Lens cleaning

[Pieter12]

Unfortunately, I didn't keep the receipt for four years until I needed new glasses again...

I called and they gave me the info...but it was less than four years.

 

[Donald Qualls]

or contact lenses.

As far as I'm aware, Zenni doesn't do contacts, but there are lots of online vendors of disposable contact lenses around. Glasses have, until recently, been an in-person only deal.

Oh, one other thing Zenni can't do for your: they can't adjust your frames for perfect fit, which Costco did the last time I bought glasses there. But wire frames are easy to adjust (earpieces can be bent at room temp, and the nose pads as well, though the latter need a pair of the right kind of pliers to avoid marring the finish), and I gave up on plastic frames about halfway through the thirty years I wore contacts.

 

[Pieter12]

Now that we've made a detour through eyeglasses, to my knowledge, Costco doesn't run the optical departments in their stores. So prices might vary and not necessarily be the best deal. Warby Parker will sell you frames and lenses for less, just not the "designer" brands like Costco. I am concerned buying brand names online that there's a good chance they might be counterfeits.

 

[MattKing]

My optometrist will provide the inter-pupillary distance if I ask her and write it on the eyeglass prescription she provides to me. No extra charge.
I then scan that, and put the pdf scan into my eyesight folder on the computer. The paper copy goes into the file cabinet folder for eyesight.
My optometrist also makes a high magnification digital photograph my eyes each time I have my sight checked, and keeps those in my file with her. She is happy to share those as well.
Self portrait, anyone:

 

[Donald Qualls]

I am concerned buying brand names online that there's a good chance they might be counterfeits.

AFAIK, Zenni doesn't offer brand names at deep discount, they sell under their own brand for the very economical frames (the ones I'm wearing now have ZENNI on one earpiece). I've never looked for anything fancy there, I'm after serviceable frames and lenses that won't kill my budget (bifocals in my prescription could easily exceed $500 from the eye doctor's optical shop).

 

[jaeae]

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I'm really sceptical to even try this method.
I certainly would never use this method.

I certainly would never use this method.

I have used this method in my previous work in mobile phone service, to clean glass surfaces (like internal displays). Also used on some of my lenses. Works very well. Just make sure that you use that Scotch brand "paper tape", with weak glue. We used the matte surface version. Leaves no residue

 

[snusmumriken]

After 5 pages of replies, it seems impudent to try to add anything, but I think I do have something to offer. Binoculars used to be the tool of my trade (wildlife biology). My eyesight was second to none (until I turned 45), and I could not bear to put even slightly marked binoculars in front of my eyes. So I bought the best and took a lot of trouble to clean them, often daily.

First, you need to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and dry them with a clean towel. You are trying to wash stuff off the lens with a solvent (even if it's water), but the same solvent will take grease off your fingers and smear it round the lens. If you don't realise this, you may find it impossible to get your lens clean.

Second, blow any moveable dust off the lens with a rocket blower, to avoid grinding it in during the next step.

Third, forget about any kind of wiper that is not disposable, because it will inevitably be contaminated with grease, dust and grit from last time, or from being carried around, or just lying around. I used lens tissues with isopropyl alcohol. In photographic storesLen tissues are ridiculously expensive; I bought mine in bulk from a lab supplier for a fraction of the cost, good big ones about 5"x3". I bought the isoprop from a drugstore. Lay 3 or 4 tissues by, ready to pick up quickly, also a shallow container with a thimbleful of isoprop in it. Scrunch up one lens tissue and dip the part furthest from your fingers in isoprop. (Only a little alcohol, you must be very careful not to flood the lens, because if alcohol floods round the edge it will carry grease with it onto the inaccessible inner surface. The isoprop shouldn't reach your fingers.) Use this tissue to wipe the lens surface and get the muck mobile. Wipe gently in case there are still bits of grit that would scour the lens coating, but be sure to wipe the whole lens surface. The extreme edges can be hard to reach, but if a good size lens tissue is scrunched up into a loose pad you can push it in there and still not transfer finger grease onto the lens.

