Sensor Cleaning

[Brigitte]

I own the Nikon D7000 and it is need of a serious sensor clean. I would be interested to know how many of you clean your own sensors and what equipment you use. Currently it is booked in for a service but if this is going to be a regular problem it could work out rather expensive. I have been going some reading on this subject and the impression I get is that so long as one is very careful it should not be a problem to do it yourself. I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks Brigitte

[CherylK]

I play it safe and get mine cleaned by a reputable camera shop. I don't think I would attempt to do it myself.
If they make a mistake cleaning it, they have to fix it.

[ricktas]

I clean mine with stuff from cameracheckpoint

[macmich]

buy a kit of the site sponsor camera checkpoint and do it yourself, it might sound daunting, but once you do it once its as easy as
the kits are a good price and good service off the sponsor
cheers macca

[Darey]

I regularly clean my D7000 with the DustAid kit.
It was a little daunting at first but now I have no fear doing it.
Oh and DustAid gives me a very good clean. :th3:

[arthurking83]

If you are unsure of cleaning it yourself, asking for assistance is as easy as ... umm... asking! :D

I find that after about 1K exposures, most sensors need a bit of a clean to minimize annoyances in images.
From there on, the longer you delay the cleaning process, the harder it is to do.

If you ever need help, just ask.

[wmvaux]

I bought a kit from cameracheckpoint and just use the cleaning swabs. Just put eclipse optic cleaning fluid on both sides of the cleaning swab at the end and swipe from one side to another of the sensor, don't it a few times with no issues. :th3:

[J.davis]

Copied from a previous post on the same topic.

Do it yourself for a few bucks - it's not rocket science.
This is where I got my cleaning kit from.
http://shop.cameracheckpoint.com.au/...aning-kit.html

[glennb]

I just went through the same issue with my d610. Had dust spot all over it got it pro cleaned $80 and after first outing more dust appeared so I brought my own sensor wipes. My kit come with 4 and I used 4 till I got the clean result. I guess with more practice I will get better. WARNING wipe only once on either side of the swab it will leave dust if you try and use it twice.

[old dog]

get the Copperhill cleaning kit....about $80 via ebay. Once you have done it once you realise how easy it really is. I must admit that I was pretty apprehensive the first time but it really is quite easy and does a great job. If you get this kit PM me and I will detail what I do......cheers.

[Greengrass]

Vacuumcleaner.
I just hold it above the lens mount (never enter it!) and that's it.
Works like a charm for me.

[I @ M]

Vacuumcleaner.
I just hold it above the lens mount (never enter it!) and that's it.
Works like a charm for me.

Sorry to be a little negative with the following comment Greengrass but that is possibly the most ill advised idea that I have read for a long time.
There are too many finely constructed and precisely aligned bits and pieces inside a DSLR that are not designed to withstand the sort of pressures that a vacuum cleaner can exert.

Brigitte, purchase a quality sensor cleaning kit and learn / research how to do it yourself, it really isn't that hard and does need to be done on a fairly regular basis.
And please, don't use a vacuum cleaner.

[Kym]

The other BIG danger with a vacuum is static electricity that plays havoc with electronics
DO NOT USE A VACUUM TO CLEAN ELECTRONICS GEAR - EVER!

[glennb]

Interesting you say that Kym , a friend of mine cleaned the dust out of his computer with his vacuum cleaner and fried it!! He thought it was because he moved all the dust around in there but I'm guessing it may have been the static electricity!!! 8-0


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

Edit: also wanted to add don't use a cheap rocket blower!!! I bought a cheap one from JB and found it was blowing more crap onto the sensor!! And even after rinsing it with water it still blew crap out ):-(

[arthurking83]

And besides ... a vacuum will only clean the loose particles, which barely have any impact on the image in most situations, as they generally move about as the camera is moved.
It's the baked on spots that annoy the most, and vacuuming does nothing to help with those.

[NikonNellie]

I'm another one that uses a kit from cameracheckpoint - very easy to do.

