TP: Cleaning the sensor in your camera |
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MiPr
Admin Group Mikre Dyxum Administrator Joined: 25 August 2006 Country: Poland Location: Wroclaw Status: Offline Posts: 22277 |
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Topic: TP: Cleaning the sensor in your camera Posted: 02 June 2008 at 12:54 |
Cleaning the sensor in your camera
First of all - why do you need to clean your sensor? The answer is simple: small dust particles deposited on your sensor will obscure light coming to it and as a result some dark spots ("dust specks", "dust bunnies") will appear on the photo. On photos with a lot of detail (e.g. landscape with lots of grass, trees, etc.) they may not be visible but they become apparent on shots where sky takes most part of the frame. Besides sky is usually shot at higher aperture numbers and dust bunnies have a bad habit of becoming more pronounced at higher f-stops (the higher f-number, the more visible and "sharp" the dust speck is). Here we have a shot illustrating how it looks (courtesy of k9tales) - dust spots are circled in red. When to clean the sensor? Before you start doing anything you should check whether you need to at all. The test is very simple, can be done in a minute or two, and all you need is your camera with a lens mounted. The very first step is to unmount the lens, examine the rear element, and clean it if necessary. That's because dust on rear element can give an effect similar to dust on the sensor (recently I was caught by this - I spent a few minutes cleaning sensor where there was no need for it at all). Using a blower or a lens brush on the rear element should be enough. After mounting the lens back, the test can be started: turn your camera on, switch it to manual focus and aperture priority. If a zoom lens is being used, set it to longest focal length and then set the aperture to the highest value possible. Now there are two ways of continuing this check:
Now the decision must be taken: to clean or not to clean? My personal approach is: don't do it if the dust specks are not very pronounced. If at f29 you see some faint specks then it's not worth the hassle - on f11~f16 you probably will hardly see them (you can check this). Similarly, if there are only one or two specks you may be able to live with that - it's very easy to work-around this in post-processing. What equipment is needed? From my experience most of the sensor dust can be blown away with a stream of air - I bet that more than 90% of cases are cured just with a good puff (I have never ever had to use any "wet" method on my DSLRs). Beware: never use any canned air as it is wet (they use some chemicals inside) and these will make things much worse - believe me, you really don't want a bunch of small droplets on the sensor. The right approach is to use so-called rocket blower, which is simply a kind or a bulb syringe, which you can get in nearby pharmacy for a few bucks. Both "devices" are clean (i.e. no dust inside) so you can safely blow air on sensor. Besides they also can be used to blow dust from lenses and from mirror compartment in the camera body, so it is a really useful tool. BTW, never ever give the blower to your children - I was really lucky that I discovered that my children used my cleaning syringe to play with water before I used it on the sensor ... Next stage would be "dry" mechanical cleaning - the suggested method is to sweep the sensor with some clean soft brush. This brush can be the one made specifically for sensor cleaning, like the Visible Dust products reviewed by Kiklop here and here, but it also can be ... a simple cosmetic brush - please see this article how to choose and prepare such brush for cleaning (BTW, the "filter test" is a great method of testing if a bulb syringe is clean - just blow on a filter before blowing on sensor and throw out the syringe if it is not clean). The other "dry" approach is to use or some soft, clean cloth (e.g. a "pec pad") wrapped around some spatula. Personally I had to use the method only once and I used ... a cotton bud for that (clean, almost sterile, has nice "brushing" effect, it does not loose cotton because it is all wrapped around tightly, the disadvantage is that they are rounded so the area of contact is very small) and it turned out to be quite effective on that single annoying dust particle which didn't want to be blown off . The last resort in my opinion is a wet method. I have never needed to use it so I have no experience whatsoever. The principle is similar to the above-mentioned "dry" method (spatula + pec pad), but now you put some solvent on the cloth (e.g. look for Copper Hill Method). Just like window cleaning and probably with the same risks: some smudges can always be left on the glass. How to do this? First of all - do not be afraid. Sensor is not that sensitive and it is hard to break it unless you are really incautious. Besides, you never actually touch the sensor itself as it is covered with a glass filter element. Anyway, sensor cleaning is not anything that requires a visit to a service center - you can do it yourself. Steps required are following:
p.s. Dear Dyxumers, please feel free to add your comments, suggestions, and observations that may be useful for others. Edited by brettania - 02 June 2008 at 13:53 |
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MichelvA
Alpha Eyes group Knowledge Base Contributor Joined: 26 April 2008 Country: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 20589 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 13:16 |
A few days ago i saw a small dust particle on photo's of the air.
Went to a Photo-equipment store and bought this set. It consists of a pressurized can (to vacuum clean the sensor) and 6 pads. There are wet pads to clean the sensor (after vacuum) and dry pads to remove the fluid. Works great! The box mentions it is not suited for full frame... edit: i have the SC-4200 set. Details of the vacuum clean device can be seen here. The underpressure (no vacuum of course..) is equivalent to a 2m watercolomn. Edited by MichelvA - 02 June 2008 at 13:25 |
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pegelli
Admin Group Dyxum Administrator Joined: 02 June 2007 Country: Belgium Location: Schilde Status: Offline Posts: 38252 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 13:16 |
@ mipr: very good and clear story. Thanks for sharing.