Now, while the lens surface is still shiny moist, discard the first tissue and quickly pick up a clean one. Use this to gently wipe the moist surface. Don't continue to wipe after it looks dry. If you have been quick, the second tissue will have soaked up the solvent and much of the dirt/grease; discard it. Now, is the lens clean? No? Go back to the previous step, and repeat as necessary. The process is entirely about dissolving and mopping up. The frustration comes from not realising this. I've been there. Unfortunately some people start scrubbing the lens in a damaging way when frustrated. You only need to be persistent and gentle.

All of that is the cheap way. Nowadays, I use Zeiss disposable lens wipes for my spectacles and all optical equipment. I feel a bit guilty about the excessive packaging, and wary of sniffing the ingredients, but those wipes are extremely efficient. Mind you, none of my kit is nowadays as grubby as my binoculars used to get. If it was, I would use the isoprop and lens tissues again.

Hope this helps the OP and anyone else.

 

[Bill Burk]

In all this I haven’t seen the method that was pounded into my head over the years.

Take one sheet of Kodak lens cleaning tissue and fold it in quarters or eighths. Tear it in half. Then roll into a swab with a fuzzy end.

Use that fuzzy end one time to clean the lens. You can put a drop of Kodak lens cleaner on it. Do the same with the other half of the piece you tore, but use that one dry. Keep folding, tearing, rolling and wiping until the lens is clean.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Take one sheet of Kodak lens cleaning tissue and fold it in quarters or eighths. Tear it in half. Then roll into a swab with a fuzzy end.

I was taught that too - in a book somewhere - when I was young. It is probably the least damaging rubbing wiper one can get.

Doesn't work too well with Kimwipes, they are too 'hard'. And as I snagged a case of 60 boxes of 'salvaged' Kimwipes for $25 (case had a crushed corner), I'm not inclined to drop $10 for 50 sheets of lens tissue.

The optics firm I did work for would do a 'drag wipe' if something got dusty: dip a Kimwipe in reagent grade isopropyl alcohol and drag it over the surface of the optic. Any rubbing was verboten as the tolerances on the optics were in the 10's of nanometers, which isn't very impressive by Zeiss/AMSL standards.

 

[bernard_L]

to this day I can't clean my lenses. I have 4 different cleaners and different type of cloth and I can always find an angle to look at the glass and see cleaning streaks. I clean again, they re-arrange or move around, but I can never get rid of them completely.

IMO you should not obsess, and here is why. On modern coated optics, at each surface, R<=1%, T>=99%. To see the residual "stuff", you resort to looking at the lens surface in reflection, so you are looking at the difference between (round numbers for the argument) R=1% and R=1.5%. But your film or sensor is fed by the light in transmission; so it "sees" the difference between T=99% and T=98.5%. How much is that expressed in f-stops (an exercise left to the reader).

Granted, the "stuff" not only robs your sensor of some light; it may also (or not, depending on its precise nature) diffuse some of the transmitted light, causing loss of contrast or flare. Whether or not that is the case is not decided by looking at the front surface in reflection. Looking through the lens at a dark surface, with a light source off-axis, would be more appropriate.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I believe the Kimtech Kimwipes (for delicate surfaces) are OK for plastic eyeglasses, but I would be cautious about using Zeiss cleaning products on coated eyeglass lenses. I believe the most expensive antireflective coatings used on eyeglass lenses may be similar to the coatings used on your camera lenses - metal ions deposited in a controlled chamber - so cleaning requirements should be similar. EXCEPT, the plastics used for eyeglass lenses are much more likely to be damaged by solvents like acetone than a glass and metal camera lens would be. Other (cheaper) eyeglass coatings may be very different from camera lens coatings - more like a coat of varnish - and also more likely to be damaged by solvents.

The antireflective coating on a pair of eyeglasses I bought from a national chain store failed in less than a year. They replaced the lenses, and the coatings on the replacement lenses also failed in about a year. Like most of us photographers, I am very careful about the care and cleaning of optical surfaces. I also worked in a hospital laboratory where I was trained to clean the lenses on our microscopes (we used Kimwipes and an alcohol-free cleaning solution made specifically for microscopes; if I recall correctly, it contained xylene). When I started investigating why the coatings on my eyeglass lenses were not holding up, I was told by multiple sources to not use any cleaning solutions which contain alcohol. Zeiss may have different lens cleaning solutions, but the lens wipes I was using definitely contained isoproply alcohol.

