It’s #anythingcanhappenday here on my blog and today I want to talk about something that’s critically important for photographers: their vision.
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 high school classrooms and, all of a sudden, I couldn’t read anything written on the blackboard. A trip to the school Nurse’s office showed that I needed glasses and so I went to a local optician whose costs 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 even riding in Mary’s Subaru, I wear glasses, 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 the shop where your glasses are made will be glad sell you but I’d like to introduce you to something different, better and, in the long run, less expensive
Get a Peep At That!
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 between two 27-inch iMacs 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 where I keep my Olympus Pen F when I go out for a PhotoWalk. Peeps are compact, measuring just 4x1x1-inches, weigh just 12 ounces and are available in a variety of colors for the fashion conscious, The cleaning tips have the same Carbon compound that’s used in LensPen products and are 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 used in many eyeglasses. Second, you slide out the arms from the holder and use smooth circular motions to clean both sides of the lens at the same time. If any smudges remain, Peeps 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 and as I’ve found having more than one at hand is a really good idea/
I’ve been cleaning my glasses with Peeps ever since they were introduced. 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.