hi gang maybe this is old news to most of you but I thought I'd post it anyway in case it isn't
got my recent aby steal, a B+W UV/IR-CUT filter in the mail today and replaced the Hoya Pro1 Digital MRC UV filter used so far which despite frequent old school cleaning - give it a good moist breath and wipe it with a piece of microfibre cloth - had lots of spots and fingerprint residue etc on it. I remember reading somewhere Hoyas have a bad rep for being hard to clean and so I broke out the lens cleaning liquid and a bunch of other stuff and the result was invariably a colorful smeary mess looking something like a wet oil stain in the street if you know what I mean. Tried helmet visor cleaning tissue next, eyeglass cleaning tissue, Olympus silicone impregnated lens cleaning parchment and everything I could think of. Same mess every time. So I quit and googled "cleaning Hoya filters" thinking, "heck I'll ask PDML if I can't find anything". Sure enough the first result was http://www.hoyafilter.com/products/hoya/coatings.html where it says "Never use any chemicals, such as lens cleaning fluid, on your filters, as these can damage the coatings. If any stubborn stains occur, these can usually be washed off with some clean water and a soft cotton cloth." Big OUCH, I had used all apparently suitable chemicals at my disposal... so I let it soak in water for a while, found a clean cotton kitchen towel and gently rubbed. Some came off, some didn't so I rubbed harder, figuring the filter was probably ruined anyway. But guess what, every single stain came off, there is no lint on the filter, no scratches, no cleaning marks no matter which way or side I hold it into the light, under a light or shine one across it. It looks absolutely like new. I can't find a single fault. BTW I bought the B+W to test the claim that the K10D's AA filter's IR suppression is weak and that the filter will prevent color casts ("magenta concrete") in darker image areas. There won't be a newer Pentax for me in the near future so I have to squeeze the best out of what I have. If there is anything to report, I will pass it on, if you don't hear from me about this again I wasted a couple of Euros. Cheers Ecke -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
