[HELP] Dust on the sensor

Roberto -Not sure how you managed to move the dust from the mirrors to the sensor. I am told reliably that any of the dedicated sensor cleaning kits will do a decent job. I'm considering buying a sensor scope so I can actually see the dust but at nearly £100 it will be awhile. - I guess if it really is bad then taking it to an engineer to have it cleaned professionally.

It's very simple to have the dust from the mirror to the sensor: the depressure in the sensor box when you shot and the static charge on the sensor filter glass simply attract dust...

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first, do not touch anything. you are going to want to lift your mirror and gently use a blowing tool. turn your camera upside down, so the dust does not spread.

Just blow it away. But use dry air. Don´t blow with your mouth. Use a bellow for it. Switch your camera into the sensor-cleaning-mode and hold it with the opening to the ground. Blow into the body and make a control-shot until the dust went away. If not, you have to clean your sensor. Or let the service clean your sensor. That´s the better way.

ok, I know they are hard to understand, but just watch these...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi1hyu8lpJ8&mode=related&search=

on the right, there are more videos. they may help. you really need to be very careful.

here is a canon one - www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpSi27u4azQ

also, your local camera shop can clean the dust for you. that might be safer. :)

here are a few links I found for you, too...

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dust+on+the+mirrors+of+my+350D%2FDigital+Rebel+XT&btnG=Google+Search

Do you have access to an air compressor anywhere? Excellent advice given so far.:)

Don't do that! It looks like a very good idea first, but keep in mind that the air may contain small oil drops - and you surely don't wanna have them on your sensor / mirror.

(I just assumed you're talking about a standard air compressor and not a professional one that is able to produce cleaned air...)

Yes, I should have mentioned a professional one. I work with several so it was just an afterthought....but yes, should be a prof. one:) Apart from the oil, the cheap ones can get condensed with water and spray on your lense.

buy another camera !
LOL
they said everything before...nothing to add
was just to little ciao
Shine on

A Nikon one, I suppose, so even if the sensor is totally dust covered you don't see the difference :-)))))

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ahaha. Jaloux va ;)

Thank you very much for the links, but I prefer to have real experiences from Ipernity contacts...

I do it in two steps usually: first blow the loose dust away using a blower holding the camera with the opening looking down. Secondly I am using sensor sweeps an eclipse cleaning solution. Sometimes it takes more than one sweep, sometimes it doesn't.

Blowing is a good quick solution and on vacation I usually take a bellow with me now...

I purchased an Arctic Butterfly brush. It works great, but it isn't cheap. The issue with air is that it moves the dust from one spot to another, and you might not want it where it lands.

I used optical paper we had in our optics lab in the university (you can also buy that for quite cheap at a decent photo shop), wrapped around a brush, to remove the larger dirt particles. The rest I got rid of by blowing. Better would be compressed air (there is compressed airs in cans to clean electronic devices, you need to be careful though, sometimes these cans spit out the air still liquid, no idea what this does to the sensor, but I wouldn't want to find out :-))

I also had my camera cleaned at a photo shop, it cost about 20 Euros, sensor completely clean afterwards.

i prefere the cleaned to an shop professional, its better, but an very good shop, not an little krauter... its coust not much, thats the safely way..., greetings and i hope you have an cleaning cam soon, claudia

I've written down my experiences and technique: click me!. I hope it's gonna help you!

As Bigoode noted on this photo:

I had dust on my Sensor too.

I just activated the maintaing mode (means opening the mirror) and used a small bellow to blow it away. fortunately this was all what was to do. (my manual says, if this doesn't work hand the camera in for professional service.)

BTW it is a Nikon and you see a difference. ;-)

I did exactly the same on my d80. Used a "dry-air" dust remover compressor.
worked easily on the 1st attempt.

Another idea is "Discofilm". Its well proved and discussed in the "Happy shooting"-Forum.

www.happyshooting.de/forum/showthread.php?tid=506

It´s originally developed for the cleaning of records.

Here are some further informations:
www.gletscherbruch.de/foto/sensor/sensorcleaning.html
www.dslr-forum.de/showthread.php?t=63207


Good luck.

for me the most easy way it to bring it to service....

I am intimidated by the sensor. What if....

After i researched online and ended up having my husband do what Carsten said. My husband is an electronics geek who considers my camera cheap compared to the stuff he works with. Besides, I know he will buy me a new camera without complaint if he hurts my baby;) Anyway, since i got my camera almost a year and a half ago, I have only had him do it a couple times--when it gets bad.

If I did not have my geeky husband eating up the opportunity to play with my toy? I would have it done professionally......

Good Luck.

