How to Clean Your Lens and Filters
Let’s start with some facts:
- Dirty optics can and will affect your image quality.
- There are correct methods and tools to clean lens and filter optics.
- There are incorrect methods and tools to clean lens and filter optics.
- There’s a great deal of information available on the topic of lens cleaning—some of it conflicting.
So, let’s try to keep things simple, and find the best and safest way to get your lenses clean, so that you can spend more time making photographs, and less time on cleaning chores.
“When you use your gear, it’s going to get dirty…“
Rule #1: Avoid unnecessary cleaning of your lens
Glass is relatively hard and durable. However, when advanced coatings and other chemicals are added to the lens, it becomes a surface that’s more vulnerable to scratches and damage from chemicals and contact. Because of this, we want to try to keep our lenses and filters free of fingerprints and dirt, and avoid repeated physical interaction—this includes touching the lenses and—yes—cleaning.
When stored in your camera bag or on your shelf, judicious use of front and rear lens caps will help keep your optics clean. But, when you use your gear, it’s going to get dirty. This cannot be avoided. Your lenses will benefit from an occasional cleaning of your camera bag innards, as dust and dirt will likely find a home inside your bag and attach itself to the lens.
Rule #2: Dust happens
Dust is everywhere and everywhere is dust. It will get on and inside your lens. Lenses are manufactured in extremely clean factories, where manufacturers go to great lengths to try to eliminate dust from the environment. Even then, brand-new lenses may have dust between the lens elements.
Dust, however, is not the main enemy. A lens that sits on a shelf in your home for years and collects a thick layer of dust will, obviously, produce image-quality issues. But, a few specs of dust here and there on or inside the lens will have no effect on image quality. A few specs of dust on or inside the lens will have no effect on image quality. That statement was intentionally repeated.
“Dust is everywhere and everywhere is dust… Dust, however, is not the main enemy…“
Trying to keep your lenses dust free through continual cleaning may serve to shorten the life of your lens, as you run the risk of scratching the lens surfaces every time you clean the glass.
Rule #3: Beware of rear smudges
Oily fingerprints and smudges on the rear element will have the most dramatic impact on image quality, because of the way that the light is focused narrowly through the back of the lens.
The good news is that the rear element of the lens is less susceptible to dirt and oil because, when mounted on the camera, it isn’t subject to kids’ sticky fingers, your sticky fingers, or other environmental dangers.
Cleaning your optics is easy to do, even in the field
Here is a simple, three-step process for effective lens and filter cleaning:
- Remove as much dust and dirt as possible from the lens with a blower or soft-bristled brush.
- Apply a few drops of lens cleaning solution to a lens tissue or cleaning cloth.
- Using a circular motion, gently remove oil, fingerprints, and grime from the lens surface, working from the center outward.
Analysis
Remember, you can perform those three easy steps in the field when needed but, unless there are greasy fingerprints or oily smudges on your lens, avoid unnecessary cleaning. You don’t need to be in a dust-free “clean room,” and don a vinyl suit and rubber gloves to clean your lens.
