Do I need to clean my lens?

Sandvich

I nearly always have residue on the lens; I don't have the proper solution you're meant to have. I'm considering getting some, but if it's not necessary and ends up costing like €30 I won't bother.

In daylight; my camera takes nice pictures(IMO anyway).

However, without a flash, even when I'm in fairly good focus, I find it tends to show up speckles everywhere(sometimes with a flash too in darker conditions). I read up on it and it said to look for "cells under a microscope". I think these kind of look like that? Google image search showed more zoomed in, romanticised cells but as far as I'm aware these kind of specks are what cells look like under a crappy microscope.



I took a out of focus shot without the flash to show them up. They can be really disruptive. Is this just an artefact of the camera not being particularly good at taking pictures in lower light conditions? When I first got it it seemed to be better.

It's a Canon Powershot A480.

Kazujo

That looks like the camera pushing it's ISO as high as it can go to compensate for the low light. Most compacts suffer in low light without flash as they automatically go to their maximum ISO which reduces the quality of the image.

What do you mean by residue on the lens?

sunny2004

I use my shirt to clean my lenses, and I have for 20 years..

joeKel73

As Kazujo said it looks like very high iso. What camera is it? Have you other modes apart from auto which allow you to set the iso?

To clean the lens I'd recommend getting some lens wipes in your local camera shop. Get the ones in the sealed individual packets, they'll remove the grease from the lens.

Sandvich

It's a Canon Powershot a480. There are some different modes etc. but tbh I haven't figured out everything yet.

Sandvich

There's an ISO button on the camera but it doesn't seem to do anything

the_tractor

Sandvich wrote: »

There's an ISO button on the camera but it doesn't seem to do anything

The A480 allows up to ISO1600 I think - but I would not use it past ISO400.
If left on Auto ISO it will probably use a max of ISO250.

It's hard to know what that is in the image, how much are you cropped in?

For cleaning, I would recommend a small Lens-Pen - it has a small brush and a cleaning pad, should work well for your camera.

5uspect

Sandvich wrote: »

There's an ISO button on the camera but it doesn't seem to do anything

You probably have to put the camera in a mode other than full auto such as P.
From here:

Simplicius

sunny2004 wrote: »

I use my shirt to clean my lenses, and I have for 20 years..

I suggest you take a bright torch and sit one of your shirt cleaned lens on tgop of it and let it shine through the lens .... trust me, you'll be amazed at what you find on the glass