WAHEY! 1DMKIII view finder now "spick & span"

Some of you may have read my dilema, of having some BIG dust spots when looking through the view finder .

Well today i did the good old blast with the Rocket blower, which did'nt do a thing with the dust .So the only option i had, was to take out the focus screen.

Now seeing that i've never done something like that before, it was very nerve racking doing it on a new 1D3.Well it was very easy.Just lay down the cam on its back, then use some tweezers to push up the metal flap, which will make a frame pop out with the screen sitting inside.Then just use the tweezers to grab a small stuck up tag on the top of the screen and pull out .Then grab the adges of the screen with my finger and thumb to hold.

Having inspected the screen and giving it another good old blower blast, i could still see the black dots.So all i did was use some Eclipse lens cleaning fluid on a sheet of Eclipse micro fibre wipes.

Now i've got to say i ONLY cleaned the GLASS side of the screen, NOT the none glass side.It worked a treat , even took off a couple a small marks off the screen aswell as the specks of dust.

Then it was a case of, using the tweezers again to grab the tag and putting the screen back into the frame, then pushing the frame back into place with a click sound.

Now im not looking at black spots, its tottaly clean

glad you got it worked out Alan

Well done! Sounds like fun! I hope you took pics?!

Sinkrate wrote in post #4159762
Well done! Sounds like fun! I hope you took pics?!

Damn did'nt think of doing that.

Thanks for your help Blonde

Ahhh, so that was where all the fuss was about Must bear that in mind, alas another place to collect dust.

Yeah just remember.

Seeing dust through the view finder = dust on the focus screen or mirror

Seeing dust on your shots = dust on the sensor

Obvious to some, but like me it wasn't DOH!

Alan B wrote in post #4159918
Yeah just remember.

Seeing dust through the view finder = dust on the focus screen or mirror

Seeing dust on your shots = dust on the sensor

Obvious to some, but like me it wasn't DOH!

correct but don't forget that dust through the viewfinder can also be dust IN the viewfinder which is the worst because you probably have to have Canon clean it

Good that you didn’t scratch focusing screen taking it out and cleaning it with Eclipse and microfiber – because next time you probably will!
Do not touch focusing screen with anything other than blast of air from the blower.

Hermeto wrote in post #4160084
Good that you didn’t scratch focusing screen taking it out and cleaning it with Eclipse and microfiber – because next time you probably will!
Do not touch focusing screen with anything other than blast of air from the blower.

Like i have already said, i only had that option.As blowing air did nothing!.

If you absolutely have to, just hold it by the sides and rinse it with running water.
After that, dry it with air blower, but never, never rub it with anything!
Focusing screen is made of very soft plastic, it will scratch easily.

And please don’t ask me how I got to know that..

Hermeto wrote in post #4160130
If you absolutely have to, just hold it by the sides and rinse it with running water.
After that, dry it with air blower, but never, never rub it with anything!
Focusing screen is made of very soft plastic, it will scratch easily.

And please don’t ask me how I got to know that..

Yep thanks for the tip, will remember that in the future if i have to do it again .

On the positive side, spare focusing screen is not very expensive and now you know how to replace it.
But still, it’s not a pleasant surprise when you see that you’ve scratch it.
The best way is just to get used to a couple of specks in the viewfinder and ignore them until they become really, really annoying.

Hermeto wrote in post #4160165
On the positive side, spare focusing screen is not very expensive and now you know how to replace it.
But still, it’s not a pleasant surprise when you see that you’ve scratch it.
The best way is just to get used to a couple of specks in the viewfinder and ignore them until they become really, really annoying.

The 2 BIG specks that i was seeing was really annoying .Everytime i was looking through the view finder, i was just seeing them, which was spoiling the use of my new 1D3 .

I was infact going to contact the Canon sevice centre via email to ask how much a new one would be.But now ive sorted out mine i dont need a new one.

It might be handy to have a spare anyway.

Hi Alan, that's good news, from your original post you said you were seeing spots on the image, I didn't think spot on the focus screen would affect the image or am I missing something.

Cheers

Hello

Yeah in the other thread i did say i saw specks on the shots, but later on in the thread i said made a mistake.I thought i saw the specks the night before but when i did the f22 test the day after in better light on a white wall it was tottaly clear.

They were on the focus screen from the start.