Overheard a guy at B&H drop some serious wisdom on lens cleaning

I was standing in line at B&H in Manhattan last Saturday and this older guy behind me was telling his friend he only uses distilled water and a microfiber cloth for cleaning his lenses. Nothing else, no solution, no blower, just water. I've been buying all these fancy cleaning kits for years and spending like $15 a pop on stuff that probably just smears the coating anyway. Anyone else try the minimalist approach and actually get better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_gibson7823d ago

Two years ago I dropped my 70-200mm lens in gravel and spent $40 on a cleaning kit that just pushed the dirt around in a circle. Now I keep a spray bottle of distilled water at my desk and a pack of cheap microfiber cloths from the auto parts store. The water trick saved me from having to buy new glass after I got barbecue sauce on the front element at a family cookout last summer. Plus it's a lot harder to mess up your lens coating when you're just using water instead of some mystery chemical with a fancy label. Only catch is you gotta be careful with the water quality or you'll end up with mineral spots that look worse than the original dust.

william40723d agoMost Upvoted

Does the water trick work for the rear element too or do you treat that differently? I had a similar situation last year when I was shooting a wedding and someone's kid sneezed right on the rear glass. Tried a dry microfiber first and it just smeared everything until I hit it with a little distilled water. Wish I'd known about the auto parts store cloths earlier though. I've been using old t-shirt rags and they leave tiny fibers that show up in every other shot until you blow them off with a rocket blower.