Clean your gear!

[Soocom1]

I dont know if this is something discussed before, but to photo newbies, this concept is something that to some goes without saying, and others, well.....

Short story:

When growing up my father had a 1960's era Tiltall tripod. In the late 1970's when I got to start playing with the "real" stuff, the Tiltall started to fall into my lap.

I still have and use that tripod and will probably outlive me.

regardless, I was cleaning it last night and saw the chewed up collars on the legs and remembered that the first time I ever used it, I had to put a pair of channel locks to it because the collars were locked and stuck.
It wasn't until many years later that someone told me to simply wipe it down and get the grit out of the threads.

Same is true with your camera, bags, lenses, and anything you use regularly.

Don't douse the equipment with water mind you and watch the solvents. But wiping the equipment (not the glass) down with a soft cloth after being int he field goes a LONG way to keeping your equipment in shape and usable.

 

[Original katomi]

As to above .. soo true. It’s worth completely emptying your cam bag and cleaning it out you will be surprised at what you find lol edit... it’s well worth replacing the lens cleaning cloth ,,, how often depends on you but rem that cloth is wiping the glass of your expensive lens

 

[OldManJim]

I agree with the soft cloth approach; I also add some compressed aid from a clean source for lenses and camera bodies (with the body cap or a lens on).

Gentle is the watchword; you don't want to make things worse!

 

[Solarflare]

Not wrong.

Though keeping it clean is more efficient than cleaning it after the fact.

For example the inside of lenses is inaccessible, so I rather store them in plastic bags to protect them from the evil dust thats always in the air.

 

[Original katomi]

Hi all. I don’t rem which mag but one of major photo mags suggested breathing on a lens to clean it... like what
You can imagine the readers replies to that.... the mag later apologised.....
Don’t believe all that you read lol