Glass isn't all that delicate, although some lens coatings are. Camera lens
coatings are usually fairly robust, though I do have one beater Zuiko 135mm
f/3.5 I bought "as is" for $20 that looks like its front surface was cleaned
with steel wool. The lens actually takes OK photos, far better than one would
have hoped, albeit with a bit more stray light in the shadows. Maybe it's
intended for portraits.
Anyway, I don't clean lens surfaces that often, as cleaning is usually worse
than what's on the lens. When I do clean a lens, I first blow off what dust I
can, heavily fog the surface to be cleaned with my breath, and wipe with a
freshly laundered knitted cotton cloth. The best cloth is cut from well-worn
white T-shirts: very soft, no grit, and traps grit.
If necessary, I dampen a cloth with 91 0sopropyl alcohol and clean the lens,
followed by fogging and cleaning with a new piece of cloth. Sometimes, a Q-tip
wetted with alcohol is needed. The last time this happened it was to remove
some oil.
The 91 0sopropyl alcohol can be bought at most drug stores. It will probably
leave a slight film when dry, so don't forget the fog&wipe followup step.
Zeiss probably uses a residue-free grade of 100 0sopropyl alcohol, but it isn't
really necessary for camera lenses.
The cotton cloths are white cotton T-shirts, neither new (may be too rough) nor
worn out (sheds too much lint), and are washed in an ordinary washing machine
with fairly hot water (60 C) and Tide (a widely-used laundry detergent) and
dried in an electric dryer. No softeners or the like are used. The resulting
cloth very strongly absorbs grease, such as fingerprints, which makes it quite
effective for lenses. I imagine that microfiber cloths also absorb grease very
well, but the T-shirts are more common and available.
Joe Gwinn
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