Lens cleaning...what do you use?

[Joytek]

I am wondering what everyone uses to clean their lenses? Does anyone know if pure methanol innert enough not to affect the lens coating?

thnaks.

w.

[chris.bailey]

Sunglass Hut spray cleaner and microweave cloth (but only to clean the UV filter I put on the lense on day one). Contains Antistatic gunk so the lenses seem to stay clean longer.

[Jim_T]

I wouldn't be without a lens pen. It's gotta be the best lens cleaning method there is. I carry two in my kit.

A lens pen consists of a 'pen' with a soft brush on one side and a small soft chamois tip on the other. This tip is impregnated with a cleaning chemical.

You 'erase' fingerprints and smudges from your lens. The pen doesn't leave any streaks or marks. It's magic :)

There's a cap that covers the soft tip. Inside the cap at the bottom there's a sponge cleaning pad. When you replace the cap, you give it a couple of twists and the sponge wipes off the chamois tip and re-impregnates it with cleaning chemical.

Both Kodak and Nikon endorse this cleaning system. As a matter of fact both camera makers sell lens pens under their own brand names. They're available at most camera stores.

http://www.lenspen.com/

[Jesper]

Just a simple lens cleaning kit I got for € 6 ($ 7.50) in a photo store. It has a small bottle of lens cleaning fluid, thin paper lens cleaning tissues, a soft, lint-free cloth and a blower brush.

Cleaning is done by putting a drop of fluid on a lens tissue, letting it evaporate for a moment (the lens must not be soaked with fluid!), and gently cleaning the lens or filter with it.

I try to keep my lenses as clean as possible so I don't have to clean them all the time - the less cleaning needed, the better.... I use the blower brush more often to get dust particles off.

[Tom W]

Just a simple lens cleaning kit I got for € 6 ($ 7.50) in a photo store. It has a small bottle of lens cleaning fluid, thin paper lens cleaning tissues, a soft, lint-free cloth and a blower brush.

Cleaning is done by putting a drop of fluid on a lens tissue, letting it evaporate for a moment (the lens must not be soaked with fluid!), and gently cleaning the lens or filter with it.

I try to keep my lenses as clean as possible so I don't have to clean them all the time - the less cleaning needed, the better.... I use the blower brush more often to get dust particles off.

Of course if you plan on cleaning your lenses, you remove all the loose particules with the blower brush first, by turning the lens upward and brushing up in such a way that gravity will help you. Then once you get rid of the loose stuff (that can scratch even if the cloth/paper you use is perfect), you proceed with the lens tissues.

[SWPhotoImaging]

I really like those coarse green scratchy pads you wash pots and pans with. They get all those stuck-on bugs and stuff off real nice and they hardly scratch at all . . . . .

Actually, I have started using some moist wipes I buy from Costco, called SeeClear. They're made by Environmental Care Products and come in a box of 50 or so for $5. I originally bought them for cleaning my glasses and they work so well, I tried them on my lenses.

They contain alcohol, but are said to be friendly to all coatings and glass types. Even safe for plastic eyeglass lenses. They eliminate smudges, fingerprints, etc. Since my smudges and fingerprints and other schmutz are mainly on my UV filters, and not on the lens itself, I wasn't too afraid to try them out.

[cgratti]

I really like those coarse green scratchy pads you wash pots and pans with. They get all those stuck-on bugs and stuff off real nice and they hardly scratch at all . . . . .



And for those hard to reach areas, you can always sand-blast!

[Belmondo]

When I'm not dropping my lenses, I soak them in acetone and dry them in the microwave. A little wire brush in a Dremel tool works wonders on pesky spots on the glass. When I'm not using the lenses for more than a couple days at a time, I bury them in the garden---no burglar would ever think of looking for them there.

[Tom W]

When I'm not dropping my lenses, I soak them in acetone and dry them in the microwave. A little wire brush in a Dremel tool works wonders on pesky spots on the glass. When I'm not using the lenses for more than a couple days at a time, I bury them in the garden---no burglar would ever think of looking for them there.

I see you've got the cleaning part down, but I would bury it in a plastic bag. Yes, I know that the dirt will hose off rather easily, but if you've ever had ants in your tele, you know how that can ruin a formal shoot.

Granted, D-Con does make a spray lens-debugger, but I don't like having to drill those access holes in the side of the lens barrel just to spray the debugger in there. Those rubber plugs they give you to cover the holes never seem to stay put. Plus, they're not white.

[Canuck]

You forgot MEK, 10 grit sandpaper and of course let nature wash your lens in a monsoon. Unfortunately monsoons are only common in the southwestern US from what I gather. I had them in Tucson, AZ when I was out there. Alternatively, a n extra dirty cycle in the washing machine and soap works well.

