipment on hand for review. This model ships with six shelves (four of which are adjustable), and is a good fit if you have more photo gear than you know what to do with. The suggested retail price is sky-high at $1,949.95, but B&H sells it for less—a pricey, but more reasonable, $1,499.95.

Smaller options are available for creators who don't need to store dozens of cameras and lenses. The tiny 18L edition is suitable for a single camera and is the most affordable at $129.95. The more storage you need, the more you pay: the 30L ($149.95), 50L ($199.95), 80L ($249.95), 90L ($333), 125L ($399.95), 180L ($559.95), and 230L ($799.95) get progressively pricier.

All Ruggard models, except the 90L, include key locks; that model has a biometric fingerprint sensor instead. We didn't test it, though, so we can't speak to how well it works. Most have a single control panel to control the dehumidifier, but the taller 180L and 600L cabinets offer dual-zone control.

The Ruggard 600L is an imposing piece of furniture. It measures 72.0 by 33.5 by 16.9 inches (HWD) and weighs 158.7 pounds. It took three people to get it upstairs into a second-floor home office. For single-floor moves you should have an easier time, because the cabinet rests on four locking casters.

Both the frame and the shelves are steel. The 600L has a dual-level cabinet with two fixed shelf positions; you get four adjustable shelves and accompanying mounting brackets in the box. The bare metal shelves aren't totally solid—they have the small holes typical of metal shelving throughout—but are sturdy. Padding, in the form of gray foam sheets, is also part of the package.

The aesthetics are very industrial. The dark gray steel doesn't exactly vibe with the construction of my late 19th-century home office. I can live with the clashing styles, but keep the look in mind if you're more concerned about interior design. In any case, the cabinet should be right at home in any of the New York studios I've shot in, many of which have an industrial vibe.

The glass doors (the 600L has four of them) hammer home the look. Each door has a silver handle—you need to install them during setup with a Philips-head screwdriver. Because the cabinet is humidity-controlled, the doors have rubber seals that protect your equipment from dust buildup. You can lock each door individually for a little extra peace of mind and theft deterrence.

If you want to take advantage of the humidity control, you need to plug the cabinet into a wall outlet. The 600L uses a single AC power cord that terminates in a standard, grounded, three-prong connector (120V). Of course, you can also just use the cabinet as a locked storage option if you don't need humidity control year-round. Single-zone cabinets draw about 15W and the dual-zone models double that to around 30W; energy costs are rising, but it should add(Opens in a new window) only a couple of dollars to your utility bill every month.

You set the humidity target via a digital control pad; the 600L has two, one each for the top and bottom shelves. The lowest available option is 40% relative humidity; my cabinet got down to 41% after a few days of being plugged in, but the humidity jumps to around 44% whenever you open the door to grab a lens. Still, it's an improvement over my home office's 60% relative humidity. HowToGeek recommends(Opens in a new window) storing electronics at between 40% and 60% humidity.

The panel also shows a temperature readout, though the cabinet does not perform heating or cooling. The control pad also toggles an internal LED light strip—the light is a thoughtful addition if you want to showcase gear or use the cabinet as part of a set for a YouTube broadcast.

Whether you want to store a vintage camera (such as a classic Leica or Nikkor) or modern digital photo equipment, the Ruggard EDC-600L-S Electronic Dry Cabinet can prevent long-term dust and humidity damage. As a reviewer who works with equipment on loan from manufacturers, the cabinet’s locks also give me some peace of mind when I’m away from home. This storage solution works for more than just photography equipment, too: It might appeal to game console and vintage computer equipment collectors as well as audiophiles who want to protect their favorite tube amp.

We haven't tested the other size models in Ruggard’s lineup, but this one is well-made, has enough space to accommodate a large camera collection, and its humidity control works as advertised. More affordable models, such as the 600L Slinger(Opens in a new window) cabinet ($999 at press time), also offer some level of climate control, but we haven't yet tried those alternatives.

Thanks to B&H Photo(Opens in a new window) for providing the Ruggard EDC-600L-S for review.

The Ruggard EDC-600L-S Electronic Dry Cabinet features humidity control to help keep fungus away from your lenses and locking doors to deter thieves.

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Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 10 years, which has given me a front row seat for the DSLR to mirrorless transition, the smartphone camera revolution, and the mainstream adoption of drones for aerial imaging. You can find me on Instagram @jamespfisher.

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