Such thing as a camera "Tune Up"?

My teenage daughter's Canon T1i (about 3 years old) seems to be generating "slightly" deteriorating picture quality. She uses it mostly outdoors and does lots of horse photography in somewhat dusty settings. All in all the camera is still fine but she has been noticing subtle changes in picture quality on some images. The question here is really: Do people get their camera's "tuned up" from time to time or take them in for cleaning or refurbishing etc. If so is that typically dones at a camera store or would the unit be sent in to Canon?

Thank You.

Yes, Canon will give it a look over, clean and adjust as needed but why not save some $$ and do much of this yourself? I would start by cleaning lens and sensor, updating the firmware and replacing the memory card (they do wear out).

Where would I find out how to correctly clean lens and sensor as well as how to update firmware.

Replacing the memory card I actually can figure out...

I don't believe cleaning and adjusting your camera will improve the photos. A dirty image sensor shows up as spots in the photo, not as "slightly" deteriorating picture quality. Same for memory cards. They either work or they don't.

You may have a dirty lens or filter glass, but I would bet it's just user error or maybe some camera settings not where they should be.

Does she shoot jpeg's or RAW? Do you have a sample photo?

It's almost become a thing of the past now... But yes, it used to be common practice for cameras and lenses to get a Clean/Lube/Adjust (CLA) every year or two, maybe three depending upon usage. Today people tend to "upgrade" so often that it's become a pretty rare service.

Modern DSLRs do have fewer moving parts and are pretty close to "lifetime" lubricated. Modern cameras may need less attention, but meters can drift out of adjustement, moving parts wear with a lot of use, and lubrication can dry out and moving parts might become sluggish. Rather than servicing and repairing a part such as a shutter, today if it's far enough out of calibration the modular unit the might be entirely replaced instead.

Info on cleaning the camera's sensor. Read it thoroughly, done wrong there are opportunities to do serious damage to a camera during cleaning, that might mean an expensive repair. Or, take the camera in and have the sensor cleaned, if you are concerned about cleaning it yourself.

Exterior lens cleaning is actually pretty similar to sensor cleaning, though usually with slightly different products.

In addition, with lenses you might want to inspect inside with a flashlight to be sure there isn't a lot of dust or, worse, fungus starting to grow in there. If there is, it needs to be checked by a technician at a repair facility.

Also, if your daugther is noticing degradation of prints, or even just the images on computer screen... is her computer regularly calibrated? Here's an article about callibration. (Note: laptop computers are difficult to calibrate because the viewing angle often changes, as well as the ambient light environment.)

Calibration is actually done throughout the workflow process. The printer needs to be clean and fully functional, and driven by a "profile" that matches it and the specific supplies (ink and paper) used with it. Softwares used in the course of processing need to be set to matching profiles, and the right color space and file type need to be produced for the intended purpose of the image.

If you could show us a sample image from awhile ago (when the image quality was acceptable) and the a recent one (that your daughter is concerned with) it would help to see what kind of differences there are

The most beneficial service I ever had done to my film cameras (2 Nikon F bodies and my Mamiya C-33) was cleaning, lubing, and adjusting the shutters. Even though the metallic focal plane shutters in our Canon cameras are radically different from the rubberized cloth shutters common in 1960s SLRs, I would suspect that today's cameras which have physical shutters could still benefit by having this service done.

I'm curious as to what the ""slightly" deteriorating picture quality" mentioned in the OP is all about.

Naturalist wrote in post #14620542
Yes, Canon will give it a look over, clean and adjust as needed but why not save some $$ and do much of this yourself? I would start by cleaning lens and sensor, updating the firmware and replacing the memory card (they do wear out).

A non-broken memory card of a well-known brand can handle way more photos than the camera is able to produce without one or more shutter replacements.

The memory cards have something called wear leveling, to spread the wear of the memory chips evenly.

Unless they are physically abused, the normal reason to replace them is that they have become too small.

It is rather difficult to give a specific answer since the term "deteriorate" is somewhat vague in this context. It would be helpful if you could provide a description of the problem and especially helpful if you could also provide a snippet from a full sized image (generally referred to as a 100% crop on this forum) along with the camera's shooting and EXIF data.

However, to give a general answer, I agree with Mike. A common problem is dust. If there is dust on the sensor itself, it would be mostly noticeable at higher aperture numbers (that is, stopped down) and would appear as small faint slightly-fuzzy dots that are mainly noticeable against a plain background such as the sky. If there is dust on the lens, inside or outside, it would be mainly seen as lower contrast, which is hard to discern unless the lens is really-really dusty. Dust on the exterior of the lens is best blown off with air. If it is inside then it will need to be sent in for cleaning.

If the lens always stays on the camera then the amount of dust entering the body and getting on the sensor is reduced, but not always eliminated. Some zoom lenses are not sealed well at all and behave somewhat like bellows when zooming -- in other words, they suck in dusty air as the lens is extended and then blow air out as the lens retracts and in the process a good portion of the dust stays in the lens.

I also agree with Alan's comments regarding regular maintenance as reasons to send a camera in to Canon for repair, but in general don't expect those things to be the culprit for "degraded" images. I would be more inclined to think that other things like the monitor or printer need to be checked out as possible causes as Alan mentioned. I also think that user related things could be the source of problems with the images -- at least that is the case for me.

In the distant past, cameras used mechanical gears to time shutters (just like wind-up wristwatches). Lubricants and spring tension was critical for accurate timing. In-camera meters relied upon electromechanical swing needle meters, and some autoexposure cameras used what was termed the 'trap needle' for the automation. It was much more common to have to have lubricants replaced every few years, or to have natural lubricants 'winterized' for cold weather shooting.

Now we have electronically timed shutters, fully electronic metering circuits, and synthetic lubricants that do not thicken in cold weather.