10-22-2017, 08:33 AM
Hi Arthur,
I promised to try cleaning the mirror of my now dead donor Samsung GX10 (equiv. to Pentax K10) .......
.......... I've just now dragged it out in it's half open box from under the settee, I have no further Pentax gear left including it's front camera cap.......thus the mirror was well and truly dirty.......it's also in the permanent up position...it's main board was plundered for another GX10.
So it's mirror was just made for this test, it was covered in "bits" and was grimy....an ideal candidate.....I used a "Reidl" wet clean kit which uses the usual paddles and refined alcohol.........I had to hold the mirror in the down position with a cocktail stick....paddle dosed, I started cleaning gently .....the bits were well stuck on and needed additional scrubbing to unstick them, after ten or so passes I examined the result through a decent magnifying glass.......all looked well, no visible scratches!.
With the mirror in the half down position the secondary mirror folds out...it's possible to see through the primary mirror holding up to a bright window and visa verser looking through the main one.
I then decided to be less gentle......and "scrubbed" back and forth fairly brutally to see if anything changed....after about twenty scrubs I looked again....no sign of any difference...except cleaner, the semi translucent center part of the main mirror has a rectangle which is quite a significant portion of the whole and all looked much the same. The view through the finder looked as it always did, a semi brutal test!
So, the "call is yours" Arthur.........IMHO a quick pass with a clean proper paddle with the appropriate alcohol would do little harm.....who knows what "smear" you have on your mirror? It's finger-prints with their acid content that risks the most on an unprotected metalized surface.
If it was me I would just do it....but then most here would have guessed that!
PS. It may be worth a quick clean with a rocket blower to the under-mirror to remove any dust lurking there and also on the AF prism........(I don't know Canon's system)
Go well!
I promised to try cleaning the mirror of my now dead donor Samsung GX10 (equiv. to Pentax K10) .......
.......... I've just now dragged it out in it's half open box from under the settee, I have no further Pentax gear left including it's front camera cap.......thus the mirror was well and truly dirty.......it's also in the permanent up position...it's main board was plundered for another GX10.
So it's mirror was just made for this test, it was covered in "bits" and was grimy....an ideal candidate.....I used a "Reidl" wet clean kit which uses the usual paddles and refined alcohol.........I had to hold the mirror in the down position with a cocktail stick....paddle dosed, I started cleaning gently .....the bits were well stuck on and needed additional scrubbing to unstick them, after ten or so passes I examined the result through a decent magnifying glass.......all looked well, no visible scratches!.
With the mirror in the half down position the secondary mirror folds out...it's possible to see through the primary mirror holding up to a bright window and visa verser looking through the main one.
I then decided to be less gentle......and "scrubbed" back and forth fairly brutally to see if anything changed....after about twenty scrubs I looked again....no sign of any difference...except cleaner, the semi translucent center part of the main mirror has a rectangle which is quite a significant portion of the whole and all looked much the same. The view through the finder looked as it always did, a semi brutal test!
So, the "call is yours" Arthur.........IMHO a quick pass with a clean proper paddle with the appropriate alcohol would do little harm.....who knows what "smear" you have on your mirror? It's finger-prints with their acid content that risks the most on an unprotected metalized surface.
If it was me I would just do it....but then most here would have guessed that!
PS. It may be worth a quick clean with a rocket blower to the under-mirror to remove any dust lurking there and also on the AF prism........(I don't know Canon's system)
Go well!