Tom V
October 3rd, 2002, 06:58 PM
During a recent extended Photoshop marathon, I noticed that I was retouching the same spots out on all my different images. I suspected they were caused by dust on the sensor. They were small fuzzy splotches and not the sharply defined pixelated blobs I thought I would get when the sensor got dirty.
I have been very careful with turning the camera off during lens changes, my lenses are clean and always capped, I did not change lenses in any dusty or windy conditions. So there were no extraodinary circumstances that led to the dust - it was just normal junk floating in the air. I think the only way to avoid this dust is to NOT change lenses - ever.
I plugged in the AC adapter and pushed the buttons the instructions indicate, and vavoom - there was the sensor! In all its radiant rainbow sheen! My special "foursight" told me that I would need some bright light to see anything on that surface, so I wore a 3 LED headlamp which left my hands free, and shone right where I was looking.
I could not see any dust on the sensor, but I knew there had to be something on it. I used a blower bulb to puff off whatever was on the surface. I eventually did see 2 specks of dust on the sensor, which was good, because it gave me something to aim at, and allowed me to judge how hard the blower had to be squeezed to move any dust. I had to squeeze the blower bulb harder than I thought I would in order to blast the dust off. I want to avoid touching the sensor at all costs. After about 2 minutes, I was satisfied that I had probably blown enough air around to remove the two specks I could see, and perhaps dislodged the ones I couldn't see.
I tested the cleaning by shooting a white card with a sorta slow shutter speed in order to blur any subject matter detail. In Photoshop, I sharpened the image greatly to bring out any defects in the image.
No spots, smudges or splotches were evident, so I consider it a successful cleaning.
Attached is a severely cropped chunk of image that has two splotches that had been showing up in everything, and are now gone.
I have been very careful with turning the camera off during lens changes, my lenses are clean and always capped, I did not change lenses in any dusty or windy conditions. So there were no extraodinary circumstances that led to the dust - it was just normal junk floating in the air. I think the only way to avoid this dust is to NOT change lenses - ever.
I plugged in the AC adapter and pushed the buttons the instructions indicate, and vavoom - there was the sensor! In all its radiant rainbow sheen! My special "foursight" told me that I would need some bright light to see anything on that surface, so I wore a 3 LED headlamp which left my hands free, and shone right where I was looking.
I could not see any dust on the sensor, but I knew there had to be something on it. I used a blower bulb to puff off whatever was on the surface. I eventually did see 2 specks of dust on the sensor, which was good, because it gave me something to aim at, and allowed me to judge how hard the blower had to be squeezed to move any dust. I had to squeeze the blower bulb harder than I thought I would in order to blast the dust off. I want to avoid touching the sensor at all costs. After about 2 minutes, I was satisfied that I had probably blown enough air around to remove the two specks I could see, and perhaps dislodged the ones I couldn't see.
I tested the cleaning by shooting a white card with a sorta slow shutter speed in order to blur any subject matter detail. In Photoshop, I sharpened the image greatly to bring out any defects in the image.
No spots, smudges or splotches were evident, so I consider it a successful cleaning.
Attached is a severely cropped chunk of image that has two splotches that had been showing up in everything, and are now gone.