Hi all,
I am a long time reader, not so much a writer at the Lula forum. Recently I had to do several sensor cleanings on the row, therefore I thought to contribute my own experience as well.
I don't live any near of a camera shop and that's why I don't own any (fancy) wet cleaning tool. No, ordering through the internet ain't possible for me either. So I had to "invent" my own way to get rid of the dust particles repeatedly coming back on the sensor. At the beginning - I have my Alpha 700 for 6 years by now - the problem was resolved by using a dry soft piece of cloth, wrapped around a flat screwdriver, wiping softly over the sensor area. The cloth was carefully tested on a very scratches sensible shiny plastic surface of my printer. Overtime I got the feeling that more and more I was only wiping the dust to the sides instead of taking them out. So sooner than later I had to repeat the procedure. At certain point I got a few electrostatic dust particles and I had to go for a wet clean. My solution was making my dry soft piece of cloth slightly humid with water. If it would leave a streak, I just "polished" the surface with a dry piece of cloth again. Altogether not the most efficient way I guess - there's quite some fiddling involved - but it got the job done.
That is until recently. The procedure started to be cumbersome and frustration wanted to kick in. Using a blower was making things worse. Thinking about it for a while I suddenly wondered why someone would blow air into the camera housing and not to suck air out. Why I was never reading about using a vacuum-cleaner instead! I immediately was attempted to try. I couldn't think of any bad risk and if something happened with my old camera... I'm crying out loud for getting a newer sensor with better performance (DR and less noise) anyway.
Surprise, surprise, holding the vacuum-cleaner close to the opening of the camera, wiping with a small soft brush -also tested on the printer surface before - I got rid of most of the dust. Most but not all. Now combining the wet clean and the "polish", with the vacuum-cleaner close to it, did the trick; I haven't had my sensor that clean for a long time, including the camera housing! So what do you think?
At the beginning I was worried about the risk for cleaning the sensor myself. Warnings like: "it could scratch the surface of the sensor" were not appealing. By now I know when using normal care it ain't that fragile, or at least I haven't seen any damages with mine so far. Funny though I got over-enthusiastic, now I wanted to have the whole camera housing without dust, so I started to clean the focussing screen as well. Made out of glass - I think - it should be less sensitive for scratches than the sensor surface. But the angle is different and I used another cloth which was less dense for its weaving structure. Long story short, I have to live with some scratches on the focussing screen.
So be cautious with that one!
Mark