Care and Cleaning of Optics

Never put cleaning material (or water) directly on any type of lens. You stand a very good chance of having the liquid seep into the optics. Put the cleaning material on a soft tissue instead. Pure (white) Kleenex (Brand) tissues are good for this sort of application. I'm not sure Kleenex makes scented tissues, but definitely don't use them if they do. It's best to fold the Kleenex into a pillow by folding it over on itself a few times.

When using the Kleenex pillow with water or a cleaning solution, there's no need to apply much pressure to remove substances contaminating a glass surface.

If you use an air spray can to remove dust from lenses, make sure you follow the instructions. Do not tip the can. If you are not careful, you can spray some of the propellant onto the lens. If so, I've found that using only water with a Kleenex pad to remove the material works better than applying cleaning mixtures containing soap or alcohol.

I've found the cleaning mixture in the LX-200 manual pretty useful. Here are the recipes recommended. Put each mix in a plastic spray bottle (from a drug store).

• Container 1 (For Residual Film Build-up): Just use pure isopropyl alcohol (90% or better).
• Container 2 (For fingerprints, saliva, oily residue, grease): 1 part pure isopropyl alcohol, 2 parts distilled water, 1 drop of liquid dishwashing soap. It works with coated or uncoated lens surfaces.