Question about the moment I found out I was cleaning lens elements the wrong way for 3 years

Ryan Shah · 2026-10-12T14:25:05.614591+00:00

I was working on a beat up Nikon 50mm 1.8 last week and the front element had this haze I could not get rid of, so I did what I always do. I huffed on it and wiped it in circles with a microfiber cloth, same as I have done since I started fixing glass back in 2021. After about 40 minutes of this the haze was still there and honestly maybe worse. A guy at the shop named Dev said to me, why are you breathing on it, all you are doing is pushing oil around. That one sentence hit me hard. I looked it up on my phone right there at the bench and sure enough, the moisture from your breath mixes with the skin oils and it just smears the film instead of lifting it. He handed me a bottle of Eclipse fluid and a fresh pad and the haze came off in two passes. I felt like such an idiot standing there with a lens I had been scrubbing for almost an hour. So what is your go to method for a really stubborn film on a coated element, are you using fluid first or a dry brush, and how do you keep from overdoing it on old coatings?

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Question about the moment I found out I was cleaning lens elements the wrong way for 3 years | Camera Repairers - Thought Shares