What liquid is best to clean lens?

I also use & recommend ROR.

I have to agree regarding the eclipse.. the stuff is just snake oil near as I can tell...

Just a few weeks back I got rain on the front element of my 200mm f/1.8 (just a few drops here and there )

I was not able to attempt cleaning of it untill after the drops had dried.. leaving filmy spots on the glass.

I started with Eclipse and Pek pads as instructed.. but the eclipse "reacted" with the water drops and the lens surface in such a way that it started to just get all streaky and "smudgy" ... (not the kind of colored streaks you usually get with eclipse when it works right.. but allmost "pasty" film build up..) I contiuned with the proper Eclipse method until I got to a point where the lines it was creating started to look like scratches! To my horror I began to beleive that some fine grit had either gotten into the Eclipse (how?) or into the sealed container for the Pec pads ( again??) and I had now completely destroyed the front ellement of my precious lens.

This is how it looked after it dried.. as if the front element was completely scratched

After about an hour of psychotherapy and heavy drinking I went back to the lens with my semi generic Canon branded lens cleaner and some fresh pec pads.. the Canon cleaner wiped away all traces of the horror that the eclipse had created.. and left it brand new spotless clean with a single application.

The Eclipse had laid down a film so fine that it's own irregularites looked identical to scratches in the actual lens surface.. in fact the "scratches" were simply the areas where the eclipse "film" was not present... this film was not going to be reduced with any amount of repeat treatment with Eclipse and Pecpads.. for whatever reason ..

I will never use eclipse again.

Kodak Lens Cleaner. It works great when you need a cleaner. I have used it for years on all my optics without ill effects.

This is an old thread I came across while lookin for links for someone else. Some of it sort of hit home with me. Just yesterday I went out to shoot some shots and I looked at my lens. There were a couple of droplet marks from something. I had some lens fluid on order but nothing on hand at the moment so I used some old RoR I had sitting around. I put a little of this on a lens tissue and got those droplets. But what I was left with was this funky residue from the RoR. I tried breathing on it and using a lens tissue but no luck. Today I stopped by a brick and mortar store and picked up some unknown brand that the store pushed on me (they didn't have anything else). It worked ok and took off that residue. Moral of the story, don't use old RoR!!