Camera Labs

After a day out with the wife and Neice yesterday (Took some lovely pics with Canon 30d) I noticed 2 dark spots as I looked through the view finder. Quite horrified, I removed the lense to check that IT was responsible. It wasn't. The dots were still there. I checked the view finder glass, but again, not that either. I started to feel my stomach sink as I began to wonder if the image sensor was dirty. I really did not want to have to deal with this.

I eventually got home and dug out the camera cleaning kit. With the brush blower thingy, I gently tickled across the sensor. I put the lense back on and.....Now there were 2 dots and some hairs!!! Oh no!

I kept at this blowing / cleaning technique for quite some time, but couldnt get the dirt off. I decided to hold the camera body under the light to reflect some light off the sensor to see if I could actually see the marks. The whole sensor looked really dirty! I had no option but to wipe the sensor with a very soft (Lint free) lense cleaning cloth. It was now visably clean.

I put the camera back together and had another look. Still 2 dots and hairs inside. I figured that this dirt must be on the actual mirror set up. After another 40 mins of cleaning and blowing, I managed to shift the mark and hairs from the mirrors. So I now have 2 questions.

1. Was I stupid wiping a dirty sensor (No other option as far as I could see)

2. How the hell do you get bits and fine hairs from the mirror mechanism without spending the best part of an hour messing about?

I do not want to have to go through this trauma again or risk damaging the camera. It is still a mystery as to how it got so dirty in there!

Hi Blueorb,

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare. My guess is that if you were successful in the end then no, you weren't stupid.

For future reference, have you seen Gordon's Digital SLR dust workshop over at our sister site DSLR Tips?

Bob.

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actually (im sorry to say) this is completely normal for a dslr and something that people do a lot.. you can get kits that make it much easier to do this and remember if you have dust/hair on the mirror that doesnt affect your picture just what you see.. so if you can deal with it for a bit then its fine. You could bring it to your local camera shop ever 3 or 4 weeks to have it cleaned up a bit if you dont feel like doing it yourself.. Also if you let them do it they dont mess up (and if they do im sure they would replace the part that they damaged) i would just bring it to the shop.

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Looks like I spoke to soon. I had cleared the marks from the mirror, but on doing the white card at f32 set infinity there are a number of marks on the sensor. See below.



I am hoping that these are hairs and dirt and not scratches from trying to clean the sensor without the correct tools.

I have now ordered a Arctic butterfly cleaning brush and proper swab and cleaning fluid for a wet clean. I will probably have to wait a few days for delivery due to Easter weekend. I am worried sick that I have scratched the sensor.

http://www.visibledust.ca/?gclid=CNbFtu ... Xgodd1ggLw

.
It doesn't look pretty but I don't see any signs of scratches. By the way, what you were cleaning is a filter (probably the anti-aliasing filter) in front of the sensor and not the sensor itself. I hope the cleaning kit does the trick but if not there's always the possibility of having Canon do a service.

Bob.

P.S. I removed the extra pair of [img]..[/img] tags around your image.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Thanks Bob. Hope you are right. It is a pain having to wait for the cleaning kit to arrive. I really wanted to take some photos today. The worry is the worst part.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks.

Arctic brush arrived today, but no swabs for wet clean. They are to follow due to being out of stock.

Anyway, gave the sensor a brush and results pretty good. See what you think of picture below. (White card set to focus infinity at f32)

[img][img]http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/4323/aftercleanf32jpgiz2.th.jpg[/img][/img]

It is a big relief to know that I haven't done any damage!

Please people, use the right tools for cleaning your sensor!!

WOW huge diff if you ask me, i gotta pick up one of those cleaning kits as well!

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It wasn't cheap, (Ridicoulously expensive for such a simple tool) but very safe, easy to use and effective. I am sure dust will not be a problem again. Once I have wet swabed the sensor, this dust brush should be all that is need as long as I am careful in future with changing lenses.

Hi Blueorb, thanks for sharing your experience - I'd really like to hear what others think of the Arctic Butterfly. In my limited experience with it so far, I've found it very effective at removing dust BUT if you catch the side of the chamber by mistake, you can easily smear some residues on the filter - which then require wet swabs to get rid of.

No hassle if you have them, but inconvenient if you don't.

They have an FAQ about it here:

http://visibledust.com/help_troubleshooting.php

Gordon

After 2400+ pics, I have same problem with Blueorb without hair and it time to order some cleaning tools. And also I wonder when Gordon will upload the video?

I just want to make sure that I don't damage the inside part of the camera.

and about cleaning tools, is that any particular brand is superior than other?
why?

Arctic butterfly is a very simple tool to use, I haven't tried the swabs yet though, still feeling a little nervous about trying them. I will probably wait until necesary.

There's a safer software solution for this problem based on EXIF data, called SensorKleen (Windows and DSLR cameras only) from Image Trends (the developers behind Kodak and Applied Science Fiction plug-ins).

Once SensorKleen profiles your image, it knows what's image content and what's dust, and you can remove dust even if it intersects subject matter (a wire, for instance), while leaving the subject's pixels alone.

Works manually or with batch processing.

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which kit do u use?