Sensor Cleaning?

GlasgowGunner

GlasgowGunner

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Kevin
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Hi all have a question....

When do you know when your sensor needs a clean, now i know about the when the dust is on the sensor side of it But can you tell when it needs to be put in for a proper clean on the sensor rather than the blow off with a rocket?

Thanks, Does anybody have an idea of price and where and how long does it take.
 
AJ Johnstone in Hope St will do it for you, probably cost around £25-45.Of course,you can always clean the sensor yourself, it's not difficult, or expensive....;)
 
When there is actually some light in the sky......ie, not right this mintute it's as dark as heck here! Pop the camera on a really wide aperture f16ish and point it at the sky. Take a few pics, pop them on the PC/mac and I usually turn the exposure up a bit just to get it nice and bright. Then zoom in a bit and scan the image, you should see any dirt that's on there.

I used to get mine done at Calumet, drop it off and pick it up next day (you need to check which day they do it at your local branch) cost about £40 +vat.

I clean my own now, eclipse fluid and swabs and only needs doing every three months or so. And that's not bad because I use mine for weddings, portraits and building sites which are as dusty as heck :)

HTH
 
Ok i have done a test near to this mentioned, but i was wondering if the sensor picks up grease and the likes over years. The reason i ask is the pictures just dont seem sharp even on a tripod, with flash and held rock steady.
 
Try a rocket blower first, just bought one and used for first time on D60/D300. It cleared all the dust spots and left both sensors spotless, there also the swabs FITP is currently selling.
 
post some pics then and we can see if we can help solve it :)

Dirt normally appears as dust bunnies, little blobs and it would be unusual to ahve a deposit causing a sharpness problem.

Is it something recent?
 
To be honest it's the wife's Canon 30D which we bought second hand. It's just i thought the age of the camera and the fact we cant say when it was last cleaned, or can a camera go through life without ever needing it?
 
GlasgowGunner said:
To be honest it's the wife's Canon 30D which we bought second hand. It's just i thought the age of the camera and the fact we cant say when it was last cleaned, or can a camera go through life without ever needing it?
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If it stays in a drawer, yes it can, if it never had a lens changed, yes it can, if it never goes anywhere with any contaminants, yes it can.

Very much depends where it has been and what it has done. I don't expect to spend a day shooting on a building site and NOT to have to clean the cameras if I've been changing lenses.

Do you get this softness on more than one lens?
 
AliB said:
If it stays in a drawer, yes it can, if it never had a lens changed, yes it can, if it never goes anywhere with any contaminants, yes it can.

Very much depends where it has been and what it has done. I don't expect to spend a day shooting on a building site and NOT to have to clean the cameras if I've been changing lenses.

Do you get this softness on more than one lens?
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I would say so yes, I did give it a blow out with a rocket blower when she got it but it just seems a bit off to me. I will maybe stick it in just to be sure.
 
Run it through some tests first. Take off any filters, cheap ones CAN degrade the image horribly and try popping it on a tripod using more than one lens. That should narrow things down a bit so at least you have some idea of where the problem is.
 
I use an Arctic Butterfly when necessary over my auto-self clean when switching on/off...google it!
 
AliB said:
...Pop the camera on a really wide aperture f16ish and point it at the sky.
Click to expand...

You mean a really NARROW aperture...:lol:

f/16 = 'small' hole in diaphragm = narrow

f/2 = 'big' hole in diaphragm = wide


But yes - that's the way to do it - that way you can see all the blobby specks and use whatever proprietary cleaning producs you choose to remove them...

None of it is cheap though - expect to pay £20+ for a half-dozen swabs by a good manufacturer...
 
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