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Author Topic: What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?  (Read 5501 times)

bobmetzler

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« on: March 31, 2008, 01:35:55 pm »

What are the current "best practices" for sensor cleaning?  I first started (on a 10D) with a Sensor Swipe, Pec Pads, and Eclipse fluid.  Nerve-wracking, eventually got most spots, but tended to leave smears in the corners.  A bulb blower usually makes things much worse--probably kicking dust out of the entire chamber.  Several years ago I bought the first Arctic Butterfly from Visible Dust.  An extremely poor design:  can't leave the batteries installed because something always presses the button & the brush runs merrily away in my bag.  Butterfly plastic case comes open in my bag, letting the brush get dirty (so I tape it shut).  When I operate the motor to charge/clean the brush, the brush flies off about every fifth operation if I don't remember to re-seat the press-fit base into the motor assembly.  All that said, multiple operations of the Butterfly usually did reduce the number of spots.  Their later models might be better, but I don't feel like rewarding their original crappy design with a new purchase, especially at their prices!  Now I read about 7x magnifiers to let me look at the dust on the sensor--but that doesn't seem like enough magnification to see small spots, & how do I clean them any better than I've done in the past even if I can see them?  My 1Ds MkII and 5D both have spots and smears whenever I shoot test frames of a white card at f22, and all these methods seem as likely to make it worse as to improve things.  I have NEVER been able to eliminate all dust spots from test frames.  Admittedly, I don't usually need to spend more than a minute or two with PS tools to remove spots from skies & rarely see spots elsewhere in an image, but I'd like to eliminate that.  
And, please don't tell me to buy a 1Ds MkIII with its built-in sensor cleaning; from what I read on this and other sites, it doesn't work.  I'd like to hear what photographers who have been through the sensor-cleaning battles feel is the best solution here in spring 2008.
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lbalbinot

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2008, 02:27:52 pm »

Hi.

I carefully (and I really mean *carefully*) use a vacuum cleaner to suck any dust that's floating around inside the mirror chamber of my camera. I do this whenever I go outside and change lenses at will during a photoshoot. For the dust that stays on the sensor I only use a VisibleDust Arctic Buttlerfly. You gotta be careful with the Arctic Butterfly because you really don't want to reach that gooey thing they use inside the camera.

But you'd better listen to some pros on that matter:

http://www.beautiful-landscape.com/Thoughts32.html
http://www.bythom.com/cleaning.htm

Regards,
Luis
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MichaelEzra

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2008, 02:32:19 pm »

In my experience, only wet cleaning does the job well, unless there is just a single huge partticle which can be blown off or picked up with a very clean toon.

When there is still some dust left after all the cleaning efforts are exhausted, it is best to save a reference shot of the dust (with aperture22, shot of white) and use it to quickly highlight, locate and remove dust in all frames using subsequent software processing.
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Dinarius

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2008, 05:11:23 am »

If you use liquids, no matter how good you are, you WILL leave droplet drying marks (however microscopic they may be) on the sensor.

Then, if you shoot against a smooth background (blue sky, white paper, whatever) you WILL have visible dots.

My brand new Mk3 is spotless. I have never had as clean a sensor and I intend to avoid using any form of liquid, if at all possible.

As a percentage of time spent post shooting, spot removal uses up more time than anything else, in my experience. At least it did with my 5D.

Dust is digital's Achilles Heel and anything that you can do to reduce the time spent on it should be mandatory.

D.

ps. Sensor cleaning is one area where MFDBs have a massive advantage over DSLRs.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2008, 06:46:49 am by Dinarius »
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Bart Heirweg

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2008, 03:37:20 am »

I have been using a few different things and I would recommend the Artic Butterfly sensor brush. I think this is the most secure way of cleaning your sensor. Something it doens't get off all the dust, so then I reach for some sensor swabs.

I once tried the Dust-aid sensor cleaning, but that completely ruined my sensor by leaving glue on it. So I would certainly not recommend it.
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Geoff Wittig

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2008, 12:44:17 pm »

I continue to use the original Visible Dust sensor brush on my Eos-1Ds II, blowing the brush off before & after with canned air, making sure not to tip the can too much which might get some of the propellant juice on the brush. This generally suffices to remove almost everything.

On rare occasions there will be a tenaceous splotch of dust or (I presume) lubricating oil on the sensor. I then use one of the original "sensor swabs" with a drop of methanol-based cleaning solvent. I've never seen any residual after this; the stuff is so volatile it evaporates instantly.
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Shedaoshai

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2008, 01:25:14 pm »

one of my assistance told me about www.sensor-film.com. i tried it, works quite well !
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Dansk

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2008, 01:40:03 pm »

Hmm I just watched the youtube vid of that sensor film product. Looks interesting enough. Anyone else using this stuff?
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schrodingerscat

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What Is Current Best Practice for Sensor Cleaning?
« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2008, 01:09:57 pm »

Quote
What are the current "best practices" for sensor cleaning?  I first started (on a 10D) with a Sensor Swipe, Pec Pads, and Eclipse fluid.  Nerve-wracking, eventually got most spots, but tended to leave smears in the corners.  A bulb blower usually makes things much worse--probably kicking dust out of the entire chamber.  Several years ago I bought the first Arctic Butterfly from Visible Dust.  An extremely poor design:  can't leave the batteries installed because something always presses the button & the brush runs merrily away in my bag.  Butterfly plastic case comes open in my bag, letting the brush get dirty (so I tape it shut).  When I operate the motor to charge/clean the brush, the brush flies off about every fifth operation if I don't remember to re-seat the press-fit base into the motor assembly.  All that said, multiple operations of the Butterfly usually did reduce the number of spots.  Their later models might be better, but I don't feel like rewarding their original crappy design with a new purchase, especially at their prices!  Now I read about 7x magnifiers to let me look at the dust on the sensor--but that doesn't seem like enough magnification to see small spots, & how do I clean them any better than I've done in the past even if I can see them?  My 1Ds MkII and 5D both have spots and smears whenever I shoot test frames of a white card at f22, and all these methods seem as likely to make it worse as to improve things.  I have NEVER been able to eliminate all dust spots from test frames.  Admittedly, I don't usually need to spend more than a minute or two with PS tools to remove spots from skies & rarely see spots elsewhere in an image, but I'd like to eliminate that. 
And, please don't tell me to buy a 1Ds MkIII with its built-in sensor cleaning; from what I read on this and other sites, it doesn't work.  I'd like to hear what photographers who have been through the sensor-cleaning battles feel is the best solution here in spring 2008.
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Use the Search function Luke.

Vacuum cleaners! Yikes.
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