Ok, really, there are these premoistened pads you can get from Jessops in the UK, that are much like the wipes you can get when you have ribs, or other food that gets you good. They work really weel, but you have to act quickly and they don't streak to my knowledge. I have only used them once so far.

[msnow]

I use tear-offs. When one of them gets dirty I just rip it off and the one underneath it takes over. Colored tear-offs can do double duty as filters.

Back in the day when I wasn't so anal about it I would just spit on it and wipe it off with my t-shirt but I have adapted with the times and new technology as you can tell.

[Belmondo]

I see you've got the cleaning part down, but I would bury it in a plastic bag. Yes, I know that the dirt will hose off rather easily, but if you've ever had ants in your tele, you know how that can ruin a formal shoot.


Ants! Tom, you're a genius! I never thought about ants. All this time I was wondering why my sensor dust spots all had legs on them!

[Tom W]

I see you've got the cleaning part down, but I would bury it in a plastic bag. Yes, I know that the dirt will hose off rather easily, but if you've ever had ants in your tele, you know how that can ruin a formal shoot.


Ants! Tom, you're a genius! I never thought about ants. All this time I was wondering why my sensor dust spots all had legs on them!

If you use a slow-enough shutter, sometimes their movement will make them appear invisible. It helps to smear shortening at one corner of your sensor to motivate them. You can crop that part out of your picture later, or use the Photoshop Degreasing tool.

[Tom W]

I'm sorry, its called the "degreasing mask". My mistake...

[Belmondo]

[If you use a slow-enough shutter, sometimes their movement will make them appear invisible. It helps to smear shortening at one corner of your sensor to motivate them. You can crop that part out of your picture later, or use the Photoshop Degreasing tool.

Not a good idea. I just tried it, and slowing the shutter down requires stopping the lens down. That in turn brings the ants into sharper focus. My ants don't move around a lot---I think the acetone makes them lethargic.

I have a 1500 psi pressure washer out in the garage. I'm thinking of giving that a try.

[Tom W]

Not a good idea. I just tried it, and slowing the shutter down requires stopping the lens down. That in turn brings the ants into sharper focus. My ants don't move around a lot---I think the acetone makes them lethargic.

I have a 1500 psi pressure washer out in the garage. I'm thinking of giving that a try.

I reccommend weep holes for drainage if you take the pressure approach. These Pheonix lenses are heavy enough without being filled with water.

BTW, sometimes if you flick the "DOF preview" button a few times quickly, you can shake ants off of the diaphram. This can sometimes give you up to 3 stops, depending on the level of nesting.

Give it a try!!

[IanD]

Awww come on guys. No one has mentioned the Ulitmate Lens Cleaning System.
A Brass Tumbler.
Fill that sucker with dried corn medium, toss in all the lenses and let her rip. It only takes a couple of hours and everything comes out shiny squeaky clean. Use a high preasure air gun to get the medium out of any cracks and you are set. Can clean up to 6 lenses at a time.
http://www.pbase.com/image/26399163.jpg

[Joytek]

I guess most of you hang out here for kicks, so fun and jokes are a good way of livening up the borring office life, or the likes. I however am looking for useful information and not entertainment. So please do post something remotely resembling a serious answer.

Thank you.

w.

[LiquidMantis]

I guess most of you hang out here for kicks, so fun and jokes are a good way of livening up the borring office life, or the likes. I however am looking for useful information and not entertainment. So please do post something remotely resembling a serious answer.

Thank you.

w.

The first six replies were good answers and pretty much covered it I thought.

I'll second the Lens Pen though. I only have one but have been meaning to pick up one or two more to keep stached in my most used bags. I need to get a good blower too. The plan is to use the blower to dislodge the larger particulate, then lightly brush with the Pen, finishing with the smudge pad on the Pen if needed.

[Belmondo]

I guess most of you hang out here for kicks, so fun and jokes are a good way of livening up the borring office life, or the likes. I however am looking for useful information and not entertainment. So please do post something remotely resembling a serious answer.

Thank you.

w.

Ooops. Sorry.

There is no great mystery to keeping a lens clean. In order:
1. a gentle pull of air from a blower brush.
2. the brush itself
3. lens tissues with an appropriate cleaning fluid.
4. In the field, a lens pen is a great way to get an errant fingerprint or smudge off the lens, although I don't like using it on a regular basis. It's a reflexive aversion to rubbing anything on a lens that isn't wet lens paper. It just doesn't seem natural..

