Cleaning camera lens with cotton bud?

is this safe?

Never cotton balls.
I'm starting a war on microfiber cloth. It holds all the gunk you wipe off and puts it back on the next time you use it. It absorbs the oils from your fingers and puts that on the lens too. Plus, it has taken up all the shelf space that belonged to lens paper. You can't even find a good cleaning solution in some camera shops.
I use Nikon lens cleaning solution with Tiffen paper, and Nikon Moist Lens Cloths. The moist lens cloths are the way to go in the field.
If you use microfiber, keep it clean.

It is possible to purchase lens cleaning tissue in small sheet booklets. I have used this for many years with no damage to the lenses.
You can use a micrfibre cloth BUT remember that what you clean off goes into the cloth. Using tissues what you clean off gets thrown in the bin.
I you use a liquid make sure you use it sparingly - any surplus could get down into the body of the lens in some instances.

That's a sin.

Buy yourself a good quality camera cloth and invest in some lint free wipes specially for cameras. If you use DSLR invest in a proper cleaning system.

Link : http://www.devoncamera.co.uk/index.cfm/p...

Never use cotton buds or household tissue (especially toilet roll!!) they're surprisingly abrasive.

Pec Pads and Eclipse fluid is a safe option and works well.

http://www.photosol.com/padproduct.htm

They are easily available from a number of sources both on the High Street and on-line.

They also make sensor cleaning supplies too.

Chris

NO..and neither is tissue or your sleeve.

Go to a photography shop and ask them for a microfiber cloth. This stuff does wonders and you don't need any fluid (unless you got something really bad on there)

Absolutely not. You need a lint-free lens cleaning which can be found in camera stores.

Yeah, listen to what they said. They're not expensive. In fact they're fairly cheap.