05-20-2013, 08:46 AM
Thick front elements are really very durable. Optical glass is really hard, and the coatings on lenses are metals that are vaporized on it at very high temperatures, and they are hard and scratch resistant too.
So you do not have to worry, the plastic of front caps is not hard enough to cause scratches. Only things harder than the glass/coatings can scratch lenses.
Sometimes marks appear on the coatings, but those are finger grease marks or dried up fluid drop marks which you can clean off with a tiny bit of lens cleaning fluid and a lens cleaning micro fiber cloth. If there is dust or even a possible grain of sand, you can clean that with a soft lens cleaning brush.
So you do not have to worry, the plastic of front caps is not hard enough to cause scratches. Only things harder than the glass/coatings can scratch lenses.
Sometimes marks appear on the coatings, but those are finger grease marks or dried up fluid drop marks which you can clean off with a tiny bit of lens cleaning fluid and a lens cleaning micro fiber cloth. If there is dust or even a possible grain of sand, you can clean that with a soft lens cleaning brush.