20D cleaning in the UK

[wintoid]

My 20D has dust on the sensor. It has not affected my shooting under normal circumstances, but show up when shooting a white wall at f22 and doing autolevels. I bought a Rocket Blower, and that has shifted some of the dust, but by no means all. There's tons of it on my sensor it seems.

I'm not the kind of guy who can forget this, even if it's not impacting my photos. I'm also not the kind of guy who is comfortable with cleaning his own sensor (if I was a Mr Man, I would be Mr Bump).

Ideally, I want to take my camera in to somewhere in London, and have it cleaned on the spot (no pun intended!). I looked at Fixation from the Canon website, but it implies that they only do "professional" cameras, whereas the 20d is listed as "semi-professional".

Is there anywhere I can go to do this? I was thinking maybe York Cameras or someone with plenty of experience. And if they *did* screw it up, what comeback would I have?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

[billhercus]

Simon,

Just cleaned my 20D with Sensorswipe & PecPads (http://www.pbase.com/image/32569476) .

The bottle of Eclipse you need to buy in the UK (I used Google to fine a store) but the kit came from the States in a few days.

The instructions are very detailed (he does not advocate blowers of any kind - they just blow the dust around he says) and simple to follow.

I honestly reckon if I can do it w/o any problem, probably almost anyone can. Give the site a read anyway and see what you think.

.... and good luck!!

[KennyG]

Simon, you are going to have to come to terms with cleaning the sensor at some point. Most service organsations will want at least £25 for a sensor clean and the second you change lenses the dust will be back. It could cost you an absolute fortune taking it back and forth to a service centre, assuming you use your camera regularly.

How useful to anyone is an F22 shot of a white wall? This is where half the problems with sensor dust paranoia lie, by taking tests to the extreme to prove that dust is there, even though it does not cause a problem under normal circumstances. Only worry about it when it effects your standard pictures, or you will end up with nasty a case of OCD and lose any enjoyment from your photography.

[pierrot]

...or you will end up with nasty a case of OCD and lose any enjoyment from your photography.Sounds a clever statement that I do share. ;)
I had to admit that - despite the fact it irritates my sense of perfection - I'll have to live with a bit of dust on my sensor. To be honest, it's more annoying in my head than on the picture :D

And if is too visible, this mainly occurs on large uniform areas like a blue sky or a snowy slope (I suppose: not yet went skiing in the Alps this winter) and it's so easy to correct with a little bit of Paintshop... ;)

[wintoid]

Thanks for the responses...

I was really hoping I could take it for one good clean, and after that the Rocket Blower would be enough to keep it clean after that. I'd gladly pay £25 to have this done as a one-off if you can recommend a service centre in London. I don't want to send the camera off, but prefer to turn up myself and hand them the camera (and more importantly get it back reasonably quickly!)

I appreciate this is verging on OCD :D

[HKFEVER]

My 20D has dust on the sensor. It has not affected my shooting under normal circumstances, but show up when shooting a white wall at f22 and doing autolevels. I bought a Rocket Blower, and that has shifted some of the dust, but by no means all. There's tons of it on my sensor it seems.


I have the same problem with my 1DsMKII:

Tried rocket blower, end up with more tiny dust that look like out focus, but the big one is gone and more dust caught between the focusing screen and the prism.

Tried Copperhillimages cleaning kit, it works perfect. The sensor is very very clean. But still have 3 tiny dust that stick on the corner that won't move or go away @ f/22.

Sent the camera back to Canon for cleaning, but they need 7 working days and can't be sure that they can clean it or not (because those dust may be between the low part filter and the sensor).

Hope they can clean it:oops:

So, you have to learn to live with it and learn how to clean sensor. No sensor is 100% clean.