It’s #anythingcanhappenday here on my blog and today I want to talk about something that’s critically important for photographers—their vision. After all, it’s #nationalsunweek, so you want to keep you sunglasses clean.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.—Henny Youngman
I’ve noticed that more than a few photographers, including myself, wear glasses. I guess that’s why camera manufacturers invented built-in diopter corrections! As far as I can tell, the first cameras to have built-in adjustable diopter correction, as opposed to screw-in viewfinder adapters, were the Olympus OM-3 (1983) and the Nikon F4 (1988) that’s currently my dream film camera and a story for another day.
I’ve been wearing glasses since the 9th grade. After attending a small Catholic elementary school I found myself sitting in large public school classroom and, all of a sudden, I couldn’t read the blackboard. A trip to the school Nurse’s office showed that I need glasses and so I want to the local optician who was covered by my father’s union membership and got my first pair—Buddy Holly-style —and have been wearing glasses every since.
I usually do all my photography without glasses using the camera’s built-in diopters to correct the DSLR’s viewfinder or the EVF in my mirrorless cameras. When I’m watching movies, driving or photographing outdoors, I wear glasses, as I did in the shoot featured in tomorrow’s post and where I typically end up having the glasses perched on my forehead, which brings me to…
If there’s one thing all of us eyeglass wearers, especially those with prescription sunglasses, have in common it’s dirty glasses. Oh, there are all kinds of expensive wipes and fluids stores and the place where your glasses were made will be glad sell you but I’d like to introduce you to something different and, in the long run, less expensive
Get a Peep At That!
Carbonklean Peeps
are made by the same people who make LensPens, a camera lens cleaning tool that I consider to be an indispensable photo accessory.
Right now I keep one set of (red) Peeps in my office next to my 5K iMac and another (white) one on the coffee table in what Mary euphemistically calls our “home theater room” and where I like to watch movies—with nice clean glasses.
Peeps are compact, meaning they can slip into your pocket or even the LowePro fanny pack I keep my Olympus Pen F in when I take it out for a PhotoWalk. Peeps are compact, measuring just 4x1x1-inches, weigh just 12 ounces and are available in a variety of color and in soft-touch or electroplated finishes for the fashion conscious, They have the same Carbon compound that’s used in LensPen products that’s formulated to handle the fingerprint oils that find their way onto lenses, filters, screens and, in this case, eyeglass lenses!
Cleaning eyeglasses with Peeps is a simple two-step process: First, you use the retractable brush to remove any loose dust or potentially abrasive particles from the lenses.This step is critical to protect any lens that has any of the anti-reflective coatings that are used in prescription eyeglasses. Second, you slide out the arms from the holder and clean both sides of the lens using smooth circular motions. If any smudges remain, Carbonklean suggests you gently breathe on the lenses and repeat. Each time the arms slide back into the holder, the carbon on the cleaning tips is replenished and cleaning tips can be recharged up to 500 times. Peeps sell for $19.99 each but right now a three-pack is on sale for $50.98 and as I;ve found having more than one is a really good idea/
LensPen is a long-time sponsor of my sites and blogs but I was using their products long before I even had a blog. Mary bought me my first LensPen in 1994 after I acquired a Nikon N90s film-based SLR! I would like to thank LensPen for their continued support. I’ve been cleaning my glasses with Peeps ever since they were introduced.