June
picturelineNews
|
 Digital
Camera Sensor Cleaning
Digital Single Lens Reflex
(DSLR) users, have you ever been plagued by sky
cooties, UFO’s, or other undesirables imbedded
in your digital images? Unless you are attempting
to convince the Federal Government that alien space
travel exists, the specks and blobs are not welcome. From
the number of people I have spoken with, a dirty
sensor is not an uncommon situation. So let
me inquire, have you had the pleasure of cleaning
your camera sensor?
If you don't know if your sensor is clean, and
want to check it, here is how: Put a lens on your
camera, set focus to infinity, set exposure compensation
to +1, set the aperture to its smallest value (largest
number), at least f22, f32 if you have it. Point
the camera toward a uniformly illuminated target,
such as a white wall, a piece of matt board, or
even the sidewalk and take a shot. Down load
and look at the image. Do you see dark spots? If
so, you have dust. At wider apertures the
dust specs will be much less visible. At
f11 they may be very faint and at f8 or wider apertures
they may be undetectable.
Now comes the problem. If you're the sort
of person who looks for dust, you're likely the
sort of person who will be troubled by dust and
want to remove it. Here is where things could
get a little tricky. And here are your choices.
Your first option is, that you can send the camera
back to the manufacturer or to your favorite repair
shop. It will probably cost you $50, or more
and you will most likely be without your camera
for a week or two. There is a good chance
it will come back dust free and then again there
is just as good of a chance it will come back with
just less dust and maybe still have a speck or
two. Remember you may have to repeat this
action weekly, so what do you do?
 From
my “Real Men Don’t Ask For Directions” file, please read
the camera manual first. Contrary
to the opinion of some people I have spoken with;
switching the camera to the sensor-cleaning mode,
does not accomplish the cleaning operation automatically! (With
the exception of the Olympus E-1) This
is an important manually accomplished step and
a delicate procedure. Second,
obtain the following products to accomplish the
job. A. a bottle of Eclipse optic
cleaning solution. B. a
packet of Eclipse sensor
cleaning swabs, which are available in three
sizes to fit the sensor size of your need. Be
careful NOT to remove the polyethylene dust cover
from the swab until the last second before use. C. a Kinetronics Speckgrabber
pro kit (which contains three speck grabbers,
a handle, grabber cleaning solution and cleaner
cloth). Third,
in a clean and dust free environment, connect up
the camera to the AC power unit. The continuous
AC power is to prevent shutter blade damage by
a premature shutter closing due to battery failure. Unofficially,
I have heard from a Canon technical representative
that in the field only a fully charged battery
will do in replacement of AC power (so on a river
trip you may have to carry three or four fully
charged batteries to ensure a spare for cleaning). A
blown shutter is interesting to see, but much too
expensive to replace. Fourth,
wipe the camera clean with a dust free cloth and
follow your camera’s instructions for opening
the shutter and exposing the sensor for cleaning. Fifth,
clean the sensor. Note: Do
not use any sort of "canned air" for
this. Canned air is too powerful
and the types that are liquid driven will "spit" liquid
trapped in the gas stream on to the sensor and
if that happens you can wave bye-bye to your sensor. They
may also freeze the sensor, which again will result
in damage. Moving forward, if there are particles
large enough to see with the unaided eye, use a
speckgrabber to remove them first. Then unwrap
a swab and apply several drops of the cleaning
solution, followed by gently wiping the swab across
the sensor from left to right. Use a speckgrabber
to pick up all debris along the right side of the
sensor (the swept to side). Apply more solution
to the second side of the same swab and wipe in
the same direction as before, from left to right
to remove any residual from the grabber and dispose
of swab. Do Not
be tempted to conserve by reusing a potentially
scratchy or dirty swab. Do Not
go back and forth across the sensor and chance
redistributing particles back onto the sensor. Check
visually for debris. Repeat if necessary. If
the sensor looks clean, close the shutter and proceed
with the quick test that follows.
Replace the lens onto the camera body and photograph
the same test target as discussed above. Down
load the image into the computer. Enlarge
the test image and visually scan the screen for
any sign of sensor contamination. Repeat
the joy of cleaning, if necessary.
 A contaminated sensor presents a real world problem
within your digital workflow. At worst it
could shut down a photo session until you could
return to a clean, dust free area with AC power. Since
the cleaning procedure is difficult to carry out
while on assignment or in the field, if I may be
so bold, I will offer a little tried and true preventative
advice. Camera sensors are terrific electro-magnets,
so keep the body cap on the camera as long as possible. Avoid
changing lenses into the wind. Wipe the camera
and lenses down often with an anti-static cloth,
like the orange Ilford Antistatic type. Keep
your camera bag vacuumed out and lid closed as
much as possible, especially in the field. If
you do get contaminates on the sensor in the field,
try this emergency maneuver. With
a very clean blower type ear syringe in hand, set
the camera to a fifteen second time exposure (not
so long that dust re-inhabits the space). Hold
the camera aloft, so by gravity, any debris will
fall out. Fire the shutter and puff the blower
brush about the sensor, no deeper into the camera
than the lens-mounting ring being careful to not
allow damage to occur from the syringe being trapped
by the shutter. With great care during this
operation, I have been able to clean the sensor
well enough to continue shooting.
Officially speaking, I have to recommend that
you send your camera back to the manufacturer for
cleaning. Is that enough of a disclaimer?
May all of your adventures be exciting, your pictures
beautiful and you - successful.
Eclipse
Cleaning Solution and Sensor Swabs |
Kinetronics Speck Grabber Kit
From askRodger@pictureline.com |
