Hazy Outlook

[thuggins]

Not to kick a dead horse, but I'd like to discuss haze. Not fungus with its unmistakable tendrils, but the cloudy, semi transparent coating that covers a lens surface to a greater or lesser extent. I believe it to be (at least sometimes) caused by a deposit of minerals leached from the surrounding metal by condensed moisture. If that is correct, the cameras stored in a temperature/humidity controlled environment would have less of an issue.

Lime-A-way does a good job at removing it, but sometimes not completely. Has anyone tried polishing it off? Obviously with a coated lens it would remove the coating, but that would likely be better than haze. I have used Simichrome to polish scratches out of eyeglasses and it worked pretty well. My concern is that the deposits might be harder than the polishing compound.

 

[John Koehrer]

Sacrilege I say, sacrilege!
Forgive my outburst. TBH toothpaste can work too. Shhhhhhhhh.
Never used it on a collectible though.

 

[shutterfinger]

My breath and a heavyweight microfiber lens cleaning cloth has always worked for me even when lens cleaning solution and lens tissues would not.
The warm moisture in ones breath is the key.

 

[Jon Goodman]

Maas polish is like Simichrome but a bit more forgiving. Flitz is also not bad.

 

[thuggins]

My breath and a heavyweight microfiber lens cleaning cloth has always worked for me even when lens cleaning solution and lens tissues would not.
The warm moisture in ones breath is the key.

You must be very fortunate to have not run across the type of haze I was referring to. Warm moisture has no effect on it at all.

I will continue with Lime-A -Way as the first line of defense. If I get a bad lens on a not so valuable camera, it will be a good candidate to try and polish.