Hi, my name is Franc Anderson. I'd like to talk to you about keeping your camera clean.
First of all, normally you should keep your camera safe inside a camera bag or a separate
camera case. Prevention is better than cure and it's better to keep your camera clean
in the first place, than get it dirty and have to clean it. However, cameras always
need clean, they always collect dust. The first thing I think you'll need is a brush
like this. I simply bought this from an art store, then I cut off the wooden stem so it
fits very conveniently inside my camera bag, I chose a brush where the bristles are nice
and stiff, and so the first thing you want to do is to get the dust and dirt from all
the crevices on the outside of the camera, like this. So go around all the places where
dust can collect, brush it out, the stiff bristles mean it takes away all the dust and
the grime, especially here around the join between the lens and the camera body. You
want to get dust the whole camera surface out, where any little gaps that there are
then you can take it away like this, here, and the back. After you've used the stiff
brush you can move on to a special lint-free cloth, something like this. And this you can
clean the whole outside of the body, taking all the dust off. You have to get the underside,
dusting the whole lens barrel, and just make sure everything is nice and squeaky clean.
On a digital SLR, lots of the times you get greasy finger marks on the screen so you can
gently circularly remove dirt like this. And you have to treat the Viewfinder glass just
like the lens glass, it's optical, don't mistreat, try to get it very gently and should you try
to take the grease and the dust out of your Viewfinder.
As far as the lens is concerned you should always keep a lens cap on your camera at all
times when you're not using it. This keeps dust and grime out of the lens barrel, and
this cap should also be kept clean. You can clean this cap just like before by using this
stiff brush, take the dirt, look how much dirt collects, inside the cap, take the dirt
of the lens cap and then let's turn our attentions to the lens itself. You should keep a filter
on your lens at all times, this keeps dirt and grime out of the lens, and also of course
means that the very delicate surface of the lens can't be scratched and that dirt can't
get to it. This is an ultraviolet filter, you can have also a skylight filter on the
front of the lens and it will not affect your color image. Take care of the filter because
the filters are expensive, they're expensive because they are optically grown to be flat.
The most convenient way to use the tissue on the filter is just to breathe on the lens,
like so, and then very gently in circular motion just gently take the grease and the
dust off the surface, one side of the filter, turn it over, and again. These tissues are
specially made, they are not paper handkerchiefs, they will not leave fibers on the surface.
Remember that even cheap cameras are precision instruments, don't leave them lying around
where they can gather dust and dirt. Keep them away from extremes of temperature and
of course, at all costs, moisture.