My viewfinder is HAIRY!

[Persian-Rice]

No really, I have these little fibres and dots in the viewfinder. I cleaned the mirror and that glass at the top(inside camera). I was able to get rid of the dots but the fibres/lines are still there, actually there is one more now, how can I get rid of those annoying things?

I got these after I cleaned my sensor, could I have scratched the mirror?

Thanks.

[drisley]

Inspect the mirror for dust and scratches. If you dont see anything, then I doubt it's the mirror. Try using a blower to blow dust off the mirror.
If that doesn't work, my bet is the dust/hair is on the focus screen. I had something similar on my DRebel when it was 2 months old. It bugged the heck out of me. So, I took it to a local camera repair shop, and the guy there took it in the back and blew out whatever it was. Most would probably recommend against that if the camera is still under warranty, but I didnt feel like sending the camera away for weeks for a small hair in the viewfinder.

[BearSummer]

Hi Persian,

I'm not sure which camera you have but if it has interchangable screens then that could be part of your problem. The screen sits under your pentaprism and in some models can be changed for different effects, eg horizontal & vertical lines to help with architectural /tilt shift images. Anyway, back to the plot, when using an Eos 3 I had a similar problem to the one you describe, cleaned the mirror using a sable brush (yeah i know, dont do it), cleaned the underside of the focussing screen but still had this huge thing in the viewfinder (that'll teach me to change lenses on a windy day in the middle of a cut field of corn). So, I took out the interchangeable screen and there was this 4mm piece of corn just sat there, blew it off and reassembled.

To do this I used the canon tool for swapping out screens, the screen has a little lug on its side which the tool grips in a sping loaded vice, DO NOT TOUCH THE SCREEN only hold it via the little lug otherwise you will get crap onto the screen and as it is a frensel lens (I believe) which is covered in lots of little grooves, getting finger grease into them would not be a good idea. I would suggest popping down the screen mount, using your blower brush to clean it out and then just remounting the screen so you dont even need to take it out of its mounting.

Hope that helps

BearSummer

[ron chappel]

It wont be a dammaged mirror
There is something on the focus screen-either brush fibers or,less likely, scratches

[Persian-Rice]

Bear summer, You don't accept PMs, so Ill ask here.
Is this what you are talking about?

http://t90.tripod.com/screen_instruction.html

Where can i find this tool?

[Jim_T]

The camera eyepiece focuses on the ground glass focusing screen.. You'll *never* see any dust or scratches on the mirror through the viewfinder because it's too far from the focal point of the viewfinder lens.

It's the ground glass focus screen you have to be concerned with. If there is even the tiniest hair or speck of dust on the screen, you'll see it.

Pull the lens and look above the mirror. You'll see the bottom of the ground glass focus screen. Try blow off the bottom of the screen gently with a bulb blower. That may be all you need. Don't rub it with anything or you'll probably make it worse.

If the dust got around the screen on to the top of it, then you have a bit of a problem. I don't beleive you can pop out the screen on digital EOS cameras the way you can in the link you posted.

[Persian-Rice]

Fixed it. I actually used methanol to clean the glass underneath the focus screen and got some crap off. Then I grabbed the bulb and shot air through the edges and low n behold the fibres are gone, still a spec of dusk, but I am not concerend with that, the fibres were the problem.

Who knew, the bulb blower that created all these problems redeemed itself. My camera was dust free until I tried to clean it.....

[BearSummer]

Bear summer, You don't accept PMs, so Ill ask here.
Is this what you are talking about?

http://t90.tripod.com/screen_instruction.html

Where can i find this tool?

Hi Persian,

yep thats the tool, you get one when you buy a new focussing screen, the box contains the new screen and the tool shown. The other option is to use a pair of needle nosed pliers to grip the tab, I've used my leatherman when I needed to take the screen out. Glad to know that you have got it sorted out now and have turned on PM (something I forgot to do after the server software update).

Hi Jim_T, you can see crud/dust/USO's the are on your mirror tho the ones nearer the hinge are easier to see. I know that some of the digital cameras have interchangable screens like those in the link posted by persian, if you look at the back of your manual at the compatible items list you may see the screens on the list. It is a feature on the 1ds, not sure which other digital cameras have it. It also used to be available on the eos5 (2a) and eos3 so I would expect it to appear on some cameras other than the 1 series.

Best regards

BearSummer