Dust on the lens, or the sensor?

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Guitarbloke

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Sean
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Firstly, please forgive the p*ss-poor photo! I'm still very much a beginner, plus was on holiday and very excited/trigger happy :lol:

Please can you take a look at the photo below for me (full size available here http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/guitarbloke_photos/Problem pics/IMG_0034.jpg)? There are a lot of spots/marks at the top in the sky area and these seemed to be in a lot of the images where the sky or a light background was in the upper section of the shot.

Does this look like a sensor problem or just a grubby lens? I only took my kit lens on hols so didn't keep switching lenses, nor did I (knowingly) touch the front of the lens. It's really annoying as it's taking me hours to clean up the pictures in Photoshop.

Any idea what could have caused it?

IMG_0034.jpg
 
Looks like dust on the sensor. Usually fairly easy to clean - use mirror lock and a rocket blower first, if that doesn't work then a wet swab may be needed (many tutorials on u tube ;)).
 
It's sensor dust (and hairs/fluff) made all the more visible by using an aperture of f/20. You may get rid of some/most of it with a Rocket Blower, but given the lack of sensor cleaning technology within the 20D I think a wet clean may be required in order to completely eliminate it. You could also try shooting at larger apertures, which should help disguise the mess. You would probably have been fine at f/11 for this, if not f/8, and that would have given the possibility of faster shutter speed and/or reduced ISO.

Dust on/in the lens is so far off the focal plane that it would not be visible.
 
Thanks guys,

I've also just noticed that I can actually see about 3 small spots when I look through the viewfinder - is that normal for a dirty sensor, or is that a dirty lens as well? I'm normally so careful with replacing lens caps not handling lenses too much etc, I have no idea how it got so bad.

I just followed a tutorial online and took a pic of a white screen (windows notepad) up close, the result is really depressing - LOADS of marks unfortunately :( See below. This really needs to be sorted :( Is there a recommended cleaning kit to get (something that won't break the bank ideally)?

IMG_04621.jpg
 
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You can't see the sensor through the viewfinder, so that's a separate issue, most likely dust on the mirror or focus screen, maybe in the viewfinder itself.


Get yourself a rocket blower and give it a good blow, then get a visible dust swab kit and give the sensor a clean. Don't shoot at such high apertures, f/11 is plenty for almost all situations.

You won't see dust on the lens in any circumstances so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
 
realspeed said:
Forget using a rocket blower it will only stir up more dust in the camera body. The Artic Butterfly by VisiblaDust is far far better, it uses static electricity to "lift "dust off a sensor.

Realspeed
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Which will chuck oil all over your sensor..

Each to their own, I've used the rocket blower and swab method since 2006 and it works for me.
 
Thanks guys, I've just bought a Giottos rocket blower on Amazon (a lot more affordable than the arctic butterfly).

If this fails to do the job, what would the next step be - take it into a shop for a clean? Or is this something I can learn to do myself without huge expense?
 
Thanks again for your advice so far everyone, seeing all the crap on my sensor and not having anything to clean it with (yet) is really rather depressing!
 
In almost seven years of DSLR ownership the only camera I have ever had to wet clean is my 30D, which shares the same sensor technology as the 20D. Everything else I've used since has never needed anything more than a Rocket Blower, and then less than once per annum.

To wet clean my 30D I used Eclipse fluid and Pec Pads. It was easy enough, if a little scary at the time.

Example here - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Eclipse-C...a_Cleaning_Equipment_Kits&hash=item20d187801a
 
Guitarbloke said:
Thanks again for your advice so far everyone, seeing all the crap on my sensor and not having anything to clean it with (yet) is really rather depressing!
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Don't start obsessing over it, it isn't really a problem in reality. With DSLRs it is a fact of life, changing lenses lets dust into the mirror box which eventually finds its way onto the sensor.

I went through a period of stressing about it a few years ago. I wasn't happy unless I had clear blue sky shots at f/22. I soon realised that the effort of habitual cleaning to achieve this was far greater than just cloning the odd spec out in the one or two 'real world' shots I took at anything above f/11.

In practice if you can't see it at realistic apertures, it isn't a problem.

If it is visible, get yourself a rocket blower, eclipse fluid and some swabs and have a go yourself. It doesn't take much practice to get the technique down.

Dust in the viewfinder is another matter. It won't be visible on shots and is only a visual irritation. Try and get shot with a rocket blower but don't be too ruthless as it is possible to blow bits round the other side of your focusing screen where it becomes a more challenging problem.
 