Couple of additional comments: 1: Preventions beats curing, i.e. never change lenses in a dusty/dirty environment. Do it quickly, immediately replace the rear element lens cap and hold the camera with the lens mount facing down to reduce the chances of dust falling in. Also when I change lenses at home I usually blow the rear element as well as the mirror chamber with a rocket blower so dust particles get blown out as far as possible. 2: I'm as lucky as mipr, sofar only used a blower and a arctic butterfly brush. Never had to resort to mechanical or wet cleaning. With the arctic butterfly be carefull not to have the hairs pick up grease from the shutter mechanism. Next time this might get smeared on the sensor 3: consider a sensor loupe (Delkin or other brand). Actually being able to look at the glass filter in front of your sensor and see dust (or even better see no dust ) gives great piece of mind. Clean the sensor loupe carefully before use (you don't want your tools to be the source of your dust, do you ) |
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dogears
Senior Member Joined: 05 September 2006 Country: Philippines Location: Philippines Status: Online Posts: 9527 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 13:42 |
I've successfully cleaned the sensor on my KM7D and KM5D with cotton buds. Just pinch the tip of the cotton bud to make 'wooly' tip and gently use that to wipe the stubborn dust on the sensor.
Where's the disclaimer? |
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dA100vor
Senior Member Joined: 12 December 2006 Country: Australia Location: Australia Status: Offline Posts: 904 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 13:44 |
Mentioned this before somewhere, but almost got shot down (even with a warning) but now I got my flak jacket on - oh and ear plugs for the whining
So... In case you dont have a full battery or for a quick in-field clean... I usually set the cam to shutter mode, put the shutter on around 5s and just give it a few quick blows with the rocket. Probably go about half way in and do it very very quickly. WARNING: obviously this is not recommended for those that are unsure or slow or want to be precise etc. It is just a 'last resort' type of clean that I figured you could do in case you are on the last battery or only have one battery (like myself). So if unsure, dont attempt this... |
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MiPr
Admin Group Mikre Dyxum Administrator Joined: 25 August 2006 Country: Poland Location: Wroclaw Status: Offline Posts: 22277 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 14:15 |
What whining? That's simple: you break it - your problem To be honest - usually battery does not need to be at 100%. Recently I cleaned the sensor with a battery at a few percent of load. Strictly speaking I used the grip with two accus: one at a few % and a second one at 100%. I did not notice the battery load to be affected - it remained at the same load level. |
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I'm noise-blind. And noise-about-noise-deaf too ... | BTW, Dyxum Weekly Exhibitions don't grow on trees ...
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momech
Senior Member Joined: 27 August 2006 Country: United States Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 2934 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 14:25 |
This site has some excellent on line tutorials and products:
http://www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=Tutorials |
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Mark L
Senior Member Joined: 28 August 2007 Country: United Kingdom Location: North Dorset Status: Offline Posts: 3750 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 02 June 2008 at 14:58 |
If you perform an auto levels adjustment on your pure white (or sky blue) test photo, that really shows up every speck of dust.
I have also mentioned Dust Aid pads before. According to that UK site, the most recent versions have now been given the OK for use on A100 and A700 sensors, and in any case I have already used the older, classic version on my 7Ds and A700 without problems. Dust Aid is my preferred cleaning method when blowing doesn't work. Like others, I haven't had to use a wet method yet. |
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brettania
Admin Group Dyxum factotum Joined: 17 July 2005 Country: New Zealand Location: Auckland Status: Offline Posts: 20649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 03 June 2008 at 12:16 |
Some further "experiences" can be found here.
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DLNY
Senior Member Joined: 05 January 2007 Country: United Kingdom Location: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 1821 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 04 June 2008 at 00:42 |
Said and done this before, open the shutter through the menu and stick the vacuumhoover in, turn it on and most bunnies get sucked away. (if your sensor gets sucked up, most hoovers can be opened)
Thanks Mipr for the TP |
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MiPr
Admin Group Mikre Dyxum Administrator Joined: 25 August 2006 Country: Poland Location: Wroclaw Status: Offline Posts: 22277 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 04 June 2008 at 08:21 |
DLNY, what vacuumhoover do you mean? Any links? Or you are just kidding?
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I'm noise-blind. And noise-about-noise-deaf too ... | BTW, Dyxum Weekly Exhibitions don't grow on trees ...
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MichelvA
Alpha Eyes group Knowledge Base Contributor Joined: 26 April 2008 Country: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 20589 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 04 June 2008 at 09:13 |
Maybe something that looks like this..? See also the second post in this thread. From my experience i can say it works pretty good.
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DLNY
Senior Member Joined: 05 January 2007 Country: United Kingdom Location: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 1821 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 04 June 2008 at 21:45 |
No I mean the thing you use to clean your carpet. They come with a smaller nozzle for sofa's and so. This nozzle is usually clean and it does a good job. Cleared all my dust bunnies!
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MichelvA
Alpha Eyes group Knowledge Base Contributor Joined: 26 April 2008 Country: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 20589 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 04 June 2008 at 22:02 |
Don't you find using such a relatively big device inside your camera a little risky? It might work, i agree, but i'd rather use a cleaning method especially made for a DSLR camera.
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