How To Make Your Own Lens Cleaner

c1970s Kodak lens cleaning solution

I got caught on a vacation once without my trusty bottle of Kodak lens cleaner. So this is what I did…

Lens pens are great, but sometimes you really need to do some deep cleaning. I’ve had this little bottle of Kodak lens cleaner for more years than I can remember. It’s a little less than half full. 1-1/4 ounces of this stuff goes a long way. It works great, is slightly yellow and smells of ammonia.

Kodak no long makes this stuff. Heck, Kodak no longer makes much of anything. Sadly at this point they’re mostly a holding company. But plenty of other companies do make lens cleaner and charge a ridiculous amount for it. But if you’ve spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on lenses, what’s another ten or so on a bottle of cleaning solution, right?

Well, if you’re away, you can’t always get the good stuff. Not many camera shops around these days, so, you have to improvise. Material data safety sheets are a wonderful thing. Fortunately, I did have access to the internet, and came across one for one of the most popular lens cleaners. The ingredients? 85% distilled water, 10% liquid soap, 5% isopropyl alcohol, and some trace elements. A surfactant, an organic solvent, and nature’s most abundant solvent, water.

I needed stuff I either had, or could find around the rental. Water was no problem; I had a bottle of Dasani, which is simply purified tap water. My honey had 70% isopropyl alcohol, which is 30% water. I needed water, so I could use this. But, the liquid soap was tricky, because most have perfumes and additives.

I recall reading somewhere that an expert once recommended a 50-50 solution of water and Windex. Windex  is mostly water anyway, and the ammonia in Windex (like the Kodak lens cleaner) prevents streaking. So what I finally concocted was this:

• 1 part 70% isopropyl alcohol
• 1 part Windex
• 8 parts distilled water

I tested it on one of my hardest to clean, multi-coated filters first. I touched the side of my nose with my index finger and swirled it three times in the center of the filter, creating the worst skin-oil deposit I have ever seen. I put a single drop of the solution on a microfiber lens cleaning cloth and worked in a spiral from the center outward. I then breathed on the filter and lightly buffed it with a dry portion of the cloth until any remaining streaks were removed (Don’t forget, this was the world’s worst skin oil deposit). The solution worked as well, if not better than the Kodak solution.

Then, I did the same thing with an actual lens. There was much less buffing, and the process went much faster. On single-coated or non-coated filters, it’s even easier.

Fortunately, my daughter had just used up a bottle of contact wetting solution, which was the perfect vessel for my new concoction. I thoroughly rinsed it out, popped off the inner cap, and poured it in.

I stil have that little bottle in my camera bag, and it works great in a pinch.