This isn't a sales pitch, but I have some suitable swabs for sale on the classifieds, just need a bottle of Eclipse then.
 
tijuana taxi said:
This isn't a sales pitch, but I have some suitable swabs for sale on the classifieds, just need a bottle of Eclipse then.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rich, but I can't access the classifieds yet, another month or so to go before I can :'(
 
TCR4x4 said:
Which will chuck oil all over your sensor..
Click to expand...

Rubbish the Artic butterfly is a dry brush and doesn't have any oil. Maybe your not familiar with the product so let me explain

What you do is let it spin for a few seconds to build up a charge then stop it spinning and then use it as a normal brush when inside the camera body.

You are far more lightly to blow any existing oil inside the camera body with a rocket blower across the sensor let alone stir up dormant dust.

Its so obvious you havn't used one and drawing incorrect conclusions by your comment. Maybe your thinking its spinning on the sensor itself WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Realspeed
 
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realspeed said:
Rubbish the Artic butterfly is a dry brush and doesn't have any oil. Maybe your not familiar with the product so let me explain

What you do is let it spin for a few seconds to build up a charge then stop it spinning and then use it as a normal brush when inside the camera body.

You are far more lightly to blow any existing oil inside the camera body with a rocket blower across the sensor let alone stir up dormant dust.

Its so obvious you havn't used one and drawing incorrect conclusions by your comment. Maybe your thinking its spinning on the sensor itself WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Realspeed
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I have used one, thanks for your concern.

I never said the device contains oil.. The shutter mechanism does, and my Arctic butterfly picked that oil up and smeared it all around the mirror box. I then had to wet clean the sensor, and also the plastic around the shutter to remove the deposits left from the brush.

If it works for you, great..
It didnt for me, why get so defensive about it?
 
Why get so defensive? because so many don't understand how to use it. There is no way can an artic butterfly pick up oil if used properly, and if oil was present in your case then there was a problem anyway in your camera and oil where it shouldn't have been. or else the brush got contaminated when not put back properly in the hard plastic
brush sleeve.
The brush should only go across the sensor to pick up dust and not be spinning inside the camera body or touching any other part. For it to smear across the mirror box sounds to me like it was spinning inside the camera and when withdrawn to cause the problem, or trying to clean somewhere else inside the camera body with it.

I have used the Artic Butterfly many many time over the years and never on any camera have it picked up any oil on my or other friends cameras,and I have done a good few.

To my mind rocket blowers cause more problems then they solve by stirring up dust elsewhere in the camera body , which in your case may have blown oil where it shouldn't be and spread with wet wiping.

My brush head 4 years old and after many sensor cleaning



And no trace of oil or the like

Realspeed
 
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realspeed said:
Why get so defensive? because so many don't understand how to use it. There is no way can an artic butterfly pick up oil if used properly, and if oil was present in your case then there was a problem anyway in your camera and oil where it shouldn't have been. or else the brush got contaminated when not put back properly in the hard plastic
brush sleeve.
The brush should only go across the sensor to pick up dust and not be spinning inside the camera body or touching any other part. For it to smear across the mirror box sounds to me like it was spinning inside the camera and when withdrawn to cause the problem, or trying to clean somewhere else inside the camera body with it.

I have used the Artic Butterfly many many time over the years and never on any camera have it picked up any oil on my or other friends cameras,and I have done a good few.

To my mind rocket blowers cause more problems then they solve by stirring up dust elsewhere in the camera body , which in your case may have blown oil where it shouldn't be and spread with wet wiping.

My brush head 4 years old and after many sensor cleaning



And no trace of oil or the like

Realspeed
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If there are tiny spots of oil on the sensor already, the Arctic Butterfly will smear them - And contaminate the brush! Apparently, oil spots on the sensor with a newish camera were quite common on the D700 and from my own experience with my own camera, perhaps on the D800. Once cleaned off they stay clean so it was most likely excess oil on the mechanism at manufacture which spattered on to the sensor.

Oil spots are totally unaffected by a blower, so it might seem that it was only the Arctic Butterfly that "caused" smearing.

The worst part of all this, from my own experience is that it's not easy to get the brush perfectly clean again!
 
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Like I said, if it works for you, great...


It didnt for me and took me ages cleaning up its mess..

It wasnt spinning, it was placed as per the instructions. It touched something inside and picked up a load of oil which then got smeared as I removed the brush.

I'm sure if I used one now it would be alright, as all the oil has hopefully gone, but I'm not going to find out.
 
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I think you should try it Tom, give this discussion a little more punch :D
 
Well my rocket blower arrived yesterday. Gave it a go last night, but it seems to have made no difference at all.

