On 17 Jul 2002 04:16:00 GMT, bfullmer@aol.com (BFullmer) wrote:

>I have a couple of Nikon L37c filters that I am having a devil of a time
>cleaning. They aren't all that dirty, just some streaks from cleaning. I have
>been fogging them with my breath, then using lens tissue in a circular motion
>from the center outward. I don't want to over do it for fear of damaging the
>coating.

Cleaning multicoated filters is an annoying process...;-)
If the filter is very clean but for a few slight
"discoloration" marks or bright spots, try breathing upward
on the filter and using a clean Q-Tip cotton swab, moving it
circularly starting at the center of the problem, and moving
outward (while rotating the swab slowly). Finish up with a
clean dry swab. For stubborn spots, I use lighter fluid
on a swab, then breath and the same swab once the naphtha
has mostly evaporated. If the mess is worse than this, I
wash the filter with diluted Palmolive dish detergent,
rinse it thoroughly in tap water, then rinse it with
distilled water and blow off the droplets until it is dry.
Minor remaining marks can be cleaned as above, or
with the aid of Windex on a good lens tissue...
BTW, always wash hands with detergent before trying to clean
glass, and always breath upward on glass to fog it (to avoid
the silvery "spit" spots...). I'm a nut about having clean
glass, though I know multicoated glass can be left with
lightly discolored areas without problems - it just looks
bad...