Note:
Joytek: I’ve re-read the following a couple times since I wrote it, and can’t help thinking it might come across as insincere or sarcastic. Please accept it as gospel. There’s room in this forum for everyone, regardless of their attitudes towards relevant communication, and I think we all owe it to each other to try to avoid doing things in a way that cause unnecessary resentment and/or hositility. -Tom

Sorry if you don’t appreciate our humor; I will do my best to avoid inflicting any more of it in your threads in the future. I should point out, however just a couple things.
1. We didn’t really hijack your thread until it had been given a reasonable airing, and until a number of legitimate answers had been posted.
2. Humor is not a bad thing, although admittedly it can be inappropriate and excessive at times. If you took offense at it, I apologize, albeit only for myself. Such ‘goings on’ are not uncommon in this board, however, and there are those among us, myself included, that find it to be one of the charming aspects of this group. There are other boards where people sit around with long faces having only serious discussions, but I feel we cover the same material as effectively, and have a whole lot better time doing it.

I personally will promise to try to be more sensitive to your lack of appreciation for our brand of silliness. I do understand it just isn’t for everybody, and I will do what I can to make sure you aren’t unnecessarily bothered with it in the future.

Okay?

[msnow]

w.[/quote]

Note:


I personally will promise to try to be more sensitive to your lack of appreciation for our brand of silliness. I do understand it just isn’t for everybody, and I will do what I can to make sure you aren’t unnecessarily bothered with it in the future.

Okay?

I cannot make such a promise. The humor is the main reason I come to this board.

[CyberDyneSystems]

This thread is a classic! 8)

Don't know how I missed it?

I guess I was comfortable with my own method using "Gunk, Choke and Carburator cleaner" :lol:

There is no reason why people going out of there way to offer a little help to someone asking should not have a little fun along the way :mrgreen:

...and actually,. I had not heard about the "blower upside down" to remove particulate matter,. a very good first step I have overlooked.

[robertwgross]

Seriously, you guys better embed at least one smiley face into your joke responses. Otherwise, some newbie is going to read them and begin to believe it's serious. That would be a disaster. I mean, somebody might really believe!

I use a simple lens cleaner kit that I purchased at a camera shop many moons ago. There is a tiny blower brush, some lens tissue, and a small bottle of lens cleaner solution. It was maybe $5.

---Bob Gross---

[Tom W]

Seriously, you guys better embed at least one smiley face into your joke responses. Otherwise, some newbie is going to read them and begin to believe it's serious. That would be a disaster. I mean, somebody might really believe!

I use a simple lens cleaner kit that I purchased at a camera shop many moons ago. There is a tiny blower brush, some lens tissue, and a small bottle of lens cleaner solution. It was maybe $5.

---Bob Gross---

In reality, I use about the same thing, though I do need to pick up some more lens tissues.

I also have a lens stick, which I have used with success.

Now can we get back to the humor? :)

[Belmondo]

One thing I've always wondered, and nobody seems able to answer is, what is the difference between the lens cleaning fluid you buy in tiny bottles at camera stores and the larger (more economical) bottles of lens cleaning fluid sold at places like Lenscrafters and Pearle Vision? If they're functionally equivalent, then the larger bottles are teriffic bargains. (I have a brother-in-law who's an eye doctor, and he doesn't know.)

[Tom W]

One thing I've always wondered, and nobody seems able to answer is, what is the difference between the lens cleaning fluid you buy in tiny bottles at camera stores and the larger (more economical) bottles of lens cleaning fluid sold at places like Lenscrafters and Pearle Vision? If they're functionally equivalent, then the larger bottles are teriffic bargains. (I have a brother-in-law who's an eye doctor, and he doesn't know.)

In most cases, probably nothing. But I have a friend who claims that he ruined a pair of coated eyeglasses with some eyeglass-cleaning solution that was apparently not to be used on coated lenses (I don't know where he bought the stuff). I believe that camera lenses most definately fall into the "coated" variety. So I suspect that one should at least make sure that the solution is OK for coated lenses.

[GPR1]

I wouldn't use any fluid that wasn't designed for coated optical lens cleaning. It should say it's safe for coated camera lenses. I can imagine what Canon or any other company would say when you sent your lens in for warranty repair and said you'd been cleaning it with acetone or the like. The coating on camera lenses is fragile.

Greg

[CyberDyneSystems]

Seriously, you guys better embed at least one smiley face into your joke responses. Otherwise, some newbie is going to read them and begin to believe it's serious. That would be a disaster. I mean, somebody might really believe!......

---Bob Gross---

Excellent point!

