Cleaning Lenses: What is your method?

john_van_v

john_van_v

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I personally am forever finding myself w/o commercial wipes.

; I tend to flick off the dirt with tissue and then I blow off the left over lint. But that leaves a haze on the lens, and I have to wait for it to evaporate.

Does water hurt lens coatings?
 
If you do a search on the forums you should find several threads on this subject.. Everything from croakus cloth (a very fine sandpaper offered tongue in cheek) to UV filters to prevent the need to clean.
 
Wow Alex, thats cool-- something to buy, I will be back if I cannot locate it online.

Since everybody is saying that cleaning fluid is some kind of alcohol, then I think my question about water is that water is ok.

I had some nasty stuff on my digital point and shoot (a not half bad kodak c875), being it has an auto closing shutter, I have not clue how it go there.

I held the camera lens pointing down, and shot water up at it with one of those rubber bulb purging things. The spray of the water got the gunk loose, and a tissue flicked it off -- a close inspection told me I did no damage.

I had just before that gotten a bug out of my ear the same way; that is how I got the idea.

But I will be looking for Opticlean, thanks again.
 
Water does not hurt lens coating. But anything but distilled water will leave a residue as it will contain particles of some kind.

When you say "blow," I assume you mean with your mouth. Not a great way as you are just spitting on your lens.

Lens tissue or an optical cleaning cloth work well. Lenses are not that delicate that you cannot touch them. Coatings are rather resilient as well.
 
I picked up a Nikon keyring cleaning cloth. It is now always on my keychain. If a lens is dirty, I breath on it to moisten, then lightly swirl the cloth on the lens. Voila!
 
I like the cleaning pens that come from camera stores. Impressive things, though I'm not sure how they do what they do.
 
The Opticlean sounds good, if a little excessive.

I brush with a v. soft antistatic brush, and then wipe with a micro-fibre lens cloth (has Leica written on it :) )

The liquid cleaners (alcohol etc) dissolve grease wonderfully, and leave it as a thin film when the alcohol evaporates. Although, I suppose if you wipe most of the alcohol off before it evaporates, that would be quite good.

Zeiss sell a "special" lens cleaning fluid, which they say is good. :)

Sandpaper should NOT be used on the front element! Only on the barrel.


colin
 
I think that first of all you should know what kind of dirt you have on your lenses. Fingertips is one issue. Dust is another, old cleaning marks a third, etc.

I do agree that we should not be over sensitive about cleaning lens surfaces, but if to byass I prefer to be over sensitive and not the contrary. It is very easy to leave a mess there.

In my case, every unused lens is caped both sides, and every lens, every one in use, or with good chances to be used, has a permanently mounted metal hood. Metal hoods make wonders to protect lenses from almost everything but dust.

That being the case, most of the times either a HAND valve air blower, or a woman's facial ultra soft brush, keep my treasures alive.

Cheers,
Ruben



Cheers,
Ruben
 
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A lenspen works nicely; some of the cheaper ones are useless though.
 
Depending on the nature and severity of the dirt or stain:
  1. Manual air blower
  2. Camel hair brush
  3. Compressed non-flammable air blower (do NOT use if there is sand on the lens!)
  4. Optical microfiber cloth with distilled water
  5. Optical microfiber with pure methanol, ethanol or propanol (not 100% safe for all lenses made before 1980s)
  6. Optical microfiber with 3:1 methanol:acetone (now we're getting serious - this is not for plastic parts!). The alcohol does not have to be methanol, but it is the most potent of them. Methanol is a poison and will diffuse throught the skin, so you will have to use rubber gloves when you handle it. Ethanol and propanol are safer, but do not get them in your eyes or mucous membranes.
  7. Disassemble the lens and rinse the bare element with alcohol or alcohol:acetone mixture. Last resort of course, and only if you really know what you are doing and can't afford professional cleaning (which is ludicrously expensive around here).
Usually I clean in that order, although it's no use to try and remove grease stains with water, so in that case I will skip step 4 and possible step 3. Naturally I only go as far down in the list as necessary to remove the stain. Before wiping the lens with anything you should always remove as much of the dust as possible, since it just might include some very hard sand particles. Always apply liquids on the microfiber cloth first, not directly on the lens. Lens papers can be used as well, but my experience is that microfiber cloth is usually much better.

If the lens is old, I will use 30:70 or 50:50 distilled water-alcohol mixture instead of pure alcohols, since some of the older coatings can dissolve to alcohols. Diluting the alcohols will slow down the process sufficiently so you can still use them.

I have really performed even step 7 succesfully several times, but I still can not recommend it. The lenses were used and very cheap, so I didn't have much to lose. However, if there is an oil stain in the inner lens elements, it is better just to rinse it than wipe or rub it with anything! The hard part is getting the element out and reassembling the lens correctly.
 
