Cleaning your lens

Cleaning your lens

Your camera lenses will be delighted if you care for them tenderly and probably it might be nice for you as well if you occasionally clean them from dust, grease stains, and other kinds of dirt that a lens accumulates in your everyday use. There are a lot of ways and means to take to keep your lenses and especially the front lens in mint condition. This site offers some quick how-to, quide lines, and a video tutorial to keep your lens as new and we also tell you which products to use.

Read more about filters

Cleaning Accessories

Whether you have a filter on your lens or not, the methods and accessories used for cleaning are the same. Here are some products that may be useful to have when you are taking care of your lenses.

Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth
Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth

Lens Pen
Lens Pen

Airbrush
Airbrush

Retractable brush
Retractable brush

Rocket Air
Rocket Air

Cotton swabs
Cotton swabs

Lens Cleaning solution
Lens Cleaning solution

Cleaning Kit

There are many good and affordable packages that gather some of the above accessories.

See several examples from Giotto

How to clean your lens easily

  1. Blow away any dust with the Rocket Air Blower.
  2. Gently brush away the remaining dust and/or dirt with a Cleaning Brush.
  3. Soak a Micro Fiber Cloth with a Cleaning Solution and clean the lens in a circular motion.

Instruction video

Do not clean your lens too often

A mistake often made is using the Micro Fiber Cloth before you blow away dust and dirt, which can result in dragging around dust particles and scratching the lens. The fact that a lens and the front lens get a little dusty at times is normal, it is difficult to avoid but do not clean the lens too often (and do not use alcohol, etc) since perpetual rubbing and cleaning can damage the lens and its surface treatment (coating).

Be careful when changing lenses

When changing lenses (to clean the backside of the lens, as seen in the video above) you open up and expose the inside of the camera. The camera will then be open for dust particles to enter and in case the sensor of the camera is affected by dirt and stains, this can have visible impacts and effects on the image and any dirt on the sensor can be difficult and tricky to remove without consulting a camera repair shop. Because of this, it is important that whenever you change a lens, try to be as quick as possible and to the greatest extent possible, do not change lenses in dusty environments.