Just to make sure I'm doing this right - I set the camera to Sensor clean mode (I'm on an EOS 20D), which seems to open up the section behind where the lens attaches (sorry, still learning all the terminology!), and then gave several good blows into the space there.

I then took another test pic, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all.

Is the next option a wet clean with eclipse fluid and swabs? Do I do that in the same way - i.e Sensor clean mode and then use the fluid/swabs on the mirror/sensor?
 
Just to make sure I'm doing this right - I set the camera to Sensor clean mode (I'm on an EOS 20D), which seems to open up the section behind where the lens attaches (sorry, still learning all the terminology!), and then gave several good blows into the space there.

I then took another test pic, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all.

Is the next option a wet clean with eclipse fluid and swabs? Do I do that in the same way - i.e Sensor clean mode and then use the fluid/swabs on the mirror/sensor?
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Sounds about right Sean, always hold the camera upside down so any dislodged crud falls out. Give it a good few puffs of air with the blower pointed at, but not touching the sensor (flat bit at the back of the opening)

Same again if you use swabs and eclipse, most important couple of drops on the swab and leave it for 10-15 secs before using.
 
My guess is that the dust is so old that it has been fused onto the sensor over time (by absorption of moisture from the atmosphere turning it into a mini-mud) and that a mere puff of air won't fix it. That does mean getting more physical with fluid and swabs.

The technique with the camera will be the same - set it to sensor cleaning mode, which will raise the mirror and open the shutter curtains. Make sure the battery is well charged before you start. If you have a tripod you may find it helpful to mount the camera on that so that you can position it firmly at exactly the right angle and keep it absolutely still while you carefully wipe the sensor. You may find that it will need a few tries to soften the muck and allow it to finally be lifted off. Be wary of re-using the same swab for repeated wipes. Once the muck is on the swab you don't want to be scraping it back and forth over the sensor, in case it is gritty and might cause a scratch. A few swabs will be far cheaper to replace than a ruined AA filter.

I find a tripod to be useful for puffing too - it can hold the camera at a downward angle and I can use one hand to puff forcefully and the other hand to steady my puffing hand against the body of the camera so that I can get close to the sensor without making contact.

Regarding fluid, in my limited experience it seems that fluid is quite eager to evaporate from the bottle, so seal it well after use and don't expect it to last forever. I only got one clean out of a bottle and when I got my hands on it again, maybe a year later, it was bone dry, despite having only dispensed a couple of drops.
 
I've never bothered with swabs. I use a method I read on line somewhere...

I take a slice cut from an old credit card (the card will flex and thus place very little pressure on the "sensor") and fold a Pec Pad around it. I then tape the Pec Pad in place and add one drop of Eclipse fluid to the tip of my little tool and Pec Pad. I then wipe once in each direction and then shoot a white door at minimum aperture to see if the cleaning has been effective.

If you use this method, or any other, remember not to touch anything that is going to come into contact with the surface to be cleaned as you could end up transfering grease onto it.

I found that my 20D was an absolute dust machine so I used to check and clean it before going out for a days shooting. Over time the amount of cleaning it required reduced I assume as the internal moving parts shed all they were going to shed - remember that much of the debris that ends up on sensors is actually internally generated rather than stuff that comes in from the outside world.
 
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Worth noting as well, when hunting for that last elusive piece of dust, that the sensor image is fully reversed when it gets turned into a photo, so a piece of dust which appears in the top right of the photo would actually be found on the bottom left of the sensor etc..
 
tdodd said:
Worth noting as well, when hunting for that last elusive piece of dust, that the sensor image is fully reversed when it gets turned into a photo, so a piece of dust which appears in the top right of the photo would actually be found on the bottom left of the sensor etc..
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Is that right?

I'm pretty sure it's just top becomes bottom and bottom becomes top. Right and left stay the same, so a mark on the image in the top right would be on the bottom right of the sensor. As you look at it.
 
woof woof said:
Is that right?

I'm pretty sure it's just top becomes bottom and bottom becomes top. Right and left stay the same, so a mark on the image in the top right would be on the bottom right of the sensor. As you look at it.
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Yes, as Alan says.

It's confusing because you're looking directly at the front of the sensor, and not through it from behind - if that makes sense :D

Edit: FWIW, I use a combination of cleaning aids, on the rare occasion when they're needed. A blast now and then with a Rocket blower is usually enough, then an Arctic Butterfly for most other things (got it free with a magazine subscription :)). If that still hasn't done the job, then a wet cleaning kit from this place http://www.cameraclean.co.uk/products.php?cat=Introductory+Cleaning+Kits Lots of good advice on that site and if you phone the guy, Peter I think, he's very helpful :thumbs:
 
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