A vacuum cleaner ...really? :angry34:

[macmich]

arthur
thats where the steam cleaner comes in to it
you steam clean the hard to move spots
cheeras macca

And besides ... a vacuum will only clean the loose particles, which barely have any impact on the image in most situations, as they generally move about as the camera is moved.
It's the baked on spots that annoy the most, and vacuuming does nothing to help with those.

[old dog]

:lol:

[Brigitte]

Many thanks to all for your input. I love vacuuming but will give this a miss, sorry Greengrass.
Just picked up the camera today, fantastic service, same day pick up and according to the picture supplied a great job as it was very bad. I think I figured out why it was so bad. The place we stayed in over Christmas had a fan going nearly 24hrs due to the heat and even though I went into another room the air was well stirred. Will change lenses in the car next time. Once again, thanks, Brigitte

[arthurking83]

Many thanks to all for your input. I love vacuuming but will give this a miss, sorry Greengrass.
Just picked up the camera today, fantastic service, same day pick up and according to the picture supplied a great job as it was very bad. I think I figured out why it was so bad. The place we stayed in over Christmas had a fan going nearly 24hrs due to the heat and even though I went into another room the air was well stirred. Will change lenses in the car next time. Once again, thanks, Brigitte

Something to note:

Changing lenses does not in itself create more dust on the sensor!
I don't know who it was that started this notion, but they should be flogged!

Dust gets onto the sensor by the simple fact that you are using the sensor, ie. making an exposure!

You could have the same lens fitted to the camera for years, and you will still get dust onto the sensor.
That's just the way life is.
So get used to the idea that your sensor will always collect dust, and will need to be cleaned every now and then.

For the cost of a single 'professional' clean, you can get the items needed to do it yourself, for years to come.
I still have the the last pack of 2 packs of pecpads from 8 years ago!(there's about 100 in a pack).
I'm a regular cleaner of my cameras(or used to be), so to have only gone through about 150 pecpads in 8 years somehow seems strange. I still have the same bottles of Eclipse fluids too.

So, for a long term strategy, it's strongly recommended to purchase the minimum basic cleaning kit.
And while it may at first seem like a daunting proposition, you really have to be quite silly to damage the sensor, using a pecpad! So cleaning dust off a sensor is really 99.9999999% foolproof and safe.
It's not like performing neurosurgery, just common sense. I liken it a bit to cleaning the screen of a smartphone/tablet/etc ... where it just makes sense that you don't use a scourer, or a cutting compound to clean it free of finger marks.. and that you also don't put too much pressure on the glass or it may break.
it's exactly the same principles used for cleaning a camera sensor.

ps. you don't actually clean the cameras sensor per se. What it is that you actually clean the dust off is a filter in front of the sensor.

.. also. almost all zoom lenses and even most prime lenses are the general cause of dust on the sensor. the zooming/focusing action is very much like a pump action(watch the rear lens element move in an out of the rear barrel). This circulates the air around the mirror box area. air is naturally dusty, and your lenses are almost certainly not environmentally sealed. Air gets in via the lenses into the mirrorbox area, and when you take a photo, the shutter being open exposes the sensor. The sensor has an amount of static electricity(charge) and dust is attracted to it naturally!

Unless you are taking photos whilst changing lenses, dust will never get onto your sensor as you change lenses. Dust can't get through the shutter blades(otherwise their not light tight!).

Finally, don't worry .. or overly worry about dust on sensor. Only do so if it's obviously affecting the images.
I did a shoot yesterday and had a practise run the night before. One of the shots I tried to do required f/32, and I immediately noted to very obvious dark spots in one corner of the image I was practising with. This was simply because the subject was primarily white(dark spots!! ;))
But in the 60 or so images I shot for my friend, you can't see these two large spots, because they were masked by the background are of the images. I made sure to try not to place any contrasting matter in that part of the sensor.

So apart from resigning to the fact that your camera will always collect dust .. also understand where the problem manifests itself too.

