I swiped my sensor...

[dsze]

A couple weeks back I posted a link to an image of my nasty sensor. Since then, after much reading I ordered the rocket blower and the sensorswipe,pecpads,eclipse combo. I blew and swiped last night. See what you think of the improvement. There are still some particles on there, but much better than before. Should I swipe again? Being as nervous as I was reaching in the chamber, how can I be sure that I did no damage....Just by looking at lots of real life shots or is there another informal test?

http://home.insightbb.com/~photographs/fullsizefiles.swf

-daniel

[Conk]

Sure, why not. You need to be confident in cleaning your camera.

[hmhm]

Should I swipe again?l

The cleaning process is typically a multi-attempt affair, particularly with your early efforts as you're getting comfortable with the process.

As far as "when am I done?", my approach is to take a test shot at an aperture I'm likely to use (if I don't use f/32 in real life, I'm not going to test for f/32), and use something like "normal" post-processing (not some crazy super-high-contrast levels adjustment that maximizes the visibility of the dust), and then I say "given this level of dust, would I rather go back in and try to clean again or just ignore or 'clone out' these smudges in Photoshop?"

It's usually not worth the effort to try to get it 100% clean. It's sort of like washing your car, it will be a little dirtier tomorrow, and dirtier still the day after, so it doesn't help much to get it perfectly spotless today, unless you plan to wash it every day.

By the way, people get fixated on "shoot the sky" as the way to check for dust, but I find it easier to just take a shot of a white wall near my desk. I lower the lights to allow a multi-second shutter speed, then "sway" the camera around during the exposure to blur out any detail from the wall. The dust moves with the camera, of course.
-harry

[Webster]

I clean the sensor on my D60 regularly. I find that if I put off cleaning for more than a couple of weeks, some of the particles will just not go away in a single cleaning session. What I never allow, though, is any dust to remain that wasn't there when I started the cleaning session.

dsza's example shows very bad added dirt. Perhaps using too much Eclipse? I find the recommended two drops works very well. I once used four drops, and then had to clean twice after that to get rid of the mess.

[dsze]

Yes, I probably used too much eclipse. I didn't realize it was coming out at first, so I'm guessing I used about 4 drops. I'm not sure how you figure my second image shows very bad added dirt though. (not that I'm doubting that is possible). But I just don't see it. I see that I probably moved a couple of specs around instead of lifting them off, but I don't see where I added lots of dirt. Help me out.

thanks,
daniel

[danphoto1]

I clean my 1D once about every two months. If you shut the camera off when changing lenses it will lessen or elimimat the static charge on the sensor that attracts dust. Also change the lens with camer facing down as this will lessen the exposere to dust and dirt. I wonder when canon will put in the sensor utrla sonic cleaning system like Olympus has tha automaticly cleans the sensor everytime you power up the camera. I find tath sometimes I have to swip it twice. I can't beleive that canon doesn't sell a cleaning kit. Of course the best way to eliminate cleaning is to have a camera for every lens and then you could just change cameras for every shot.

[dsze]

Ahh....yes, a camera for every lens. Here's my plan. I'm going to spend sooo much time cleaning my sensor that my wife goes nutz and I have to explain to here that having a camera for each lens would elliminate my having to constantly clean my sensor! What do you think? Do I have a shot? :)

-daniel