Nothing beats a clean sensor

[© Tom Cooper]

Being new to the digital Interchangeable Lens world, the idea of sensor cleaning has been on my mind.  It became bigger recently when I realized there were blobs in the sky that seemed to be following me around.  Dust on film is no big deal, because you advance the film and it goes away; the problem is usually only there for one frame.  Dust on my old digital camera was not a major problem because the entire camera was sealed.  But of course if it was a problem, there wouldn't have been anything I could do about it because I couldn't take the lesn offf anyway.

 

So conventional wisdom is to stop down your lens and point your camera at a clear blue sky to show all the junk on the sensor.  I did.  It did.  Yuck.

 

I now have a RocketFish blower and all the junk is gone...for now.  I know that eventually there will be stuff I can't get rid of with a little air and more agressive action will be required.  But until then, I'm happy.

 

Tom

[Galatas ©]

Aggressive action is a big No No. I have had a D200 sitting in a drawer for over two years because I was over enthusiastic when cleaning it and left a tiny scratch on the sensor's low pass filter.On the D200 , and probably some other models , the filter is not replaceable. The entire sensor module has to be changed. In the case of the D200 that costs more than the camera is worth.

 

Nice and easy does it when swabbing the sensor. Gently stroke the swab across the sensor in one direction , turn the swab over and wipe in the opposite direction. If that hasn't removed all traces of dust try again with a new swab.

[© Tom Cooper]

Just to clarify, what I meant by "more aggressive" was no more than a carefully applied cleaning kit (what you describe);  in other words, more aggressive than a blower.

This is not a place to go cheap, either.  I have read stories from others about their cheap kit etching the filter and leaving them in the same place you are.

Tom

On Friday, April 11, 2014 1:52:31 PM UTC-5, Galatas © wrote:

Aggressive action is a big No No. I have had a D200 sitting in a drawer for over two years because I was over enthusiastic when cleaning it and left a tiny scratch on the sensor's low pass filter.On the D200 , and probably some other models , the filter is not replaceable. The entire sensor module has to be changed. In the case of the D200 that costs more than the camera is worth.

 

Nice and easy does it when swabbing the sensor. Gently stroke the swab across the sensor in one direction , turn the swab over and wipe in the opposite direction. If that hasn't removed all traces of dust try again with a new swab.

 

 On Thursday, April 10, 2014 8:29:35 PM UTC+1, © Tom Cooper wrote:

[™Ken Kruse™]

Many DSLR's now have built-in dust removal features. Some vibrate the sensor while others blow a puff of air across the sensor. I think some are activated automatically while others require a menu selection to activate it.

I've had my camera for over 2 years now and haven't noticed any dust yet. I am always very careful when changing lenses and never leave the body open for more than a half second by having a lens in each hand as I swap. I also always keep the open end of a lens pointed down to help avoid dust collection prior to installation.

As I'm sure you already know, there are countless tutorials on sensor cleaning to help when the need does arise. A quick Google search turned up thousands of hits.