Can you use a vacuum to clean a camera?

I'm talking about a vacuum hose that fits over the lens hole. Would that ruin the mirror even if you didn't touch it? Suck unwanted dust into the viewfinder area and make it worse? Will it work great? Is this a dumb question?

It may suck the mirror out!!

I think someone does make a small vacuum for this purpose but can't for the life of me remember who.

Here is a similar idea:

http://www.flaghead.co​.uk …/greenclean-products.html

No, don't do it, ever. Vacuum makes the dust particles fly back and forth with high speed and will definitely spread the dust deeper, scratching the internals before suction damages the mirror box and shutter blades...

While I don't think that the dust flying around will do damage any more than a bulb blower causing all the dust to fly around unless its something more like sand or metal chips, placing the vacuum over the whole lens opening restricts air from getting into the body to replace the air the vacuum is sucking out. Air is going to infiltrate from other locations such as the CF card slot, battery door, and any crack in the seams of the camera. What’s more if you were to only vacuum the camera body while the shutter is closed, you could cause the shutter blades to bend as there could be a significant pressure differential between the camera body and the cavity behind the shutter. Lastly, while the mirror is pretty solid and I doubt that you could vacuum it up, the focus screen is not and you might vacuum it. I’d stay away from a vacuum.

Bad idea!

As already said, the suction would draw in more dust and possibly damage the mirror, shutter, etc.

A post elsewhere on this forum described the experiense of someone who used a hand blower to clean out the CF-card/battery slot. All of the dust ended up on the sensor.

Probably not a bad idea at all really, if it was held say at about 2ins from the lens hole - a sort of mild sucking involved here.

Yep...... a ShopVac works great at removing all those pesky moving things in there.... like mirrors & such.

I used my Kirby Ultimate G once to clean my sensor. However, the Kirby has a method of attaching the hose to the output instead of to the input, allowing it to expel air at a rapid rate (in the 100's of cfm's, seems to ring a bell). Now...being that it was a new lexan hose, and the filter was a hepa micron magic filter, I knew the air would be clean. I worked for the company, and knew how they operated.

It cleaned it very well. I never used it again, though, as there'd be dirt in the hose from normal cleaning.

A swiffer mop works for me.

Never tried it, but maybe if your very careful I think it may work, the attached link claims they are okay .

Brian

http://www.mini-vac.com/index02.html

NOOOOOO

The last Sunday of every month, I take my bodies and lenses down to the coin-op car wash and vacuum them and spray wash them real good . . . .


NOT!

I read using lenspens did the trick. Although, I could be wrong.

I saw this advertised in the latest issue of Outdoor Photographer magazine...

http://www.green-clean-usa.com/index.php?id=1​5&L=1

It's an interesting concept, but I can see one problem. Apparently the system uses a propriatary vacuum can that has to be replaced periodically (for $7.95).

The kits can be purchased at BKA Photo and cost about $80.00...

http://www.bkaphoto.co​m/

It all just sounds like a bad idea to me....the only dust that the vacuum would remove is the same dust that would get removed by a 'blower' providing you held the camera upside-down.

The vacuum would not remove the sticky dust that is the 'real' concern, so I would say why bother taking the extra risk?

Not to mention, as someone has already said, when you remove air from the body cavity it has to be replaced from somewhere - introducing extra dust in the process.