lens cleaning fluid and A1

[Cal Bickford]

hey guys, i've got some crud on my A1's lens and was looking for some lens fluid to clean it off. My question is should I use the "promaster" lens fluid that cost 4 bucks and came with a lens cloth, brush, tissue etc in a little cheap kit, or should I search online for some "higher quality" canon fluid etc. Just wondering if this cheap fluid will possibly compromise the mutli coating on the A1 lens or if there is even any difference between it and say canon's brand cleaning fluids. The dude at the store said they wouldn't sell it if it would damage multi coatings but i'm pretty sure he didn't have any idea what he was talking about. Am I being paranoid? What do you guys do if there's something on your lens that can't be taken off w/ just a cloth?

[Steve Wolla]

I'd spend a few more dollars on getting a better lens cloth and fluid. That's what I did, for use initially on my old Nikon rangefinder lenses. The cloth is quite soft and lint-free. The name has worn off the package, so I cannot provide that but any quality cam store should have it.

[James Hooey]

Great question! I wonder about lens cleaner on these lens as well. What fluid solutions do clean a fluorite coated lens safely? It warns against fluid cleaners in the Canon manual and I have heard of fluorite coatings being destroyed by fluids.

What do the pros do?

[Raul Rooma]

I recommend to use some sort of glass(uv filter)on Your camera.And even if you have some sort of crap on it,then u may clean it with no worry to damage Your babys lens.Of course use anyway optics cleaner kit's for this glass.I myself
use Kinetronic's fluid and microfiber cloth for that and it works well.

Regards

Raul

[Mark G. Roberts]

Originally Posted by Raul Rooma

I recommend to use some sort of glass(uv filter)on Your camera.And even if you have some sort of crap on it,then u may clean it with no worry to damage Your babys lens.Of course use anyway optics cleaner kit's for this glass.I myself
use Kinetronic's fluid and microfiber cloth for that and it works well.

Regards

Raul

I brought a UV filter for the A1 and have had dreadful problems with a reflection of the lens in the rear of the filter showing on footage in certain lighting so have stopped using it.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?

[Meryem Ersoz]

zeiss makes wet cleaning cloths which are pretty nice. i'd stay away from promaster. i once bought a promaster UV lens, thinking i'd save money, and it was a piece of junk, it developed a weird permanent flaring effect on it after barely any use or exposure. so much for saving money....there's no substitute for good glass, so put a good filter on your valuable fluourite lens.

[Cal Bickford]

yeah I saw those zeiss wetwipe online, maybe I'll get those. I don't think I'm going to use the promaster fluid. Maybe its all the same but I'm not going to take any chances. I only need to use them once as my lens arrived with the crud on it (wide converter lens actually) and I don't plan on letting any more crud get on it for a while.

[Jonathan Nelson]

Meryem,

Maybe the zeiss cloths you used were better, but the ones I picked up at a sams club have been horrible. They streak like nothing else! I bought them to clean my camera lenses and used them on some of my filters first. I was shocked at how terrible they were. I can't even use them with eye glasses, so now I use them as dust rags, lol.

Mine say 2AD304 on the back, your just wasting your money if you get these.

Make sure to dust the lens off before cleaning it since the dust can scratch the lens.

[James Hooey]

Mark...I have a Cokin UV filter on my A1 and I just got back from shooting and noticed a few times when I was seeing the lens reflected back as well.

I still wonder if there are any safe fluids for the actual fluorite lens surface?

Cal...is this the wide angle you have?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=464579

If so, does it have any threads for filters? Does it come with front and back lens caps? I have found next to no info about the Canon specific wide angle.

[David W. Jones]

I guess I'm just old fashion, but I always protect the lens with a filter when I can.
And I clean the filter by fogging it with my breath and wipe it with a micro-fiber cloth.

[Jonathan Nelson]

Originally Posted by James Hooey

Mark...I have a Cokin UV filter on my A1 and I just got back from shooting and noticed a few times when I was seeing the lens reflected back as well.

I still wonder if there are any safe fluids for the actual fluorite lens surface?

Cal...is this the wide angle you have?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=464579

If so, does it have any threads for filters? Does it come with front and back lens caps? I have found next to no info about the Canon specific wide angle.

There is no lens threads on the canon wide angle adapter you mentioned but it does come with a hood and one lens cap for the front. I personally do not own it but my friend has one and I can say for certain that it is a great adapter. There is a small amount of barrel distortion when you go full wide but it's not really noticable.

The century .8 has threads: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=411790&is=REG

But it also costs 100 dollars more and I am not sure if it comes with a hood. I am going to get it and try it with my formatt matte box.

[Cal Bickford]

Yes I have that converter and while I haven't had a chance to shoot with it that much yet, it seems to be very nice. There is some barrel distortion at full wide but that really only becomes an issue if your shooting it in an environment with lots of vertical elements close to the camera (ie: in a small apartment with door frames etc. in the shot. It looks wonderfull outdoors. Jonathan, were the wetwipes you use the ziess ones or just some other brand? Also do you guys think using a damp microfiber cloth dipped in some distilled water would be ok? I keep my lenses pretty clean so I would only really need to do this once since it arrived with crud on it.

[Jonathan Nelson]

Originally Posted by Cal Bickford

Jonathan, were the wetwipes you use the ziess ones or just some other brand? Also do you guys think using a damp microfiber cloth dipped in some distilled water would be ok? I keep my lenses pretty clean so I would only really need to do this once since it arrived with crud on it.

They were zeiss brand pre-moistened cloths. I think I bought them for about 9 bucks at sams. Like I said, these particular cloths really suck, even for just general eye glass cleaning.

I am not sure about the damp micro cloth technique, but I personally wouldn't recommend it.

I hear a lot of good things about the lens cleaning pens they sell at places like B&H. I have never tried them before but I am going to order some to see how well they work.

To tell you the truth, I have only used one method of lens cleaning and that was using those lens tissues with alcohol. That seemed to work very well and I still use this method on my filters. I have yet to try this method on my a1's glass but I used this method a lot back in my gl2 days.

Now a'days, I always have something infront of the glass like a filter or adapter so I never really have to clean the glass on my cameras.

[James Hooey]

Originally Posted by David W. Jones

I guess I'm just old fashion, but I always protect the lens with a filter when I can.
And I clean the filter by fogging it with my breath and wipe it with a micro-fiber cloth.

David...breathing on lens elements and or filters may not be your best solution....my understanding is that warm moist breath contains bacteria etc that can grow fungus on your glass elements.