Tips on cleaning lenses and ports

[dynobob]

Can someone who has experience with housing lens and ports tell me how to clean without scratching the lens or port? I have a ikelite Wide angle Conversion Dome (Acrylic), and it gets water spots- What type of cleaner and cloth do you use? My dives are in fresh water, but my household water is extremely hard. If I air dry I get water spots. Also What do you use to clean the inside port of the housing (Ikelite).

dynobob

 

[bvanant]

For the front of my ports (all glass) I use windex. For water spots (we have hard water too) I use glass wax immediately after I get home. Rinse, dry with a soft cloth then glass wax and it seems to work fine.
Bill

 

[Mariozi]

All my ports/dome are made of glass, on the field I use a standard towel to dry it and a iClean kit (the blue bag) sold to clean computer screens, works great!!!

 

[AndyMurch]

For glass lenses I use alcohol wipes from the camera store and dry tiffin wipes for anything hard to budge. They look too abrasive to use on acrylic ports though. I use good old soap and water wherever I am and hope for the best. I've never found the spots to be a problem.
To get rid of droplets when shooting over/unders use a potato.

 

[phil8diver]

I simply use distilled water to rinse off the lens and dry it up with 3M Micro towels. Will not scratch any type of lens.

 

[absolutmotoxxx]

Great tips!

 

[syndony]

Hi,

I recently bought a new lens but accidentally got a fingerprint on it. I used a Nikon lens cleaning cloth to clean it but couldn't so I put some Kodak lens cleaning fluid on the cloth and wiped the lens. Then I used a dry part of the cloth to dry the lens in a circular motion. Everything looks clean and spotless UNTIL... I breath on it to make sure.

There were SWIRLS, STREAKS, etc.. on it. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. My concern is that are these swirls and streaks able to be rid off or are they permanent!!

And also, will they affect the image quality? I mean I can't see them without breathing on the lens. If they do affect image quality, how do I get rid of them. I don't want to damage my lens as it is very expensive.

So what I am trying to say is: How clean is clean? Is my lens clean enough or do I have to get rid of these swirls and streaks.

PLEASE HELP!! I am very frustrated with these streaks and swirls!!

MANY THANKS!!

 

[Warmwater Wank]

syn--More folks probably create lens coating damage trying to "help" their lenses (believing that anything on the surface of the lens will be in their photo) than will ever see a problem in their images. The simple fact is the image is not formed on the lens surface, so modest dust, spots etc. don't really need cleaning. Big blobs of "stuff" or seriously spotted optics or ports, well ok. In the wrong conditions with serious back-lighting you could easily get flare.

Coated, and especially multi-coated, lenses (and many ports) should get different treatment though than just plain glass. Be leery of any cleaner, they typically are not needed and some that may be ok for your reading glasses can contain solvents that will damage many types of lens coatings. At least you put the cleaner on the cloth. There are folks who drip it directly on the lens only to watch it race around the edges and leer at them from in between the lens elements.

More times than not a simple breath fogging of the lens and gentle, circular wiping with a proper cloth will do fine. For some reason a "proper" cloth is not what some manufacturers send out with their lenses. Back in ancient times (film days) Kodak sold a lens chamois that was great. Now days some of the artificial micro-fiber cloths made for glass cleaning might be acceptable but me, I still have a few lens chamois' stuck in film cans (another artifact of the past!) that I use.

Whatever, just do NOT soak these in anything, keep them dry and DO put them in a sealed container so as not to collect any grit, which would really wreck your day if scrubbed around on a pricey lens surface. As my old friend Les Izzmore used to say (alas, Les is no more): "Dust on my lenses? Yeah, shows I use 'em!". Of course he was the sort that would pull his shirt tail out and shove it around on his lenses. Somewhere in-between there lies a happy medium, eh?

The smears and swirls you mention won't bother your shots but they will bother you, especially if you keep breathing on your lens and looking for them! The right sort of micro-fiber cloth should remove them. For the OP's port concerns, if it is plain glass the previous postings could work. If you hold the port sideways to catch light and see any colors on either surface indicating a non-glare lens coating though you might want to be a bit more careful. Maybe test your cleaning method out near an edge first? Oh and if you take the potato route skip the butter, salt and pepper! // ww

 

[beautybelow]

I use either brasso, mothers metal polish or the best I have found so far is a Harley Davidson swirl & scratch treatment on acrylic domes. Simply use as directed basically. I have an 8" acrylic port I have been using since 2001 or 02 something like that with at least...well...too many dives on it. The big scratches fill in with water but the polish definitely removes the film of whatever that builds up with time and time just rinsing and letting it dry.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

If you are really concerned about streaks on glass lenses (I wouldn't do this for any acrylic/plastic), I would suggest the optics cleaning protocol used in laser labs. It requires lens paper. I haven't seen much lens paper at camera stores after microfiber cloths came out, but lens paper works best. Because lens paper is disposable, you should always be using a new clean piece. One problem with microfiber cloths is that they can get dirty and then add any oils or dirt on the cloth to the lens, leaving streaks or possibly scratches.

Anyway. In the optics lab, we do the following:

1) Get a new piece of lens cloth and fold several times being careful to avoid touching anything but the edge of the paper with you fingers. The goal is to not introduce any oils from your skin. This is easier if the paper is held in a hemostat.

2) Drip lens cleaning solution onto the center of the lens (one or two drops) In the optics lab we use either pure isopropyl alcohol or methanol. Methanol leaves fewer streaks, but has greater health hazards.

3) Drag the lens cloth over the cleaning solution towards the outside of the lens. A circular path is often easiest for a large lens. On a small lens that is relatively flat, it can be sufficient to lay a single sheet of lens paper onto the lens and drag it off.

4) Dispose of the lens paper as it is now "dirty"

- Do not use the lens paper without some lens solution, then you could scratch the lens.

- it's often better to repeat the process a few times than it is to press harder or "scrub" the lens

I use this on all my optics in the lab as well as my camera lenses. I actually also use this method for cleaning my sensors too, but all this is at your own risk.

BTW, our stuff has to be a lot cleaner than camera lenses need to be.