Stopping down(ie. f/8 and smaller) will make the dust spots more acute in the image. But also remember that these spots may only show up, where they contrast with the imaged area on that portion of the sensor too.
That is, a spot is clearly more visible against a plain sky background, and not obvious at all if the same spot is located against say an intricate area of detail(bushes, and suchlike).

Also note that the D7000 has a self cleaning feature. It's not perfect, but it does seem to help. Set it to operate on startup and shutdown. It all helps, even if only a little bit.

[ricktas]

arthur
thats where the steam cleaner comes in to it
you steam clean the hard to move spots
cheeras macca

You guys! you really do make this cleaning hard work. I just chuck mine in the washing machine with some napisan (use more Napisan if you own Canon as it makes your white lenses nice and bright), then into the tumble dryer. Not only does it get cleaned, its smells nice and the grip is so soft, thanks to lemon fabric softener.

:lol:

PS. Only use cold/warm water. If you use hot water your camera might shrink. Your D800 might become a point and shoot

[ricktas]

Many thanks to all for your input. I love vacuuming but will give this a miss, sorry Greengrass.
Just picked up the camera today, fantastic service, same day pick up and according to the picture supplied a great job as it was very bad. I think I figured out why it was so bad. The place we stayed in over Christmas had a fan going nearly 24hrs due to the heat and even though I went into another room the air was well stirred. Will change lenses in the car next time. Once again, thanks, Brigitte

If you really do have an issue with dusty environments, get yourself a ziplock back big enough to fit your camera and the lenses. Put them both on the bag in the least dusty place you can find, zip it, then manipulate the camera/lens through the bag and change them. Do not leave them in the bag as it can create a moisture trap, and lead to fungus on/in lenses etc.

[Kym]

:plogo: Weather sealing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0nFu3dm-Gc

[Mary Anne]

Good advice Arthur and I am still using the Eclipse fluid and the pec pads you recommended to me a couple of years ago.
It will be many years down the track before I will need any replacements of either of those two. Even cleaning both my camera sensors about every two months.
As shooting macro at f/14 + sure brings up those dust bunnies so I have to do it more often than that at times.

[Brigitte]

Just ordered the cleaning kit from Cameracheckpoint! What a great site! Thanks Arthur for your detailed explanation, all makes sense to me. :)

[arthurking83]

Good one!

seriously, if you can clean fragile glassware without breaking it(as I do) .. you can easily clean a camera sensor.
They are much more resistant to breakage than (all the) crystal glassware I've broken over the years :D

But importantly. don't just clean for the sake of cleaning.

What I tend to do, either just every now and then, or if I notice a spot somewhere in an image:

Take a few exposures of a bland featureless scene at a couple of important aperture values.

* bland featureless scenes that are easy to find are: totally clear or full cloudy patch of sky! Use zoom if need be to concentrate the lens only on the featureless part.
if the clouds have any form or definition, all this does is to make it harder to spot the spots. They're still there, just harder to see.

*Another useful low contrast scene is a well lit plain wall. White is better than coloured, only in that the dark spots are more obvious.
Colours are ok, if you exposure appropriately tho.
Don't worry about focus. in fact focusing can actually make it harder to see the spots.

* try to keep ISO to a minimum exposure is more important than blurriness or noise, but excessive noise(say ISO12800!) doesn't help much.

* exposure should be brighter than standard for best viewing results.

* if you notice any spots in a particular area of the resultant image, always remember that the image is inverted. That is, if the really hard to remove spot is in the lower left corner of the image on the screen(PC or camera, then on the sensor, the actual spot is in the upper RH corner.

Something that I've noted over the years. Newer cameras can be harder to remove stubborn spots.
My really old D70s usually cleans up nicely with one or two attempts.
The D300(less old) is slightly harder to clean in one or two shots, but not by much.
D800E(pretty recent) usually needs 4 or 5 attempts at cleaning to a satisfactory result.
I think it may have somethign to do with the coatings on the sensors filter(which is what you are actually cleaning).

They somehow feel 'more slippery' these newer sensors.