I removed dust with "sensor swab" and "eclipse E2", it's easy to use and works well, on their website you can see, which type fits for your camera. My camera is a Pentax K10D, the built in dust removal works well, but sometimes dust remains, so I have to clean it.

Hi, I use Eclipse Fluid and PecPads that are wrapped around a small plastiv device i bought for this special use at a webshop. together it costs much less than the readily available brushes, so i would highly recommend using them. i usually dont blow my camera out first, because everything will be clean after fluid-cleaning it anyway.. small dust particles in the chamber, mirror etc. will be removed first tho with the swipe used before, so keep this one.
what really helps is a headlamp, i am using the petzl tikka xp which is really bright but any good, bright, headlamp will work and is also highly usable for other activities, night photography etc.
i use a small piece of mirror which can be cleaned immaculately before to make my own siwpes.. on a mirror, you will see every bit of dust that settles down in the process. shut the doors & windows, dont dust until 1 hour before in the room or use a hoover, and have everything at hand before opening the camera. I use a fresh battery all the time, which i consider safer than using an external cable because a battery probably wont fail, a cable could end you up smashing your mirror on your swipe in case of a power outage. whatever.. i like to work with only my headlamp because it gets me in control of the light, e.g. the room i work in is dark or semi-dark. some simple steps:
1. lay out the stuff you need:
- eclipse fluid, opened bottle with cap on to prevent dust from settling thereon
- pecpads (in a ziploc bag, original bag cut open on the side just so that you can get one pad out with some pliers easily without exposing all the pads!). i still have a ziplock bag around them for storage, open this now..you can leave the pecpads own bag inside the ZL Bag.
- Small Pliers to get out one pecpad - do not touch it with your hand unless you have verified which is the working part and NEVER touch this.. you can and will have to touch the others in the process tho.
- swipe stick, wendys steakknife, spatula, smaller than your sensor size (there are perfect spatulas available for cooking in cooking stores, small ones looking like a butterknife with a rubber blade, you can cut these to your desired size and they cost one euro.... mine is such a thing, but i paid and got a readily cut one - you have to cut it so that it has a "sharp" angled front edge - 45° 90° 45°, looking like this: > )
- adhesive film (Tesa), several (3?) STrips of 4-5 cm lenght, pre-cut, waiting on your table-corner (3 if you mess up one, or two.. you wont want to stop the process with a pecpad laying around to catch dust :-)
- i place my camera on the tripod, so a tripod is nice and handy.
you get everything here, btw:

www.micro-tools.com/store/home.aspx

Ok lets get started now:

When you Finished building your Pecpad-Swipe, switch the camera into Cleaning Mode, mirrors up, and add 1 or 2 drops of eclipse fluid to the tip of your swipe. Now lay it aside and remove the lens or cap from the camera, exposing the mirror. you probably want to prepare a correct dust image before, using photoshop to turn it around correctly to show you where the real big dustbunnies are - you might want to use automatic tone correction to highlight them, too. Using your computer screen, you can see it all.
so, after you removed the lens or cover, the eclipse fluid has spread out evenly, but not yet evaporated- just as we want it. dont use too much, it will be of no additional help for your cleaning efforts and could cause smearing or other problems and remains on the sensor!
well, now look in to the camera and you see your sensor.. swipe it twice - once to one direction, and once back using the other side of the swiper. dont press, do it gently, dont scrub, if some spots cant be removed the first time, youll just repeat the whole process. never use the same swiper twice, as you would just smear or re-applie the dirt now found in the pecpad. actually, because there are several sources of dust in a camera (e.g. metal chips, isolating foam, grease and so on) it can sometimes be hard to remove a certain spot, but be patient and it will work, while it wont with some of the other methods, wet-cleaning is the best though also probably most strenuous method to do it - for you AND your camera, that is.

Happy Cleaning!

I use alcohol, cotton buds, a vacuum cleaner and a small brush.

flickr.com/photos/making_na/381028966/in/photostream

I gave it once to the shop where I bought it (I had dust on the sensor like two days after I bought my camera. They cleaned it for free then). Now, it would cost me some Euros (10 or so) to let them clean my camera.
I have dust on the sensor right now, and I am like you thinking about what to do. But probably I chicken out and give it again in the hand of professionals. (although I have only heard good things about the Eclipse & Sensor Sweeps....)

I did not notice this link in previous posts, so just in case this helps:

www.copperhillimages.com/index.php?pr=Tutorials

Rob!

www.nadir.it/tec-crea/polvere-sensori/polvere-sensori.htm

E' il primo link che mi hanno dato su Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/robertoballerini/1487597477

:-)

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Ah ma stai continuando anche flickr?

Più che altro lo uso perché ha l'upoad più stabile e poi uso lo script GM di Ipernity per importare

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