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Cleaning focus screens with dish soap beat my $30 lens cleaning kit
I had a Nikon FM2 in last week with a focus screen so hazy you could barely see the split image, and my usual pec pads and eclipse fluid just smeared the grime around. Out of frustration I pulled the screen and gave it a bath in warm water with one drop of Dawn, swishing it gently with my fingertip for maybe 20 seconds. Rinsed it under the tap, blew it dry with a rocket blower, and it came out crystal clear with zero scratches. The $30 kit is now sitting in a drawer while the $4 bottle of soap does all my screen work. Anyone else use dish soap on theirs, or am I asking for trouble down the road with coating breakdown?
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roberts.diana25d ago
What did you use to dry the screen after the rinse? Here's the thing nobody talks about: tap water leaves mineral spots when it dries, and those spots look a lot like the haze you just cleaned off. I've had good luck with the soap bath myself on older screens, but I always do a final rinse with distilled water and then blot the edges with a lint free cloth before the blower. The coating question is real too, some of the later screens have a thin anti reflective layer that can cloud up over time, so I'd keep an eye on yours over the next few months.
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