How do you guys clean the lens?

[esrods]

Hello all,

40 years of grime...
How do you guys clean the lens exterior?
Also how do you clean the glasses? Do you use normal lens cleaning liquid?

cheers
Ed

[poilu]

Eclipse and pec*pad

[Jesito]

[LucisPictor]

[Flor27]

I don't clean often my lenses, but I use an air blower most of the time.

I had great succes for cleaning dirty old lenses with warm water and soap.

[Farside]

My lens cleaning solution is...

Per 500ml of water,
Five drops of dish detergent
Five drops of bleach

I fill a squeezy bottle with this and squirt it onto a lens cleaning tissue / cotton bud / hands as required. Makes a great hand degreaser too.

[Orio]

I use three different fluids, sometimes alone, sometimes in a sequence.
Plus Bril optical cleaning sheets.

I have found out that not all coatings react the same way to the same cleaning fluids.
Some surfaces are best cleaned by one, some others by another one.

I use:

- Eclipse fluid (should be a kind of alcohol)
- Isopropyl alcohol 99% pure
- Zeiss cleaning fluid

Generally I find that the glasses that are best cleaned with Eclipse, are not cleaned well by Isopropyl, and the other way around.
In some cases, neither works.
When neither works, I generally make one pass of Zeiss cleaning fluid following Zeiss instructions.
This generally leaves the lens in excellent condition, and with a protective film. If I am able to spread the Zeiss fluid well, I leave it that way, because it will be the best protection for the glass. If instead I can see traces of the fluid, I remove them using Isopropyl first (which removes the fluid) and, if needed, Eclipse as final stage, which removes the Isopropyl remains.

If nothing of the above works, then I use one Bril sheet - and this always solve the problem. I keep it as extreme ratio though, because I am not 100% sure that it's harmless on coating. But it's surely the most effective solutions. Thanks to Attila I bought 5 packs of Bril sheets - they are easy to find in Hungary, very difficult here.

-

[esrods]

Thanks guys.
Always very helpful.
Finger marks on MC glasses/filters are shocker to clean.

I will start with Eclipse fluid and Iso alcohol.

Cheers
Ed

[Orio]

Filters are a lot more difficult to clean than front glasses, for whatever reason. Have no idea why, but that's my personal experience.

[Flor27]

I've heard it's because of the coating - different from lenses ones - that make them so sticky to oil and dust...

[LucisPictor]

[Richard_D]

[Attila]

Hot breath can be dangerous you supply fungus with food from your breath.One of the worst idea.

[Richard_D]

[Attila]

To get fungus need next things.

- food available in air , breath can accelerate process
- darkness
- humid air above 55%
If you have dry environment you don't need to worry about at all, if humidity over on 55% for 10-14 days first spots are comes like oily spots. To develop good visible fungus take months or years. So not easy job to produce fungus especially for selling ....

[baldeagle21b]

For fingerprints and other oily marks, I use an old-fashioned remedy - lampblack, which is pure amorphous carbon. I got some pure lampblack from a chemical supply house and use a fuzzed-up cotton swab to apply it to the lens. Just enough to darken the tip of the swab is enough. The stuff sucks up oil and film residue off a lens or filter like a sponge. Then a flick of a soft artists brush or a puff of air will knock off any particles clinging to the glass. It's like a home-made lens pen. One caution - the stuff is very messy if it escapes the container - it's a very fine black powder and will get into everything if you let it.

[patrickh]

For a really deep clean there is a product called "Opticlean" by a company named Caliope - see it here:

http://www.caliope.co.uk/

I have used it and it is remarkable, but labour intensive. Glass seems like new afterwards. Does not seem to affect the coatings, but I have mainly done nikkors and Vivs


patrickh

[Flor27]

This morning I had another great succes in removing huge fingerprints on a MC Jupiter-37AM :

- air blow, gently brush, airblow, gently brush in order to remove most of the particules without scratching the glass
- hot tap water on small part of uncolored & unperfumed toilet paper; must not be flooded in order to not let any water goes into the lens
- put a very tiny amout of a dish soap drop on tip of the wet paper
- clean very gently the lens
- with another hot wet toilet paper, rinse gently left soap
- remove any water left with another toilet paper
- if any marks are lefts, remove them with your breath mist and another toilet paper
- finaly remove any paper dust with air blower

[Flor27]

[baldeagle21b]

[Orio]

Opticlean is obsolete for today's lenses, read what they say, "do not use on plastic lenses!"
http://www.caliope.co.uk/caution.htm

[patrickh]

I suspect it would actually melt the lenses or at least rip them right out of their mounts.


patrickh

[Flor27]