Here’s how to easily and thoroughly clean your tripod

Many of us pay a lot of attention to cleaning camera lenses. There are different products for this purpose, as well as plenty of tutorials. But what about tripods? Do you pay attention to cleaning them too? If you’d like them to last a long time and work well, you should give them a good clean from time to time. In this video tutorial, photographer Troy Nikolic gives you some tips how to get your tripod clean and good as new.

You will need

• Soft toothbrush
• Water
• Silicone-based lubricant
• Cloths

How to do the cleaning

First, break down every piece of the tripod. Pull out each part of the legs, take off all the screws and leg tabs. Have it all organized as you break the pieces down, so it will be easier to get them back in place later.

Next, take the toothbrush and dip in in water. Rub every piece of the legs with the wet toothbrush, and dry well with a cloth.

After this, take the lubricant and spray onto every piece of the tripod. Put a small dab on every screw part along with the shaft. Then take another cloth and spread it around. This helps lubricate the pieces evenly and also removes the excess lubricant. You don’t need to do this with the screws because they will absorb the lubricant from the legs once you assemble everything together.

When the cleaning is done and all the pieces are lubricated, it’s time to assemble the tripod. It’s important that each part goes exactly where it’s intended to. Troy suggests assembling all three legs at one time and then screwing them into the tripod legs all together. Then, he usually assembles the head and adds it to the tripod.

After you’ve brought all the pieces together again, make sure to check whether everything goes smoothly and if the resistance is as it should be.

And this is pretty much it. The cleaning process itself doesn’t seem too complicated, just make sure to get everything in place correctly. To be honest, I never thought of this before, and my tripod still produces some weird sounds after my brother buried it in the sand last summer. So I think I’ll give this a try. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this: do you clean your tripods and how do you do it? Do you have any extra advice? Share your thoughts in the comments.

[BEST way to Clean Your Dirty Tripod via FStoppers]