Wow Dr S, that is detailed.

I already have a Petri 7s and a FED 5 to take apart and fix, so I have been allowing the idea of fixing lenses to into possibility.

Will these solvents clean "fungus" and "haze?" I don't even know what these things really are as I have not seen them in person.
 
I never blow at a glass surface: always into a cupped hand in front of it. That's if I don't have a blower handy. The kind used by old time watch-makers are the best and the cheapest. If more drastic cleaning is needed, I breathe on the lens to get enough moisture to be wiped off lightly with bunched up and torn lens cleaning tissue. Alcohol is a last resort.
 
john_van_v said:
Does water hurt lens coatings?
Click to expand...

Water (or other fluids like lens cleaning etc.) will ingress some lenses (none are hermetically sealed well except pro jobs and leitz binocs) and you will have to strip if you dont like the residue.

There are two schools, inspect new lens and if it looks resonable screw a filter and a lens hood and a lens hood cap and never clean it ever.

The other school scratches lenses...

Some of the early lenses '50-'60's has soft glass and soft hard coating and it was easy to clean off the coating and scratch the glass, optical glass is not like window glass.

Noel
 
I too use opticlean, safe, no danger of rubbing anything into the surface and leaves no residue at all.
 
I tend to just use a blower first then breathe on it and use a soft lens cloth. If that fails to work, a cotton bud soaked in isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) or ethanol (industrial) wiped VERY gently and without flooding the element.

john_van_v: fungus can be removed by soaking in white vinegar (lens has to be stripped for this). Someone on here gave me that tip but I can't remember who it was, to thank them. Don't try this with any aluminium around, vinegar will etch it quite badly.
 
john_van_v said:
I personally am forever finding myself w/o commercial wipes.

; I tend to flick off the dirt with tissue and then I blow off the left over lint. But that leaves a haze on the lens, and I have to wait for it to evaporate.

Does water hurt lens coatings?
Click to expand...

A tutorial I wrote for another forum:

In the photography forum, I've been seeing some threads on lens cleaning that recommend lens tissues. This is a cheap and convenient way to do it, but it is also risky. Tissues trap dust and grit between lens and tissue and it is all too easy to scratch the lenses. Some lens tissues, meant for eyeglasses, are actually mildly abrasive and can scratch coated lenses with no help from trapped grit. Microfiber lens cloths are a lot safer, but still not 100% safe. So how do you do it?

Well, first you go over it with a blower and lens brush, to remove as much grit as possible.

Next you are going to need some solvents. Commonly used solvents used in camera restoration (and lens cleaning) are:
1. denatured alcohol, used to remove tar (from cigarettes, or pine pollen) and detriorated light seal material (sometimes found stuck to rear lens elements). Do NOT use rubbing alcohol; it will work, but it is not a benign solvent and it can attack some balsam cements used to glue lens elements together. Also, the stuff you buy at the drugstore is, at most, ony 90% pure. The other 10% can be oils and balsams. The idea is to get that kind of crud OFF of the lens.
2. naphtha (Ronsonol lighter fluid), used to remove grease and oils (naphtha is REALLY good for fingerprints).
3. distilled water, used to remove everything else.

These are all benign and won't harm your camera if you just keep them out of the electronics and don't actually SOAK the camera in them.

4. One other special solvent: a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, used to kill and remove lens fungus.

Then you get a big box of Q-tip cotton swabs. Dampen a swab with your solvent of choice, and start in the center of the lens, working outward. A little solvent goes a long way, so you want your swab to be damp, not wet. Use gentle pressure, not much more than the weight of the Q-tip. Don't scrub, but let the solvent do the work. Twist the swab as you go, so that a fresh surface is kept in contact with the lens and any grit is lifted away from the glass, not rubbed against it. You'll go through quite a few Q-tips. I generally go over my lenses two or three times with each solvent.

When you use the naphtha, which is mildly base, you may notice a haze forming on your lens as it dries. Don't panic; this is a GOOD thing. The haze is oil and grease that has been hydrolized (made water soluable -- basically, it's soap). The naphtha itself leaves no residue. When you go over it with the distilled water, it will remove the haze.
 
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I pretty much take the conservative route. I only clean when I can visibly see something on the lens. I first try to blow it with a Giotto Rocket. If I don't have that, I will try to lightly flick any dust off with a small brush or edge of a cloth. If I need to use any kind of cloth and cleaner, I almost always can get by with just breathing on the lens to steam it up, and wipe with a micro-cloth. A couple times a year a might find the need to use an actual liquid lens cleaner. I believe using a hood does a lot to keep dust off my lenses.
 
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