Last Updated on 10/01/2020 by Chris Gampat
The microfiber cloth is perhaps one of the most underrated, most needed items for a photographer.
It’s evident in certain circles that when you become a photographer of a certain experience and one who wears a certain prescription, there is an emphasized need for items like a microfiber cloth. Its uses are numerous and within your circles, you’re expected to carry one in the same way that a scout never leaves home without their pocket knife. The microfiber cloth not only helps photographers keep their glasses clean, but also aids with other problems they are bound to experience.
A photographer uses microfiber cloths for a swath of applications:
- Cleaning lenses
- Cleaning camera viewfinders
- Cleaning LCD screens
- Cleaning the screen of your laptop while on set
- Cleaning the screen of your desktop while working
- Cleaning the lens on your smartphone for when you need to share something quickly on Instagram stories for promotional purposes
These are just a few things a photographer uses them for that are much more photography related. Of course, they’re also fundamental to ensuring that your glasses are clean so that you can take pictures. But the thing is, we don’t tend to think of them enough, although they’re incredibly important to us. You should have one microfiber cloth in every camera bag, in every pair of pants pockets, and you should always have one accessible not only for you, but for another photographer.
You may ask, “Why don’t I just use my shirt?” And the obvious answer is because you’re not a heathen. You’re a civilized human being with a particular skill centralizing around the art of making images. These images are made with a number of different devices that require clean optics and viewfinders for us to get more details in the scene.
These clothes are a million times more important than this short essay can give them credit for.