Strange Dots

[Marley]

These dots appeared on the first shot a couple of days ago.
I cleaned the lens and thought the problem was solved.

Now they have appeared again,
in the exact same spots.
two days later using a different lens completely.

All my other shots over the last couple of days seem fine.

Only the 2 times that I've tried a long exposure on a cloud shot do they appear.

there doesnt seem to be any dust on the mirror, but I'm afraid to mess with it.


any suggestions?

http://photos.imageevent.com/marley/memorialday/large/CRW_6765.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/marley/memorialday/large/CRW_6820.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/marley/memorialday/large/CRW_6822.jpg

[defordphoto]

Dust on the sensor. Very common and easily edited out. You have quite a few though. Time to open up the manual and follow instructions. Believe what they say about propellant driven compressed air. Don't take the risk.

[PacAce]

It's probably dust on your CMOS sensor. I have the same thing on mine but haven't built up enough nerve and/or courage to clean it myself yet. It only really shows up when I take pictures of the sky or when a large area of the background is evenly colored. For now I'm just going to live with it until I either get the nerve to clean the sensor myself or I take it someplace to have it cleaned by someone else.

[Marley]

thanks for the help.

would you recommend taking it to a shop or braving it myself??

[spark]

Cleaning using the Sensor Swab is effective. If you don't feel good about it, send it back to Canon for cleaning...

[defordphoto]

Before whipping out swabs, try a manual air blower (squeeze-bulb) to try and blow the dust off. I did that with my 10D and it removed 99% of them.

[MarkH]

I had a single dust speck on mine.

I followed the instructions and got the camera to flip the mirror up for sensor cleaning while powered by a freshly charged battery.

I saw the speck, on puff from my bulb blower and it was gone, the sensor was clean so I immediately turned off the camera and put the lens back on, no need to temp fate.

It could be worth trying to clean it yourself, but if the dust wont move, don't start scrubbing it. Either get sensor swaps or have it cleaned by an experienced tech.

[jd_D60]

Just had the same problem with my D60, looked on the Canon website located a dealer explained my camera was less than a year old and they cleaned it for free - except registed insured delivery.

However its back with an out of focus problem - but I might be unlucky ... looks like it will be back in the post on Monday.

[lluscombe]

The bulb blower has worked for me, it is inexpensive and low risk. It may not remove the most stubborn spots, but should remove 90 percent, if you don't leave the dust on the sensor too long.

The Nikon D1 that I owned was far, far worse for picking up dust, and did not respond as well to the bulb blower. I really like this about the 10D.

[Jorge]

In your case I would definitely clean the sensor – no fun with all those spots in your pictures. Use a blower and check the effect by taking a small aperture shot (spots are usually smaller and darker with small apertures like 22 and lighter more fluffy or even invisible at larger apertures).

I constructed a mega blower, which I used to good effect on my D30. Tied a large plastic bag to a syringe (no needle) with a rubber band and blew air through the syringe squeezing the plastic bag like a bagpipe. Three blows and nearly all the spots were gone :)