Cleaning HEAVY soil

[Damian]

My girlfriend's father handed me a bag this weekend. It is a medium sized camera bag - filthy, full of gear, that he said someone threw into his yard many years ago. I guess it was filled with snow and whatever else. He put it in the garage for all this time. Inside the bag is a Canon AE- 1 Program, three lenses, a myriad of filters, and some other junk. Most of it is covered in dirt and dust, but the lenses might be salvageable. The camera, however, is probably shot. I put a battery in it and I don't get anything. I didn't expect to. Since its fully electronic, I'm sure the water did it in a long time ago.

Anyway, I need to get a lot of the grime off of the lenses before I even consider trying to clean them properly. Would it be so bad if I were to rinse them with water? I don't want to cause scratches from trying to clean off the dirt with a cloth. Advice?

 

[Damian]

Use a soft paint brush or toothbrush. Water will finish them off, and they would definitely then need pro repairs.

I figured since they were already wet at one point and nothing on them rusted, that they'd be ok to get wet. I'm not sure if pro repair is worth it. One is a standard Canon FD 1.8 50mm lens, another a Vivitar 70-200, and the third is just a quantaray 70-200 that I'll either use as practice, or just toss. None of them are in awful shape, however. Everything still turns somewhat well. The 50 was lucky in that it had 3 filters screwed on to the front of it.

I think that someone stole the bag from the owner's car, rifled through it looking for something of value - decided that $1000 in photo gear was worthless, and chucked it in the nearest yard. I hope the owner had insurance.

 

[Damian]

The zooms especially will suck up water.
A tootbrush will remove most of the grime that can be removed. Then it's a matter of using some alcohol and Q-tips to remove the rest.
I would never put water anywhere near a lens.

oh, lol, I misunderstood your first post. By finish it off, you meant the final shot to the head! Yeah, I'll keep em away from the H2O.