Serious question, did I mess up my lens cleaning by wetting the cloth first?
For two summers I was wiping every lens front element with a microfiber I huffed on, and I finally figured out why my shots had a faint haze at f/8. A tech at the counter here in Fresno put a loupe on one of my old primes and showed me the swirl marks from dragging grit around. Now I use a dry brush first, then a drop of Eclipse fluid on a pec pad, never on the glass. What brush do you all keep in your bag for the dry pass?
Honestly, the swirl marks are probably doing way less harm than you think. A loupe under harsh light makes any coating look wrecked, but most of that stuff never shows up in a real shot, and a little haze at f/8 could just as easily be old glass, internal dust, or how the lens was stored. You wiped with a huffed cloth for two summers and the sky didn't fall, so the guy at the counter maybe sold you a fix for a problem you didn't really have. Half the brushes people carry just push grit around anyway unless you clean them, so a dry pass isn't some magic cure. Shoot a test chart wide open and at f/8 before you swear off huffing forever.