Dust on the CCD

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Peter - 08 Apr 2007 14:32 GMT

I would like to hear the opinions of this group on how to clean the sensor
of dust. Is this a job we must send away to be done, or can we do it
ourselves?

A local photographic shop sells a device for £50, which when spun produces
an electrical field. and this is supposed to attract the dust off the
sensor, has anybody tried it, and does it work?

I have been quoted sums from £30 to £150 ( the latter, is sending the camera
back to Nikon)

My camera is a Nikon D100, and the book says I have to have a EH-5 AC
adapter to lock the mirror up!!

Any help would be appreciated.

Peter

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harrogate3 - 08 Apr 2007 20:10 GMT

> I would like to hear the opinions of this group on how to clean the sensor
> of dust. Is this a job we must send away to be done, or can we do it
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Peter

I have the D70s and suffer the same problems - and doing it yourself
(as advised by Nikon of all people!) is dead simple.

Buy a can of air duster, or better still Tetanal do a CO2 duster which
has the advantage of no liquid propellant for about £16 with three
cartridges. Take the lens off, select mirror lock-up on the menu, and
press the shutter release which will lock the shutter open. Holding
the camera body with lens aperture downwards as much as possible use
the spray to blow in and around the sensor box from a few inches away:
the exact angle at which you hold the camera body will be determined
by the lowest angle at which the spray will work without ejecting
propellant which will damage the sensor. Switch the camera off
(shutter closes,) air dust the rear element of the lens (well away
from the camera body and refit it, then and go outside and take a
picture of a flat sky - blue is best but plain old solid cloud cover
will do just as well. Download the picture and have a good look at
it - if there are still spots caused by dust, do it all over again if
necessary.

Believe me dust like this is a pain - if you get it down to a single
small blob you might do better to leave it there and paint it out
afterwards - generally speaking you won't see it/them unless you are
looking at a large-ish area of saturated light colour. If you manage
to get dust free, thereafter try to avoid lens changing - but if you
must always do it indoors where there is no draught, and keep the
(open) lens aperture facing downwards at all times.

Signature

Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

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Rene - 12 Apr 2007 23:09 GMT

> then and go outside and take a
> picture of a flat sky - blue is best but plain old solid cloud cover
> will do just as well. Download the picture and have a good look at
> it - if there are still spots caused by dust, do it all over again if
> necessary.

One tip: you should take this test picture with as small an aperture
as possible, f22 for instance. This will show all dust and dirt,
even on the LCD-screen.

> Believe me dust like this is a pain - if you get it down to a single
> small blob you might do better to leave it there and paint it out
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> must always do it indoors where there is no draught, and keep the
> (open) lens aperture facing downwards at all times.

Even with no lens changes the dust finds it way. Especially the
big zoomlenses which have a big volume-change when zoomed
from fully wide-angle to fully tele act as a dust-pump, pumping
air and dust into the camera body.

My experience is: 80% of the dust can be blown away with
compressed air. Another 10% can be wiped off with these
sensor swabs, and there's another 10% that's so stuck that
they won't be removed easily. These are for instance tiny
oil drops from the shutter.

Grtx,

Rene

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moonface - 22 Apr 2007 15:12 GMT

Google the Copperhill method. Blowing (either bulb blower or compressed
CO2) will shift loose dust, I use this method myself for a quick clean.

However, you can blow till you are blue in the face with what is commonly
described as "welded-on" dirt, normally damp dust particles that have dried
on the sensor and oil particles from the mechanical shutter mechanism, try
as you may they will *not* shift despite what others will tell you.

I've tried many methods, including these fancy sensor wands, brushes, stupid
compressed air mini-vacuum cleaners, they are *all* useless with welded-on
particles.

In this case the only option open to you is to teach yourself to wet clean
the sensor, its daunting at first but practice builds confidence.

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