Anandnra Loc: Tennessee

wipe .... wife's always clean!!

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

the very best solution is a blower and lens tissue combination. wipe very slightly in a circular motion. when absolutely necessary use one or two drops of camera lens cleaning solution.
what ever you do, please do not use eyeglass cloths or solution. it's a very different animal.
cleaning marks on the front surface of the lens (the notorious summitar comes to mind) can deal with a few minor scratches, but many small ones will knock down contrast. a deep scratch may cause the lens to flare (in that case, try painting (honest!) the scratch with black paint. it may fill it in and take care of the flare issue. as nothing focuses on the front element of a lens, the above will have no significant effect.
but as the other folks have advised - ixnay on the tee shirt (even though i've done it too!!!!)

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

Jerry. Are you telling me I have to start wearing clothing now when I go to the beach?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Depending on the beach and the time of the year, that's up to you. Bathing suits have gotten pretty expensive. Of course you might want to wear just the T-shirt in case your lens gets dirty.:D

romanticf16 Loc: Commerce Twp, MI

If the Tee shirt was dried with fabric softener, using it on a wet lens may leave a film harmful to the coating on the lens. Otherwise, a clean, soft cloth would be OK.

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

I usually have to soak the T-shirt in the ocean so I don't have to spit on the lens before rubbing it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Good idea. You get all those natural ingredients that are so good for cleaning.

HarryBinNC Loc: Blue Ridge Mtns, No.Carolina, USA

I still have and regularly use a bunch of Nikkors from my film days - all at least 30 years old. I have never cleaned them with anything but my shirttails, and I have never used filters unless I needed one for a special photographic effect. The lense surfaces on all of them are still like new, except for a fish-eye that I bought used. It was really messed up by the original owner, and you would swear that it would be unuseable if you saw it. However, I have never taken a picture with it that was obviously suffering from the largely worn off coating and the many many scratches! I do keep a small bottle of lens cleaner in my bag to help with pesky fingerprint removal.

GeorgeH Loc: Jonesboro, GA

Aha! Is that why laundry instructions for microfiber lens cloths caution against softener? I've taken to buying microfiber cloth at a fabric store, guided by my wife Flora who is a wizard seamstress. Much, much cheaper, and .... your choice of colors and patterns! :lol:

jelecroy Loc: Huntsville, AL

Back in the dark ages when I was a professional press photographer we would occasionally get visits from Nikon technical reps. One visit I remember in particular. The rep came in to the meeting room at the newspaper sort of shuffling along, sliding on the floor with a Nikor lens under each shoe. His point was that the Nikor professional lenses were built tough. Later in that same talk the question came up about lens cleaning. The Nikon guy told us to keep doing what we all did anyway, and demonstrated by cleaning the thousand dollar lens in his hand with the back of his tie (yes, we all wore ties in those days). I've had more than one Nikon lens front element messed up by environmental stress (like crap blowing out of a blast furnace, or ordnance going off nearby). The repair, which was replacing the front element, was surprisingly affordable. Modern consumer-grade lenses made with plastic structure are not likely to be quite so durable, but they are much less expensive to replace. And lens and filter coatings have improved a lot in recent years. Modern pro-grade filters have coatings that are hard enough to resist a fair amount of abuse, repel water and dirt, and just don't cause any image degradation. I am a big fan of the better B+H filters.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Your doctor was telling you not to use paper on plastic lens. Very few optical lens are made of glass today. If you scratch something by using paper it wasn't glass, it was something else.