How often are you manually cleaning sensors?

How often are you folks finding yourselves cleaning your sensors that have the built in dust shakers? At what point do you clean? 1 spot? Several? Many? Im just trying to figure out how the built in shakers are working on the cameras that have them, I know the old ones became dirty rather quickly....

I clean the sensor when there's visible dust in my images. My daughter's 60D is 5 years old and has never needed to be cleaned. My 70D is about 2 years old and I've needed to clean it twice. The difference is that I shoot a lot of off-road events where there can be a lot of dust in the air, and am changing lenses somewhat frequently, whereas she is shooting more indoors and not changing lenses often in dusty environments.

Now that we have some more bodies to work with I'll probably carry two bodies for events so I don't have to change lenses as often.

Very rarely now with the Auto clean. I used to have do something two to three times a year.

Now it's all built in autoclean,
If something ends up causing problems I use the lens/sensor pen, and last resort is a wet cleaning.

I have not done a wet cleaning since my 1D3, and that was after dry season in Africa.
I've got all this wet cleaning stuff kicking around for 3 sensor sizes, and never use any of it.

can you link to any of the kit? i have a 1D3 and shoot a lot of drifting events so lots of rubber dust in the air. I wouldn't mind giving my kit a bit of a winter clean

I used a rocket blower on a sensor once a few years ago, haven't done any cleaning since. I don't think my sensors have any dust.

I don't often stop down far enough for sensor dust to be an issue. That is for the f/16 and smaller crowd isn't it?

Ever since the self cleaning option came in cameras I've never had to. Before that about once a year.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17760149
Very rarely now with the Auto clean. I used to have do something two to three times a year.

Now it's all built in autoclean,
If something ends up causing problems I use the lens/sensor pen, and last resort is a wet cleaning.

I have not done a wet cleaning since my 1D3, and that was after dry season in Africa.
I've got all this wet cleaning stuff kicking around for 3 sensor sizes, and never use any of it.

This. I'm sure I should on general principles, but I haven't seen the need. Maybe with multiple lenses and a couple of M bodies I'll need to more.

Bassat wrote in post #17760169
I don't often stop down far enough for sensor dust to be an issue. That is for the f/16 and smaller crowd isn't it?

This. With my propensity for screwing up delicate work, I'd rather take out the spots in post than risk messing up my sensors. I just don't trust myself to do it right.

That said, I rarely see dust spots unless I'm seriously stopped down or shooting against a gray slate sky.

Never. Had my 5DIII pretty much since launch and took it to the Namib dessert for a month. See the occasional dust spot or two when shooting at smaller F/ number but just remove in post.

Every few weeks. Autoclean does nothing for certain kinds of dust (oily dust that can't be shaken off). Basically, as soon as I see more than a few spots or large spots, or tendrils even, it's time to clean it manually. Sometimes all it takes is a blower, but when it's cleaning time I usually have to bring out the Eclipse and the swabs.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #17760149
Very rarely now with the Auto clean. I used to have do something two to three times a year.

Now it's all built in autoclean,
If something ends up causing problems I use the lens/sensor pen, and last resort is a wet cleaning.

I have not done a wet cleaning since my 1D3, and that was after dry season in Africa.
I've got all this wet cleaning stuff kicking around for 3 sensor sizes, and never use any of it.

I used a Nikon lens pen a few months back to try to remove dust from the sensor and it left oily streaks all over the place. I had to use seven wet swabs before I got it all cleaned off.

I use the Eclipse swabs and fluid for wet cleaning.

I have a funny feeling that I've cleaned my 1D MK III only once since I got it in 2008. Probably due a clean again...