Cleaning our precious lenses...
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actually no. ethyl-alchohol doesnt work as well as isopropanol when it comes to removing fingerprints, oil marks etc..
ok time to buy 1 more bottle for lens then... i use the former for my in-ear monitors
No so bad la. I touched the lenspen tip once, I cleaned a piece of glass right after, close the lens pen cover, give it a twist, and after that used it on a lens again. No problems. The carbon will adhere to the finger oils, after cleaning, it will drop off like normal cleaning. recharge the carbon powder but closing the cover and twisting it. After that, use as per normal no problem.
Is your finger very sweaty or very oily? If it is, maybe it will be gone case if you touched it. One other thing, I find the life of lenspen will be very short if left in humid conditions. This makes sense as powder will cake up if too humid and the cleaning agent is carbon powder. I find that if I put the lenspen in the dehumidifier with my other gear, it lasts very very long.
would it work with normal lens cloth also? i have quite a few at home that's unused.
anyway, can IPA also be used for sterilizing purposes also? e.g. clean keyboards to remove bacteria and stuff? :think:
after a while of using the lenspen i guess.
i was using it for 3 months plus, then i touched it.. after that just spread finger oil love everywhere.
which is why i prefer microfibre cloth.. just throw into washing machine or hand wash with soap and hang to dry.. good as new again.
after a while of using the lenspen i guess.
i was using it for 3 months plus, then i touched it.. after that just spread finger oil love everywhere.
which is why i prefer microfibre cloth.. just throw into washing machine or hand wash with soap and hang to dry.. good as new again.
i use blower, micro cloth and lens alcohol.works most of the time. last resort then use lenspen.
I would advise not using Isopropyl alcohol from guardian to do any lens cleaning. If you can look up to the ingredients, it is only 70% which means its not pure. You might not know what is in the other 30%. I've read from articles that it might also contain a lubricant to help easing the rubbing for the skin. (Isopropyl alcohol is also called rubbing alcohol.) And that may leave marks or damage your coating. Thus, only get medical or lab grade stuff if you tend to use it for your precision equipment.
Cheers.
EDIT: You guys might wana check out this link:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?topic_id=23&msg_id=000lqh
Cheers.
EDIT: You guys might wana check out this link:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?topic_id=23&msg_id=000lqh
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I advise against lens cloth since there may be grit on it that may scratch your lens surface. For IPA, it may have some nasty reaction on certain plastics, e.g. your LCD screen. Keyboards should generally be ok but no promise.
Most of the 30% is water. I recommend Guardian IPA (and it is easily available) from my own experience. Used on Pecpad lens tissue, its safe and works very well for me. Leave no scratches and removes grease very well. The other option is the eclipse solution - that however contains methanol, a toxic chemical, so I stayed away from it.
just briefly read through the link - must have a lot of experienced chemists there.. :bigeyes:
anyway i already bought IPA from guardian and used it with my MF cloth le. seems okay, very clean.
Hi guys, juz wanna know if it is perfectly ok to use the damped tissue (bought in any optics/spectacles stores, usually used to clean our specs) to clean our lenses?
Thanks for ur response
tissue paper may just help..
As a biochemist, I shall elaborate the concepts behind the solvents used...
water is to remove salts and stuffs that are soluble in water.
Isopropanol is more hydrophobic than ethanol due to its additional alkyl groups. In another words, better in dissolving oil and hydrophobic substances.
methanol is toxic because it is metabolised in the body to form a toxic formaldehyde. Heavy exposure, which is 1% methanol consumption will cause moonshine, which is blindness. Chronic, of course, is death. In either case, it's not as toxic as it seems unless u're pouring it into ur eyes or drinking it. Nonetheless, u do need to note that methanol could penetrate through latex gloves and skin. So I would not advise prolonged 'hand spa' in methanol. But it is known in sci to be a good solvent for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances. I have read that if the multi-coated is bonded properly to the glass, it would not be removed due to the strong affinity to the glass surface.
Cleaning the lens with these solvents will only work if u remove the solvent after dissolving the target substances. Imagine dissolving the fingerprint oil with isopropanol without removing the the isopropanol via wiping it away but instead let it evaporate. The oil will not evaporate with it but instead just precipitated and re-positioned itself on the lens. The same go for the salts. I.e, the concept is to dissolve the unwanted stuffs and remove the solutions before it evaporate or hit the saturation concentration of the unwanted stuffs. Nightmare's finger oil is already dissolved in the lens pen and thus each time he used it -> his finger oil will deposit at the surface after the alcohol evaporate.
The order of cleaning should be water first and then organic solvents (not beyond isopropanol. Some people said acetone is ok and some don't. Acetone is def a stronger solvent. But since isopropanol is good enough for normal oil and u're not removing paint. I'll just stick to isopropanol). The reason in using water first is because some salt crystals are harder than glass and that might scratch the glass. Imagine organic solvent first, which the salt would not dissolve or poorly in isopropanol, and u're doing the body massage on the lens with the salt. Not a very wise choice.
So...there u go~ I hope it clear any doubts since I have explain the sci behind it.
water is to remove salts and stuffs that are soluble in water.
Isopropanol is more hydrophobic than ethanol due to its additional alkyl groups. In another words, better in dissolving oil and hydrophobic substances.
methanol is toxic because it is metabolised in the body to form a toxic formaldehyde. Heavy exposure, which is 1% methanol consumption will cause moonshine, which is blindness. Chronic, of course, is death. In either case, it's not as toxic as it seems unless u're pouring it into ur eyes or drinking it. Nonetheless, u do need to note that methanol could penetrate through latex gloves and skin. So I would not advise prolonged 'hand spa' in methanol. But it is known in sci to be a good solvent for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances. I have read that if the multi-coated is bonded properly to the glass, it would not be removed due to the strong affinity to the glass surface.
Cleaning the lens with these solvents will only work if u remove the solvent after dissolving the target substances. Imagine dissolving the fingerprint oil with isopropanol without removing the the isopropanol via wiping it away but instead let it evaporate. The oil will not evaporate with it but instead just precipitated and re-positioned itself on the lens. The same go for the salts. I.e, the concept is to dissolve the unwanted stuffs and remove the solutions before it evaporate or hit the saturation concentration of the unwanted stuffs. Nightmare's finger oil is already dissolved in the lens pen and thus each time he used it -> his finger oil will deposit at the surface after the alcohol evaporate.
The order of cleaning should be water first and then organic solvents (not beyond isopropanol. Some people said acetone is ok and some don't. Acetone is def a stronger solvent. But since isopropanol is good enough for normal oil and u're not removing paint. I'll just stick to isopropanol). The reason in using water first is because some salt crystals are harder than glass and that might scratch the glass. Imagine organic solvent first, which the salt would not dissolve or poorly in isopropanol, and u're doing the body massage on the lens with the salt. Not a very wise choice.
So...there u go~ I hope it clear any doubts since I have explain the sci behind it.
as long the tissues do not contain any hard particles, it is unlikely that the tissue is likely to scratch the lens or its coating. From what I read, the coating technology these days allow the coating to have the same hardness as the glass. However, u'll have to be very careful with lenses that are made from the 60s or earlier, as their coating technology is of course outdated and thus it's softer than glass. I'm unsure about how much softer is it but I do know glass are pretty hard.
For those who do not know about hardness, please check on wikipedia. It's good to know and u'll know why u should not mess around with the insides of the cam, such as screen and sensor.
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