Cleaned the lens on my old Minolta from 1978 with just dish soap and water

I mean I always thought you needed expensive cleaners for camera lenses but after I smudged my 50mm f1.4 and tried plain dish soap on a whim the before and after was night and day, has anyone else found a weird home fix for analog gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa36826d ago

My Voigtlander Bessa from 2003 had a stuck shutter that wouldn't fire past 1/125. I read somewhere that lighter fluid can dissolve old lubricant gunk so I dabbed a tiny bit on the shutter blades with a Q-tip. Let it sit for 10 minutes then fired it a bunch of times and it worked perfectly after that. Scary move but saved me a $150 repair cost. Did you have to rinse the soap off super carefully or just wipe it dry?

jesse_nguyen26d agoTop Commenter

Lighter fluid's a classic trick for old leaf shutters... I've used it on a couple of beat-up folders and just let it evaporate, no rinsing needed.