How to clean our lens?

[kherying]

Hi ya everyone..am a newbie here. Just gotta question here..how do I clean my camera lens without sratching the glass? When I bought my camera(not a digital unfortunately..just a very basic SLR), they plonked in some lens cleaning paper in the bargain. Recently, I've been taking some snapshots at a sandpit hence might have some sand residue on it....if I use the lens cleaning paper, would I scratch my lens?

Thanks ya..

Cheers
Ying

[erwcw]

Hi kherying, no worries about the camera is digital or not. Its still a camera.

Anyway, the lens tissue is not an ideal material to clean your lens, but for the outer body, yes. I use blower to clean the front element & some other hard to reach areas in the camera.

[fRaNkY]

Normally I would put a filter (UV) on the lense. That way if got scratch, its not that expensive. I can take the filter out and rinse with water.

If it is lense, then have to follow erwcw's advise. Buy a good blower and blow out the sand. Keep your lense and camera in a dry cabinet or a tupperware with silica gel (not too much or u will damage your lens coating).

I use combination of lens cloth (kanebo) and blower and lens pen. Worse case on a filter, I use the liquid cleaner and lens paper.

There are also many quality of lens paper.... some are just useless. I am using Kodak lens paper but I cant seem to find them around anymore.

I saw a camera vacuum at Fotodata summit recently but dunno if that works :D

[kherying]

My lens is protected by a UV filter actually..so it was actually the UV filter which has the sand stuff on it. However, I can't seem to unscrew the UV filter off my camera anymore. I think when the storeperson put on the filter for me, he screwed it on too tight.

Maybe I'll shop around for a blower...

Anyway,thanks a lot...both of you have been very helpful.

Hopefully when I return, I'll be able to join the photography outings...:)

[erwcw]

My lens is protected by a UV filter actually..so it was actually the UV filter which has the sand stuff on it. However, I can't seem to unscrew the UV filter off my camera anymore. I think when the storeperson put on the filter for me, he screwed it on too tight.

Maybe I'll shop around for a blower...

Anyway,thanks a lot...both of you have been very helpful.

Hopefully when I return, I'll be able to join the photography outings...:)
Hope to hear from you soon!!!