camera cleaning

[Alan Campbell]

Hi folks

can anyone give suitable advice on cleaning the outside of cameras and lenses
what should I use, especially for the rubber grips on the body.
can small white stains from the rubber be cleaned off.

any help appreciated

Alan

[Trev B]

It depends on what type of dirt you are trying to clean off. My own camera's all too often get splashed with mud and water. I just let it dry then brush it with an old toothbrush and wipe over the body with mild soapy water. You need to be careful with the water, they may say your camera is WP but they are not. Obviously cleaning the lens needs care, there is stuff on the market for doing lens.

[John Liddle]

Canon recommend a microfibre cloth (plus isopropyl alcohol for lens glass) as seen in this slightly patronising and somewhat tedious video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhdJyBucqrk

I guess a clean microfibre cloth dampened with distilled water would get most muck off and I would think a touch of IPA would not harm the body. One video I found suggested dashboard cleaner/shiner for the body, but I would imagine that contains silicones and is probably best avoided.

A bit of Googling shows that there are various proprietary preparations (including some which claim to restore rubber grip colour), but goodness knows what they contain!

[2Beers]

The white spots on the rubber grip is most likely caused by perspiration from your hands. Don't know what you could use to clean it off maybe try shoe cream but that may tend to make the grip slippy or you could replace the rubber grip