To the rescue!

I had a very serious mishap while taking photographs at the local canal. I decided to change my filter on my Tamron 18-250 to a circular polarizer, and that is when the problem began. As I was removing the filter and had the lens facing up a bird dropped a huge glob of poop on both the filter and the lens. I quickly ran home to clean the lens as I thought the birds excrement might eat into the coatings of the lens. I used my standard liquid lens cleaner and some lens tissue to gently clean the filter as I didn't want to experiment on the expensive lens. Well all the lens cleaner did was smear the junk around. The next day I attended PDN Photo Plus in NYC and went to both the Hoya & the Tamron booths and asked both what to use to clean the filter and the lens. They both suggested "off the record" that I use Eclipse Lens Cleaner and Pec*Pads to safely clean both. I ordered both as soon as I got home, and prayed that the delay would not do permanent damage to the equipment. I received the package yesterday and proceeded to clean the filter first. In a few minutes the glossy spots on the filter were gone and it looked like there was no permanent damage to the filter. I next held my breath and started to gently clean the surface of the lens. The lens took two pads and only 4 drops of the Eclipse liquid to clean the lens. After cleaning I examined the lens and to my great surprise there was no damage what so ever to the lens. I highly recommend this combination of cleaning materials to all that want to keep there equipment in pristine condition.

I was notified today that my Sima Quick Release was shipped today via FedEx and I guess i should have it in a few days. The Monopod was shipped Airmail from Hong Kong on the 23rd, but that will take a week to 10 days to reach my desk. I will write a mini review on both products.