30D Wet Clean or quit obsessing?

Hello Everyone,

Please take a look at this image I just shot.

I ordered the wet clean sensor swab and the sensor sweep brush from CopperHill. I just used my rocket blower and blew off the sensor, and then swept it with the sensor sweep.

Should I attempt a wet clean from what you see in this image, or should I quit obsessing about the few specks on the sensor?

I think I may be more comfortable trying the Dust Aid method before I try the SensorSwab with Pec Pads. Any thoughts?

Thanks so much for your thoughts!

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My comments are dont worry about them till they start showing up in your photos. If you are not shooting in F/22-F32 everday chances are you wont notice them.

Do they show up in your pictures? If not, forget about it.

I have some on my MkIII from when I first got it that dont blow off but you cant see them so I dont care. Ill get it cleaned when I have some downtime, but until then, I dont care.

...and when the spots do show up, don't agonize over cleaning the sensor. It isn't so bloody hard; just don't soak the swab and don't put all your body weight on it. Just two swipes, one each way, take a test shot and see whether you got the dirt, and do once more if it looks like you missed a spot. A swab wrapped around a q-tip will get the corners and edges if something accumulated there.

best tip i saw here recently was to open the test shot in P'shop, flip 180 and reverse, so that it was similar to looking at the sensor to be sure where the dust was

Quit obsessing

René Damkot wrote in post #4289691
Quit obsessing

I second that...

Mine looks worse, and I'm not worried about it.

So I clone out a spot here and there at times. No biggie.

I am a clean freak and like to get things spotless. By the time you notice them on your photos you could have hundreds of photos with spots all over them. Plus, even though you can not see them, they are there and impacting IQ.

That said, your sensor looks pretty clean. The one big spot you do have is rather diffuse and as you used the "auto levels" technique all the spots look way worse than they really are. I think your ok to let it slide a bit longer.

That's clean in my book.

gjl711 wrote in post #4290155
I am a clean freak and like to get things spotless. By the time you notice them on your photos you could have hundreds of photos with spots all over them. Plus, even though you can not see them, they are there and impacting IQ.

That's a good point. Spots on the sensor or the lens, even if you can't see them, still diffuse light passing through them (or, more likely, passing through their edges).

Hmmm. I wonder how many of those folk who always shoot RAW because "jpeg degrades the image" are ignoring spots that they don't see in the image.



-js