Showing posts with label Lenspen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenspen. Show all posts

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Scrub That Sucker Clean, Baby!


Those of you old enough to remember the 1970's may remember where - that - line comes from.

The real reason we are featuring lens cleaning products is that we have so many of them and you all need them. This town is full of dirty glass, as any day at our or repair counter will attest. The wise people have dirty filters on clean lenses and the foolish people have dirty lenses, but that is another tale - today it is the question of cleaning glass.

Firstly - do not get it dirty. Use a lens caps and keep your fingers out of the lens hood -and if you are subject to environments that are dusty, brush or blow it off the glass with a blower or a soft brush. If the environment includes oil, fingerprints, dog nose prints, or fragments of egg-salad sandwich with mayonnaise, you will have to go on to the active cleaning.

Look at the head and tail images. These products are all designed to get after those heavier contaminants. You'll see three packets of dry lens tissue - soft one-use paper that can be safely wiped over glass. I would recommend that you either use a commercial eyeglass spray cleaner to wet one of these, followed by a dry wipe with a second tissue, or resort to the good old el-cheapo alternative of one drop of washing-up liquid in a glass of distilled water. Do not use drinking alcohol to wipe over the glass surface, particularly do not use Midori or Advocaat.

A packet of these dry tissues are a good partner to a couple of the Hama Feuchtreinigungstuchen. Say that late at night and see what materialises in the dark....

If you are caught out in the field, away from the washing-up liquid, he best cleaners are the Hoodman Lens Cleanse packets. They are a wet then dry combo and can remove anything organic. Highly recommended by Ernest, the fussy technician.

Last on the list are the microfibre cloths - these are available from several manufacturers, including one with our shop logo emblazoned on it. Use them to keep the small bits of oily smear at bay - they can also be washed out when they become fouled.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Losing It - With SanDisk, Promaster, And Hoodman





Did you know who the largest supplier of digital camera connector cords, camera chargers, and mobile phone charges the world is?

Hilton Hotel chain. They source them from the things that travellers forget in their rooms when they
check out.

We get daily calls for camera cords and chargers, and nearly always we advise the frantic tourists to get a universal charger and a memory card reader. The card readers transfer the data much faster than most cords and the camera batteries are not depleted in the process. They are also much cheaper than replacement cords, particularly when you find a manufacturer that picks a totally unique socket for their camera



Herewith please note three readers in stock now. The tiny Promaster for SD only, the mighty Hoodman for SD and CF and the SanDisk for SD, CF, and Memory stick. If your camera uses the Guatemalan FDQ/X-3 card with the reverse frammis, don't lose your cord.


On another topic, look through the viewfinder or screen of your camera and point the lens at the Eiffel Tower. If the tower looks fuzzy and pink, you either need to stop drinking before lunch or clean the lens of your camera. And the viewfinder and the screen - get yourself a set of LensPen maintenance tools and set to work.



The Filterklear and the Lenspen will do the front of the camera and the tiny little Micropro will get the back clean. They have  a cleaning compound and specially shaped applicators as well as fine brushes to lift off particulate matter.



If you have a grungy iPad or tablet look at the LensPen Sidekick cleaner - same idea with a big square replaceable cleaning pad. Your Facebook surfing will never look so good...