What do you clean your camera lens with ?

J

joot

Active member
What do you clean your camera lens with ? Recently cleaned my camera lens with a "Digital" 3 piece lens cleaning kit. This kit had a small lens fluid spray bottle containing water and Isopropyl Alcohol. It also had a small cotton cleaning cloth. Afterwards I noticed the lens look "foggy" with a thin layer of residue on it. Anybody have any suggestion for a better lens cleaning kit ?
 
I use nothing but a very soft lens rag, I neverrrrrrrrr put any chemicals on my glass, nothing, some do, im just anal about my glass. If it has a spot I use my breath to moisten, then wide in long strokes. I never do the circular motion thing.
 
use a soft dry cloth, never use chemicals! I normally use a special fibre cloth from Hama and I have a more silky kind of cloth (normally used to clean glasses with).
I have a lenspen because it is a bit moisty and easy for quick cleaning on location, but because I'm also using a fisheye, the lenspen is to small for cleaning big surfaces.
 
i have uv filters on mine so i'm not cleaning the lens but i'm cleaning the filter. I generally remove it, Windex it and buff it to perfection with a rag under a bright light.
 
Lots of different ways people clean lenses. No doubt, for most people just starting out, it can be a scary process (it was for me anyways). I have filters on all my glass (except the 50mm 1.8) and See Clear Lens Cleaner works wonders for them. Its Premium polypropylene fabric, great stuff! I do use it on my glass as well but only in one wide stroke. That's honesty all it needs. For me, circular motion is a no no and no matter what you touch your lens with, make sure you have blown off any larger dust particles!
 
Anyone here ever work on a Union shoot? It is industry standard to use lens a cleaning solution called 'PANCRO'. Everyone in the industry swears by this and they all use it on high end prime lenses (Zeiss or Cook) with no worry whatsoever. In fact, you'll probably get yelled at if you try to use anything except Pancro on glass. They also use Kim Wipes (Kimberly Clark) which are extremely soft disposable lens tissues. Here's a link for you guys.

http://www.pancro.com/#/pro-lens-cleaner/4528031560

I would stick with using kim wipes with pancro on your lens. Spray a small amount of the lens cleaning fluid directly onto the kim wipe which you twist slightly to give you a bit of a tip and clean the lens with that.
 
joot said:
What do you clean your camera lens with? Recently cleaned my camera lens with a "Digital" 3 piece lens cleaning kit. This kit had a small lens fluid spray bottle containing water and Isopropyl Alcohol. It also had a small cotton cleaning cloth. Afterwards I noticed the lens look "foggy" with a thin layer of residue on it. Anybody have any suggestion for a better lens cleaning kit?
Click to expand...

Never, ever, use alcohol on a coated lens. It can strip the AR coating off the lens. I learned this the hard way -- repeated use of various alcohols can indeed damage a coating and result in a very expensive repair. So I'm talking from experience when I say that windex and other household cleaners are fine for tile and glass, but are not acceptable for cleaning good coated lenses. Not at all.

First, you should treat your lenses well. They should not ever need cleaning. Really. I've got lenses for my LF camera rig I've carried up and down countless mountains over the last decade (thousands of miles of hiking), and I've never cleaned them with anything beyond a lenspen. Keep lenses caped (both ends) except when in use. If you are going to be filming in dirty environments, use a "skylight" UV filter. It is better to sacrifice a filter than to damage the front element of a lens.

If despite your best efforts you do need to clean a lens, first thing you do is get the loose dirt and dust off -- use something like a lenspen. Be very gentle, but get it off. Then, if you absolutely have to, use a lens cloth (one designed for this, not your shirt tail) and some anti-reflective coating cleaner -- typically available from a store that sells cameras. If it doesn't explicitly say on the bottle that it's safe for AR coatings, DON'T USE IT. Really. I'm not kidding.

If you are using a lens cloth and AR coating safe cleaner, the proper technique is to wipe-'n-roll. That is, you roll the lens cloth up and away from the lens as you wipe across. This pics the dirt up and gets it away from the surface so it can't scratch it. So clearly, you never ever scrub a lens -- any dirt caught under the cloth will scratch the lens surface (specifically, the AR coating, resulting in "cleaning marks").

Do I expect anyone to pay any attention to the above? Not really. Guys, and it's nearly always guys, are most often too macho to make the effort (until it costs them some money). But when your lens performance drops, your favorite lens just isn't as contrasty as you remember it, and you start seeing more lens flares, don't call me. By then it's too late.
 
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