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Warning: I cleaned a focus screen with canned air for 3 years and it was making things worse
I do repairs out of my basement in Boise and mostly work on old film SLRs. For a long time, any time I had dust in the viewfinder or on the focus screen, I would grab a can of air and blast it. I thought I was being careful. Then a Canon AE-1 came in with a scratched focus screen and the owner said he tried to clean it himself. I figured I would just blow the dust off and be done with it, but when I looked through the finder the specks were still there and now there were streaks too. Turns out the propellant in canned air can spit out and leave a film on the plastic screen, and the pressure can also push dust further in or bend the screen. What finally tipped me off was a guy at a camera swap in Spokane who took one look and said the screen looked like it had been hosed down with propellant. I switched to a bulb blower and a soft brush and my results got way better. Has anyone else learned this the hard way, or am I the only one who was wrecking screens with canned air?
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nathankim9h ago
The propellant spit is real and it does leave that film on the plastic, so you're not imagining it. What got me was the pressure thing, because even with a bulb blower you can push grit around if you get too close, so I hold the blower a few inches back and use a clean brush first for anything stuck. Screens are cheap enough to just swap on most of these old bodies, which beats fighting a scratch you can't undo.
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