how do you clean your lens???
 

i bought this optical paper/some liquid shit

and it doesnt work at all...what can i use or buy to clean my lens

im so mad now cause its worse than before

zeiss lens clothes. pre-moistened in little packages... best ever

can I find this at any camera store?


the optical paper i used had like..lint..and it just smeared. then i used a blower to get rid of the lint and the brissels started to fall off...guess that what happens when i buy cheap shit (didnt know it was cheap until now)..then i used one of those cloths for camera lens (looks like ones used for glasses) and that didnt work either...grrrr

I hope you didn't scratch the coating on your lens!

it actually isnt my lens...i bought this thing that goes over it...i dont know what its called..something that screws on

I bought the visibledust brushes and they seem to work great!!

they are expensive, but if it cause $60-80 to bring your camera in for cleaning (plus the downtime) the brushes pay for themselves after a couple cleans.

www.visibledust.com

a filter?

a filter?

i guess, not sure if they call it that cause its only there to protect the lens...nothing else

i dont think i want to try to clean my sensor on my own

only thing i saw on the site for cleaning lenses was that microfiber cloth

I dont clean my lenses aside from using a blower. A little dust settling on the front element does nothing, and if you clean it improperly you're more likely to cause more harm to the lens than leaving it.

You can buy the Optex cleaning cloth from London drugs for $12

http://www.gentec-intl.com/Default.a...=&prod_id=B200

I want to bump this because I didn't want to make another thread.

I recently bought iKlear for my Laptop and computer screens. its a special solution that helps remove any smudges/dirtspots/whatever to make your screen look spick-span new.. but that's ONLY for screens... but would that work for lens as well? i know its a dumb question, but the iKlear is made to get rid of smudges, dustspots, etc.

NO! Don't even think of using it unless it is specifically written that it is OK for lens coatings!

I hear a lot people rave about using the "lens pen". they should sell it at most camera stores. If not I've seen them at London Drugs.

I wouldn't dare use a lens pen either. There's a reason they're sold at London Drugs and not at proper camera stores. ;)

I bought a lens pen at Kerrisdale camera, is that not a "proper camera store"? is everything that London drugs sells junk? cause that would mean the 580EXII I was looking at the other day must have been junk, I find that surprising.

Well, it is a canon... ;)

What I meant was, places like London Drugs tend to sell lower end accessories for the consumer/amateur market, such as Tiffen or non-coated Hoya filters...products that a professional would never use. Kerrisdale isn't much different, really. Save for 1 or 2 staff, none of the sales staff are very knowledgeable. They do have a good camera line-up in stock, but the other things like accessories tend to be geared more towards the consumer/amateur market.

I don't trust the Lens Pen/Arctic Butterfly type products because if used improperly, the potential to damage lens coatings is quite large. Single use cleaners like the PhotoSol/Visible Dust swabs for sensors and plain old dust free lens tissues are in theory safer to use.

i have a 80mm 35 year old carl zeiss with tons of visible dust and scratches on it, also a liquid like substance im guessing its the oil around the edges of the glass

the images it produces are sharper and cleaner than my 85 1.2 canon

i personally believe that minor scratches/dust etc only affect resell value. filters on lenses are like... cheese burgers still in its wrapping

but the same can be said of any product. you could spend an arm and a leg on a high rated DIY cleaning and still screw up majorly.

The images may be sharper, but I'm 100% sure you'll have more flaring & ghosting in the same lighting conditions.

Not really. Arctic Butterfly/Lens Pen type products are reuseable, and the inherent problem with those problems are that any hard particles trapped in the bristles can potentially scratch the surface of the lens/sensor. Single use products do not have this problem.

most of us on this forum are amateurs. i doubt everyone on here is making their living off photography. so with that said they're probably qualified to use lower end stuff as suggested lens pen etc.

i dont think the starter of the thread have very high end glass that requires lab quality cleaning tools. if the cleaning tools are more expensive than the lens then whats the point. i wouldn't worry about uv/sky filters and specialty cleaning tools until real lenses like the high-end nikon ones are used. even then if shooting in a controlled location/studio i would suggest taking the filter off before shooting.

oh, and i totally think flare is the new black

The OP stated that whatever he bought didn't work. It doesn't matter if the lens is high end or not. Flare in an image can ruin an otherwise usable image...and in some cases can make the image - like in some backlit fashion shots a la Candace Meyer.

Taking any protective filter off in a studio setting is a given, BTW.