I will be strictly enforcing the mandatory use of excessive smilies in all sarcastic posts!!! :roll: :wink: :lol: 8) :shock: :D

[defordphoto]

Warm, moist breath and a pure, 100% cotton t-shirt works for me.

But, that's only for the filters that protect my lenses. So, I never really clean my lenses as they are protected against the environment by the filters.

[robertwgross]

TRIVIA:

If you take your good quality Canon lens, and look down inside it (from the outside direction looking inward), you will likely see a color of brown or magenta, or possibly blue-green.

What the hell is that?

In one respect, the lens coatings (of variations of magnesium fluoride) are transparent, right? So where is the color coming from?

It turns out that what is most critical about the coatings is the actual thickness of the coating and its index of refraction. Light that is coming "straight in" (like from the subject), will come straight in to the sensor without any trouble. Once the light gets into the lens system, you don't want it bouncing around toward the outside again, so the index of refraction goes into play, and it absorbs the light reflections at the critical angle before they can go the wrong way and screw up the image. So, most of the coatings are on the inside elements, and there is only one (the outside element) that you could screw up if you used an improper cleaning technique.

If you go through all of the math, it turns out that one particular wavelength of light (color) will appear to come out of the lens, and that color is generally brown, magenta, or blue-green. It's kind of an optical illusion caused by the coatings and their index of refraction. If they had used some other chemical coating, then your lens might look red or yellow or something.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

My Canon lenses look blue green,. my Sigma lenses looked "rose"

Allways assumed it was the coatings,. but never knew why,.. also I thought that may be why images made with Sigma lenses look "warm" compared to Canon lneses?

But probably not?

[robertwgross]

Most of the *color* that comes through a lens is supposed to be caused by the actual optical glass itself. It should not be from the coatings, which are supposed to be there simply to trap out bad reflections.

---Bob Gross---

[Belmondo]

My earlier question about the safety of using eyeglass cleaners on camera lenses might have been answered by reading the label on the back of the bottle. To wit:

High-tech formula make cleaning any lens fast and easy! Safe and effective on any lens or coating.

Just spray it on and wipe dry.

Caution:
Do not ingest. Contains isopropanol. Keep out of the reach of children. Do not use on contact lenses.

A Clarity brand Product
nanoFILM Corporation
Cleveland, Ohio

THis is a pump spray bottle purchased at a LensCrafters store. It has their private LC brand label on the front of the bottle.

I'd be interested in knowing what's in the lens cleaning solution they sell in camera stores. Anyone know?

Thos.

[Bytes U]

A common homebrewed lens cleaning solution is...

4 oz of distilled water (de-ionized)
1 oz pure Isopropyl Alcohol 99%-97%
1 drop Dawn dishwashing liquid

[Joytek]

I didn't mean my comment to sound upset, just that I am really interested in knowing if anyone is aware of any dangers of using pure methanol (bought at the chemical store for 5 bucks a liter (South Korea)) to clean coated lenses. Thank you for the appologies, dude, but I didn't mean to spoil everyones fun. Maybe there would be some sort of middle ground possible. Anyways, I appreciate your gesture. :D 8)

w

[Belmondo]

Joytek:
I just want everyone to be comfortable here. If the humor is excessive or 'over the top,' just say so and we'll try to tone it down a little. Very rarely do we jump on anyone's thread unless and until it appears their question or issues have been addressed. Sometimes, though, it just too tempting.

I'm sure you've gathered that there are more than a few of us here who really see ourselves as world-class comedians, and we do enjoy each other's thoughts when they gravitate towards the ridiculous side of things. We work very hard at not taking ourselves too seriously.

Ultimately, this whole thing is an exercise in communication, and in the big picture, I think we all do pretty well at it. We are mindful of the serious side of things, and do our best not to interfere with the legitimate exchange of useful information.

Thanks for your reply.

Thos.

[defordphoto]

I didn't mean my comment to sound upset, just that I am really interested in knowing if anyone is aware of any dangers of using pure methanol (bought at the chemical store for 5 bucks a liter (South Korea)) to clean coated lenses.

No, no, no! That is much too strong a chemical to use on your lenses. There is no need to use something that strong. Like I mentioned before I use warm breath and a t-shirt cotton cloth and that works perfectly. If you have that much crud on your lens that warm breath won't remove it then I would ONLY use a photographic lens cleaner. IMO it is not worth the risk to save a few pennies on lens cleaner and fry a $1,000 lens.

I don't think you want to be the one posting that OH SH*T, LOOK WHAT I DID post on the forum and then have us all say, "Told ya so."

Get some photographic approved lens cleaner.