- In this video we're talking about how you properly clean
your lens so you don't damage it.
(upbeat music)
If you're new here, my name is Jeven Dovey,
I do a lot of filmmaking tutorials, camera reviews,
some cool adventure stuff.
Also, I have a creator film school which this video
is actually taken from that course so you guys get
a little sample of what the creator film school
is all about.
All right let's get into cleaning lenses.
All right guys welcome to my work bench.
This is where I prep all my gear before I go out
on a shoot so this is definitely where I look
at all my lenses and clean before I actually start packing
the rest of my gear because one of the most important things
is having clean lenses.
So I'm gonna break this down into four steps
and that is first inspection, so that's looking
at your lenses.
Two is actually cleaning the dust off your lens
because that's something you have to do before you even get
to number three which is using a rag to actually get rid
of smudges and then four is protecting.
So we're gonna go over each step in depth and go over why
it's important that you always clean your lenses.
Okay so first things first, you have to inspect.
Now when it comes to cleaning lenses,
one of the things you have to worry about is that
the more that you clean, there is more potential
that you could scratch a lens if there's dust on it
or you could ruin it in some way.
So obviously if your lens doesn't need cleaning,
you don't necessarily want to clean it all the time.
You don't always want to be rubbing your lenses.
It's glass and you just want to keep them
as nice as possible.
You definitely do want to clean them if there's any sort
of issues with it, if there's any smudges,
if there's any dust on it.
So the first thing you want to do is just
inspect your lenses and you just want to see
if they're clean or not.
And so you're gonna look at your filters,
you're gonna look at your lenses
and I highly suggest using a light,
I have an overhead light,
and I can really see what's going on.
This lens is completely has a big thumbprint right on it.
I don't know how it got there.
But not only the front element,
you gotta spin around, open up the back 'cause the thing
that could really ruin a shoot is if there's
a giant thumbprint right there on the back of your lens.
So you gotta inspect both the back elements,
the front elements and you gotta check all your things
that are going in front of your lens so all your filters.
Okay so now that I've looked at all of my lenses,
I've realized that almost every lens needs
at least the front element cleaned,
not necessarily the back element.
I try qto keep those as clean as possible.
And what we're gonna do is first get rid of the dust.
And that's important to do before any sort of smudges.
So this is an air blower.
These are cheap, they're a few bucks
and what it is is it forces air out
and it really will get the dust off.
I highly suggest getting a blower,
it's gonna make the world of a difference
when it comes to getting rid of dust.
This is on me every time I go out to shoot
no matter what it is.
Even if I'm just going out with friends
to go shoot just some a fun video, I always bring
an air blower because there's always something
that gets on my lens and it's easy just to
(air blowing) blow it off real quick.
And that's it.
So, get a blower.
The other thing that you could use is a brush.
So I have this one, it's really small,
this also comes with me everywhere.
And if you're, if a piece of dust just isn't coming off,
you might brush it off.
These won't hurt your lens either
and these are nice to try and get rid of bigger pieces
of dust if the blower's not working properly.
But I highly suggest always starting with the blower
because you're using air versus this
is physically touching your lens.
You want to touch your lens as little as possible.
So you blew air on your lens, you brushed your lens.
There's still some smudges on it.
That should get rid of all the dust
but what we need to take care of next are the smudges.
So we're going to look at this lens,
it's got a couple smudges on it.
I'm gonna first look at it in the light.
And really spin the lens around, you wanna just see
what is going on, make sure that there's not something
you're missing and you can use a lens cloth.
For something very small and light,
you could just take your lens cloth,
do a little circular motion and it will be gone
and the key is circular motions.
You don't want to wipe across.
You start in the middle and you work your way out.
Now for anything that's tougher, you gotta use a solution
that will help get it off.
I use the Pancro, it's a professional
lens cleaning solution, this stuff is invaluable,
I use it all the time.
So with the lens cleaning solution,
I'll spray it on my actual cleaning cloth.
And then, like I was saying,
you want to do circular motions.
So you start in the center and you work your way out.
Because what happens is, when you use this circular motion,
it actually causes less streaks.
So if you ere to go straight across,
it's gonna cause a streak.
The idea is that we want this to be as clean as possible
so you're gonna start in the middle with the little bit
that has some moisture on it
and you're gonna work your way out.
And if you did not get rid of the smudges,
you can repeat this.
But obviously you don't want to put too much pressure
on the lens, only enough that removes the smudges.
You don't want to keep, you don't want to shove
into your lens because you might eventually damage it.
The idea is that we're trying to do
the most minimally invasive work on the lens
to get it as clean as possible without actually damaging
the lens because as you know,
lenses can get very expensive very fast.
The last piece of this is that you want to protect it.
So I have filter cases, these are great
to hold all my filters, no dust or anything
can get in them and then obviously when I pull it out,
I always pull it by the sides, you never want to put
physically your finger on it and then when it comes
to a lens, just always use lens caps.
Always keep your lens cap on, never just let it
sit here open, dust could fall on it,
you could accidentally touch it but you always want
to keep your lens caps on and another way to do this
is to always keep a filter, like a clear UV filter,
on the front element of your lens.
That way, when you're using a UV filter,
there's no chance of anything getting in
the actual lens itself.
That's one of the things that you could do
to prevent damage to the front element of your lens
is always have a UV filter on it.
I personally don't like using UV filters
for filming that often
just because they're introducing another layer
of glass that I don't necessarily need
but a lot of times I'm using ND filters.
So when I'm using ND filters, that's acting as protection
and you only have to clean the ND filter.
And that's the whole idea.
The less that we actually touch the physical lens,
the better because this is the more expensive part
of the whole setup rather than the lenses that go in front.
So if you don't use any elements in front of your lens yet,
I highly suggest if you don't use 'em,
get UV filters, they're super cheap
and they're a good way just to protect your lens
and if you're in a situation where things
could get really dirty, when I travel,
I'm always in situations where my lenses can get damages.
In those situations, always use a filter of some sort
in front 'cause your lens could get damaged
but the good thing is it's just the front the front element,
you can pull it off, put another one on
and you are good to go.
All right guys, let's go over this one more time.
The four steps to keeping your lenses clean.
One is inspect.
Two is blow away dust or wipe away dust using
a specific lens brush.
Number three is using your cloth to remove smudges
and using a non-streaking lens cleaner to do it.
And then the fourth step is get cases,
get caps, do something to protect the lens
so it doesn't get unnecessary dust and smudges
on the lens itself.
All right guys, that is it, that's everything I have
for cleaning your lens.
So from this, you should be able to start cleaning
your lenses and not have any issues.
I highly suggest just be careful
'cause you don't want to scratch your lenses.
One more tip before we go.
I use these Zeiss cleaning wipes.
These are great to just always have on you
because they are a cleaning wipe that also has
the solution in it so it's basically a one time use,
you rip it off, you clean your lenses.
So it's very good to have in the field
and I take them with me everywhere I go
because you never know if you accidentally throw
a thumb mark on your lens or something happens,
you need to clean it real quick.
So I keep these in my pocket so I'm not have to stop,
get my stuff out, clean my lenses, in the field,
especially when there's a lot going on.
So just another note, keep in mind,
if you have things on you, like these cleaning wipes,
it makes it a lot easier to keep your glass clean
when you're out in the field.
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All right guys, I'll see you on the next one.