A careful guide to cleaning cameras

Whether it's a digital SLR with interchangeable lenses or a simple happy snapper, cameras are filled with extremely delicate parts. Cleaning them without doing damage in the process can be daunting. But here are a few tips to make it easier.

• Examine it with a magnifying glass. Any kind of foreign material, including stuff you can't see with the naked eye, will mar your photographs and may damage your lens.
• To get rid of dust or dirt on the lens, start with air. Camera shops sell blower brushes, which, as the name suggests, combine a brush with a blower. The blower on most of these brushes, however, is actually ineffective.
• A bulb syringe, which you can get at any pharmacy, is a better alternative.
• Still more effective is a can of compressed air. Also known as 'canned air', it's an aerosol can containing air under pressure and a nozzle extension. Some people say canned air issues too big a blast, but it is widely used.
• Canned air is available from shops that sell photo supplies, computers or electronics.
• If your lens is removable, check the back end occasionally and clean it in the same way as the front.

• For specks that don't respond to the air treatment, brush them away with a blower brush or soft watercolour paintbrush.
• You can also use a cleaning cloth. But you don't want to move the specks around, as that will only damage the lens or its coating. So take care in choosing a cloth.
• The best is a microfibre lens-cleaning cloth, which can also be used on the body of the camera and can be washed and reused.
• These cloths trap particles among their fibres rather than on the surface, and are available from camera shops.
• If you can't lay your hands on a lens-cleaning cloth, go to plan B: lens tissues, also available at camera shops, or try a lens pen, which combines a retractable brush on one end with a cleaning tip on the other. There are various models on the market at camera shops.

• For removing fingerprints or really persistent specks you may need to use lens-cleaning fluid. There are many types available. Check your owner's manual for recommendations.
• If your camera has a plastic lens, make sure the lens cleaner you buy is suitable for plastic as well as glass.
• Use a few drops of lens-cleaning fluid on a microfibre cloth — never directly on the lens — and clean the lens with a light, circular motion.
• Fingerprints should be cleaned off immediately in this way. If they are left for a long time, fingerprints can actually etch themselves into the glass.
• Fingerprints can also attract glass mould — a type that doesn't need as much moisture as most other moulds. The mould will also feed on dust, and it can destroy the surface of a lens.
• Using your camera in the sunshine every so often will usually be enough to prevent glass mould.
• If you aren't going to use your camera for a while, take it out of the case to prevent a build-up of moisture that could lead to mould.