I only use the wet clean method, and never tried the sticky dab cleaning tools(yet) .. and so if you're cleaning kit is of the pecpad wrapped wet clean type, you may find some streaky residue after you initially wipe the sensor(on newer cameras).
Never seen this on the old D70s, but see it all the time on the D800E. Again I reckon it may be the coatings.
Don't worry about the streaky residue if you see any, it dries up in the end.

* try not to wipe right to the edges of the sensor too hard.
That is, don't think it's important to wipe the dust off the very edges of the sensor area. You may only drag more dust back onto the sensor, if you try to 'dig out' any possible dust at the beginning of the swipe motion.

And only try to wipe in one direction if you can too.
Don't start from one side and then start from the other side. Again all you may end up doing is dragging any dust you just dragged from one side, over to the other side again and possibly leave spots across the sensor area again.

I'm just assuming from the link you posted:
Don't use the blower(any blower) on the sensor directly. 9.9x out of 10, all you end up doing is blowing more fine dust spots onto the sensor.
for blowing off the sensor, I only use canned air .. which is clean(filtered) air. A blower type device such as a blower bulb or rocket type blower must ingest air from the atmosphere in your work area. If you're not in a clean room, that air is almost certainly laden with dust particles, not to mention those already settled in the blower itself.
Blowers are generally only useful for blowing out the mirror box area prior to locking the shutter open for sensor cleaning.

* OH! and makes sure your battery has high capacity remaining .. to be safe .. fully charged!

Note the difference in dust particles that the sensor may have too:

* small spots, usually are baked on, and won't wipe with a brush or blow off even with concentrated canned air! They're stuck, and either the sticky dab or wet clean will only remove them.
* curly hairs(only way to describe them) looks like a curled up worm. These can usually fall off the sensor with the right technique. The sensor brush in your link is good for those dust particles. ( I also have one of them brushes). They can be safe to gently brush the mirror down too if need be. making sure to use zero pressure. Mirrors have fragile markings, coatings. I've to damage one with a sensor brush tho .. again common sense comes into play .. very gently.

Your camera has an optical viewfinder, and you see dust spots through it. They will be on the focusing screen, on the mirror, or both. If you clean either or both, and any spots are still visible in the viewfinder. it's almost certainly inside the matte screen. Hard to remove if you don't know how .. and can be fraught with damage if done badly.

Apologies for the long post. I once posted a quick howto on sensor cleaning(the copperhill way) or something ... to lazy to search and post a link for you.

if this sounds somehow complicated or difficult, really it's not. Just posting some info on what you may expect. For a first timer knowing what may happen is more comforting than the possibility of seeing a streaky finish in your images thinking you've damaged your sensor! Just clean it again.

* Damned I forgot to mention: if you are using Eclipse fluid, there may be a possibility that you need to shake the bottle well before use(I do this naturally before use now anyhow).
I never used too, but as my bottles are now about 8 years old, I once found that no matter what I did I had steaks across the sensor after every wipe. It did my head in .. as it never used to happen, and then suddenly it did! :confused: turned out that something may happen to the Eclipse fluid over time, if it sits. I was under the impression it was supposedly 100% pure alcohol(which is good!), but I tried shaking it as a last resort, and bingo! .. streaks were all gone.
And don't use a dry wipe. If you see streaks on the photo(which looks like scratching or something) .. don't be tempted to wipe them off(BAD!!!) Just do a wet clean again. They eventually go away. A possible reason for seeing streaks on one attempt and then not in another could be amounts of fluid used. I only ever use two drops on the tip of the pecpad .. never any more. Sometimes I use only one drop, but this in itself doesn't change the appearance of streaks, or not, on the photos.

[fillum]

I love vacuumingWell there's a sentence I never thought I'd see... I do lots of vacuuming but not because I love it - it's simply because of the fact that no woman has ever killed her husband while he was doing the vacuuming...


Cheers.

[vinhtee]

^ words of wisdom. hahaha

[Belly]

This has been a great thread and thanks to all contributors:th3: It's certainly given me the confidence to clean the spots off my sensor so have just ordered my own Essentials kit from our site advertiser.

cheers
Belly:)