Here's the deal. I let a friend of mine borrow my camera and when checking it out I noticed some black irregular spots, on the image (not white when you see dead pixels) scattered at different points in the image. About 10 to 15 in all. The look they dust spots on the back end of the lens. Note: They don't rotate when focusing and stay in focus no matter what.

So, I'm thinking I need to clean the 16x standard lens except I can't get it off. The lever which is at 4:00 o'clock won't budge when I try to push it up to its release point, 2:00. I've been trying for 2 days. It's like the peanut butter jar lid syndrome

For obvious reasons I don't want to take a hammer to it.

It is really stuck. I almost busted my back trying to push it up to release.

Any ideas???

Problem solved. It required a lot of force though.

Those bayonet mounts can sometimes be pretty bad. Best thing to do, I think, is put the thing on a flat surface with the lens pointing down so the weight of the camera isn't torquing the connection.