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Question - Lens Cleaning

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greasedferret

Guest
Guest
Hi All,

any recommendation as to where to get a lens cleaned? Got a fleck of something on the inside of one of mine. Or is this just a Jessops type place?

Cheers
 
V

virtmids2

Guest
Guest
Well, I've cleaned my own quite succesfully but you do need a dust-free environment. Lately I've been treating the outside surface of my lenses with rain-x as it shrugs of water, dust etc.
 

Bunk3r

28DL Memb3r
28DL Full Member
outside =breath and microfibre lens cloth, a bit of isopropanol alcohol if its especially bad.

inside= if its on the very front or very rear element, you might be able to pop it off and clean it, but if you had to ask then chances are you cant. I stripped the old lens that came with my film SLR and it was a nightmare to put back together seriously more complicated than i expected and that was just a prime lens, no zoom, just focus and aperture (which was previously sticking). If the lens is worth anything I would get it professionally done, if its under warranty i would get it done under warranty.

rainx sounds like a bad idea, lenses have a film on them for chromatic abboration or something adding a film on top of this (rainx) kind of goes against the point of the expensive coatings already on the lens. ok if its a cheap camera and cheap lens (Ive done it myself on a security camera).
 
M

MikeD

Guest
Guest
Isopropanol!!!! I thought that stuff had been banned!!! Massive carciogenic!!!
 

Bunk3r

28DL Memb3r
28DL Full Member
Isopropanol!!!! I thought that stuff had been banned!!! Massive carciogenic!!!
really? its still massively used in the electronics industry (and others), and its what is in most optic cleaning kits. nothing on the safety datasheet or even wikipedia, sure your thinking of the same stuff? AKA Isopropyl alcohol, isopro, isoprop, rubbing alcohol, IPA etc.
 

Brick_Man

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
isopropanol is widely used, its obvisouly not good for you if you spray it in your eye, But AFAIK the humble photocopier is going to do your more harm!

Its what 'lense cleaning wipes' are soaked in.

As for opening lense up, STRONGLY weigh up the potential benefits before ruining it.
Only lenses I've taken apart was an 80's vivitar series 1 tele zoom lense, manual focus, manual aperture, the ball race that holds the stop down lever disinteegrated inside the glass, so I had to retrieve all the tiny balls. Took me best part of 4-5hours to do it. will not be attempting it again.

Other lense was a late 90's Sigma wide prime, it had a bit of moisture formed inside, fungus would have grown if I didn't clean it. that was easier to take apart as lack of zoom function = more space to get tools & fingers in there.
But still, needed tiny circlip pliers, and still had to file the bits down & bend the end of it with blowtorch to reach in there, and soaked up a gargantuam amount of time, probably about 8hours to take it apart, clean every surface and seal (in spray alcohol, then lubed with a TINY amount of spray silicone, wiped dry, then re-assembled).
will not do it again, too much work.

For modern zoom, autofocus & electro aperture, you will be hard pushed to get them apart. Often they are clipped togehter with little plastic clips, which really are only designed to be clipped together once, and spare clips can be costly and take months to arrive.
 
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greasedferret

Guest
Guest
Cheers guys. I think I will take your advice and either put up with it or send it away. I have been playing with the lens and whilst it is quite visable to me looking at it, I can't find it in any shots. Need to have a play with some long-exposure jobbies, if it doesn't appear on that then I can probably leave it for now.
 

Narcosynthesis

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Two locations that the dust could be...

If the dust is on the outside of the lens, then just give it a quick clean (and really getting dust or fingerprints on the front of a lens is easy enough to do) - personally I have a few lens cloths, a Lenspen or if those don't clean it, either a lens wipe or cloth with cleaning fluid. Check your local camera shop or opticians for stuff for cleaning optics.

If the dirt is inside the lens, then you basically have no hoe of cleaning it without either completely dismantling the lens yourself (very tricky to do, and really needs a clean room otherwise you are going to let in more dust than you clear out), or get it sent away to be cleaned (which will cost you). In use though, does it have any effect on the photo? if you cannot see anything on your pictures then why worry - some lenses do have a reputation for sucking dust in through the zoom mechanism, which the vast majority of the time is completely superficial and has no negative effect, so just ignore it and get out shooting.
 

Syme

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
When taking pics underground in a cave I have been known to lick the mud off the lense because my tounge is the only clean part of me left! And yes the pics still turn out ok...
 

Bunk3r

28DL Memb3r
28DL Full Member
as the light passes through the lenses its not in focus, it all comes together in focus on the sensor, so dust on your sensor shows as you would expect, dust within the lens will not show as a dust speck, still best to minimise it as it reduce the sharpness on some or all of the picture and can add lens flare. So, if your not pro, its probably not worth stressing over one bit. heres some interesting reading / pictures:
Front Element Scratches
 
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greasedferret

Guest
Guest
Haha cheers everyone. I had a dust blob that appeared on my 18-55 but would only show itself when fully zoomed out, the rest of the time it was unfocused enough to not make a difference.

I like the link!!!
 
U

udonee

Guest
Guest
For cleaning: get one of those funky brushes from Jessops with the air thingy on the other end that blows air into the lens.

For prevention of steaming up: cat crap, look it up. :thumb
 

SaltGeorge

Сталкер
28DL Full Member
Hama Lenspen.. for cleaning the outside of the lens.. just make sure it's an original.. there's a lot of hooky ones about on Ebay and Amazon.

For sensor dust.. get a cleaning kit with a loupe.. not as scary as you think.
 

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