How do I clean the lense of paint. well, literally!

[gendarmee]

A teenage cousin came home for spending the day...wanted too check out my camera and i let him, he took pics... what he called "close up" snaps of the nip of a pen.
Turned out later that lense has got one fat blob and couple thick streaks of black permanent marker on it.

 

[Josh66]

MEK, MPK, Acetone (nail polish remover), or something similar will take it off easily (any hardware store should carry those). It may also melt the plastic parts of the lens (if any) if you allow it to come in contact with them, and I don't know what it will do to the coatings on the lens. This should be the last resort (I would mostly be worried about it damaging the coatings).

Isopropyl Alcohol might work too, and I don't think it will damage the lens coatings.

 

[PlasticSpanner]

Take your cousins balls, twist them round & squeeze them flat to make a chamois cloth.............

I really don't know what you can use that won't affect the surface coatings of the lens!

You could start by using the same marker pen to draw a few samples on a scrap peice of glass or tile & see what will remove it e.g acetone, nail varnish remover, alcohol etc.

 

[Overread]

sadly unless the lens is a top range L of which some have a clear glass front (mostly the long telephotos) then I think any cleaning will lead to damage to the coatings on the lens -- if its out of warrenty then its going to be tricky - might be worth seeing how much repaire will cost you

 

[matt-l]

A teenage cousin

If your teenage cousin has a job, i would send it to Canon on his dime.

 

[Josh66]

You could start by using the same marker pen to draw a few samples on a scrap peice of glass or tile & see what will remove it e.g acetone, nail varnish remover, alcohol etc.

The problem is that any of those chemicals will remove it from glass (and the lens) - the only question is what it will do the the coatings on the lens (which won't be on the test glass).

 

[Josh66]

First I would try to rub it off with a t-shirt or microfiber cloth (dry), that might actually get it off it the coating prevented it from making a good bond to the glass (not sure how likely that is, but it's worth a try).

EDIT
Soapy water might work, and will be the least harmful to the lens.

Have you tried regular lens cleaning solution? I don't know why I didn't think of that before.

 

[Josh66]

didnt hit me too-I do not have camera lense cleaning solution but I do have Spectacle lense cleaning solution(used for cleaning reading glasses) at home right now, could I use that on the cam lense?

It's probably pretty much the same thing. It might even be safer - most glasses are plastic, not glass, and they often have similar coatings to what you would find on a camera lens.

Try that, or soapy water - if neither of those work, rub harder, lol.

I would be very hesitant to use something like MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) or Acetone (very similar to MEK) on a lens. (MPK=Methyl Propyl Ketone - slightly less harmful than MEK but worse than acetone.)

 

[Hawaii Five-O]

You could email Canon and see if they say anything about removing the marker.

 

[Ls3D]

Take your cousins balls, twist them round & squeeze them flat to make a chamois cloth.............

Nail polish remover, Gillette storm force aftershave, old spice aftershave does the job

I prefer High-Karate for my nicer equipment!

-S

 

[Mitica100]

Permanent marker is dissolved by alcohol. Take a Q-tip, wrap it in some microfiber cloth (the finer the better and absolutely no cotton) and add a drop or two of 70% or 90% rubbing alcohol from your local Pharmacy. Do not rub, just hold the Q-tip with alcohol on the spot(s) to allow the alcohol to penetrate. Now, take another clean microfiber cloth and very gently try to rub the spots out going in spiral motion, from the center of the lens towards the rims. Do not put pressure on the cloth, be very gentle. That should do the trick.

 

[Josh66]

Yeah, but you don't really need to worry about that. It doesn't mean much.

If you were used to shooting film all the time, it would be good to know since your wide angle lenses (for example) wouldn't be as wide as you were used to.

 

[Josh66]

Not sure how wide that 27mm superzoom really is.

An 18mm lens will have a field of view of 74 degrees on an APS-C sensor, find out what the field of view is at the wide end on his camera.

 

[tasman]

This is one reason you should have a UV filter on the front to protect the lens.

 

[tasman]

I just marked up an old lens filter with permanent ink marker and let it dry. Just glass cleaner took it off with no problem.