When I contacted the company that made the eyeglass lenses - Essilor - I was told:

"Spray lens cleaners and pre-moistened lens wipes specifically formulated for anti-reflective treatments can be used for convenient cleaning, but consistent use is not recommended as they still contain harsh chemicals that can deteriorate the coating faster over time.

Daily Care and Cleaning Recommendations
* Rinse the lenses under warm (not hot) running water prior to any cleaning, this assures that you have removed any debris that could potentially scratch the lenses
* Use a couple drops of mild dishwashing liquid (we recommend Dawn non concentrated) and rub onto both sides of the lenses; this step removes oils from the lenses
* Rinse the lenses again under warm running water
* Dry the lenses with a clean 100% cotton cloth"​

The lens manufacturer seems to be saying that 'it is OK to use alcohol containing cleaners, as long as you don't use them too often' - whatever that means

I am confused and disappointed that the legendary Zeiss name* appears on a product sold specifically for cleaning "Eyeglass lenses and high quality optics" and that product contains alcohol - which multiple different eyeglass retailers tell me should not be used for regular cleaning of eyeglasses. One of those retailers sells the Zeiss brand eyeglass lenses, and they recommend using only mild dishwashing liquid for cleaning their Zeiss lenses.
* The cleaning wipes I have were distributed by Carl Zeiss Vision, San Diego, California

There are a variety of sovents commonly called "alcohol" - which more specifically, may be: ethanol, propanol, isopropanol, methanol, etc. Some alcohols are more agressive solvents than others, and some plastics are more easily damaged than others, so it's hard to make generalizations. And also, it seems the actual ingredients in Zeiss lens cleaning products may have changed, as different data sheets I looked at show different alcohols being used. I was never able to determine with any certainty whether it is safe to use 'alcohol' on 'plastic' lenses, but multiple sources recommend using a mild solution of Dawn dishwashing soap, and to avoid alcohol-based solutions. Other eyeglasses retailers give you a a free bottle of alcohol-based lens solution when you spend $450 on a new pair of glasses. If I was cynical, I might think they want the coatings on your your new glasses to fail just about the time when your one-year warranty expires.

Having said all that, I believe alcohol-based lens cleaners are probably OK for cleaning modern coatings on glass camera lenses.

The Zeiss Lens Cleaner I bought from B&H states on the actual bottles I received that it's "Safe for All Coated Lenses" although the picture B&H displays on their link doesn't show that on the bottle.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1081869-REG/zeiss_2096_686_lens_cleaning_solution.html

 

[runswithsizzers]

The Zeiss Lens Cleaner I bought from B&H states on the actual bottles I received that it's "Safe for All Coated Lenses" although the picture B&H displays on their link doesn't show that on the bottle.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1081869-REG/zeiss_2096_686_lens_cleaning_solution.html

Does it say if there is any alcohol in cleaner solution? If your nose is any good, one sniff should tell you.

The Zeiss lens wipes I bought also said "Safe for All Coated Lenses" But those definitely contained alcohol. My question is why does Zeiss say their alcohol containing wipes are safe for all coated lenses, but numerous other professional sources tell me alcohol should not be regularly used on coated plastic eyeglass lenses? They can't both be right.

 

[Petrochemist]

Your isopropanol is VERY low quality.
I use a 'HPLC' grade which has low residue (less than 2 parts per million) & a purity over 99.5%.
Last time I ordered some for work (a couple of years ago) it cost £8.5 for 2.5 litres, though it has gone up significantly recently (now ~£28).
Sadly that supplier will not deliver to private homes, but other lab suppliers will & only charge about twice as much

 

[BobUK]

Do not use fabric softner.

Never done it before but, I recently collected all my microfibre lens cloths together, tied them up in a piece of nylon net curtain material then popped them into the washing machine with a little washing powder.

Everyone of them produced smears. It had to be the fabric conditioner that had remained in the pipework from previous washes.
A good hand wash with just a couple of drops of unscented dish washing liquid sorted it all out.

 

[Donald Qualls]

It had to be the fabric conditioner that had remained in the pipework

Many commercial detergents include some fabric softener ingredients these days. Detergent residue in the washing machine can do this, too.