Cleaning lens.. how to do it?

[Tumbleweed]

If there just some light dust then use blower to blow away the dust. But don't use a blower with a brush on it. The brush may be clean when you first bought it but it is going to get dirty or contaminated from your fingers, camera bag etc. So in the end you may acutally make the lens/filter dirtier by using the brush.

For fingerprints you should first of all blow the surface of the lens/filter to get rid of any hard grit that may scratch the lens when you do the next step.

The next step is to use a lens tissue, like the Kodak one, or microfibre cloth to remove the fingerprint. You may use a lens cleaning solution like Kodak, Eclipse or Kinetronics to moistened the tissue/cloth. Do not use too much solution. Gently wipe the lens/filter surface in a circular motion from center then outwards. Use a dry tissue or use a dry corner of the microfibre cloth to wipe the surface dry, again in a circular motion.

I have used Kodak lens cleaning tissues and Kodak lens cleaning solution before. My current cleanring kit is the Kinetronics Speckgrabber Pro Kit from Cathay Photo (formerly known as the lens First Aid Kit). It costs $35 and comes with an orange microfibre cloth, the cleaning solution and the speckgrabber. Personally I have never even used the speckgrabber. If the cloth gets dirty you can wash it with normal liquid hand soap that you can buy from Watsons and let it dry in a non-dusty environment. I have used it for the past 5 years in Singapore and overseas and it works great with B+W and Hoya filters.

 

[Moonstone]

Don't clean the lens too much or too often, especially the front and back elements. Unless it is fingerprints or oil smudges because doing too much or too often, the likelihood of getting scratches are higher. Use a good UV filter to protect the lens front element when using and protect it with the supplied lens cap when not in use. Also never clean your lens with lens cloth or pen or anything that have to come into contact with the lens glass when you are outside because sometimes when the wind blows it carries some fine sand into your lens while you are doing the cleaning. Happened to me before, fortunately it's the UV filter that got scatches. Best use a quality blower to do the job when in the field.