Help with sensor cleaning!

I'm with silvergt. Cleaning my sensor is pretty minor. I am very careful with the mirror though. I shoot the mirrors a few times with the blower. If that doesn't work then I use a special mirror brush that has very fine bristles. If that doesn't work, I'm done and its going to Irvine.

If you have dirt on the mirrors and it doesn't affect AF then the only annoyance is looking at the specs through the viewfinder. Anything on the mirror will not affect your pictures so learning to ignore the specs is the correct answer sometimes.

DDan wrote in post #5262243
I'm with silvergt. Cleaning my sensor is pretty minor. I am very careful with the mirror though. I shoot the mirrors a few times with the blower. If that doesn't work then I use a special mirror brush that has very fine bristles. If that doesn't work, I'm done and its going to Irvine.

If you have dirt on the mirrors and it doesn't affect AF then the only annoyance is looking at the specs through the viewfinder. Anything on the mirror will not affect your pictures so learning to ignore the specs is the correct answer sometimes.

Tell me about it. I'm normally pretty careful and agile but one night after 2 months of owning my 40D I decided to "clean" the mirror and focusing screen. Result? Canon had to change the whole mirror box and focusing screen and that brain cramp of mine cost me $480... I've learned my lesson...

the 1st step required to clean the sensor is to press the Menu Button that actually opens and LOCKS the Sensor UP so that you can access it. If you didn't at least do THAT, you're clearly not touching the Sensor ... but as you pointed out, probably the Mirror itself.

Cleaning the Sensor is NOT rocket science. I can attest to this - as I just went through the learning curve to do it myself. The items I purchased (Cooper Hill) paid for themself the 1st time. Local repair shops charge $60-80 to do this cleaning. That being said, it DID take me some time to get used to the amount of pressure I applied to the Sensor -- that whole fear-of-damaging thing. So I took the following 3 steps: (1) Rocket Blower to blow off anything not adhereing to the Sensor; (2) Static Charged brush; (3) the liquid & brush tool ..... My Sensor is CLEAN now.... (Now I must learn to be a lot more careful when I change lenses !!!)

n00bz0r wrote in post #5256349
Ok, so I am a newbie with DSLR's.

I wiped the sensor (if that's what the part is when you take the lens off the cam) with a microfiber cloth a couple times.

Did I mess up the camera? I just found out you're not supposed to...

Don't do this again. The glass that covers the sensor is very delicate thing and it has a special coating on it. Doing it this way would be very easy to do some serious damage. Besides that you cannot get into the corners so it is pretty worthless way to do it anyhow. If you didn't select sensor cleaning in the menu, then you didn't clean the sensor. However, if you tried to clean the shutter, that too is very delicate. If you didn't damage your camera, thank your lucky stars and then learn to do it right.

Get one of the charged brush system (Arctic Butterfly/Visible Dust or Copperhill brush and fan thingie). This will get 99% of the gunk off and do this frequently. It is very non invasive and gentle to your sensor. You will also, at some point, have to do a wet cleaning if you get some shutter lube or sticky pollen in there. Then go get the Copperhill wet cleaning stuff and follow their directions.

J.

n00bz0r wrote in post #5263762
Why, what did you do to it?

How did you try to clean it?

I didn't damage the sensor. It was the focusing screen and mirror. Just little scratches even with a light lens cleaning cloth. Bottom line. Don't do what I did.

Although they have no impact on the image because it's the sensor that takes the picture, I found it very annoying to see scratches in my viewfinder so I decided to have it serviced and they replaced the mirror and focusing screen.

Like I said, brain cramp. Now, if a rocket blower doesn't solve my problem or if I'm not stuck in the middle of nowhere, I just go to my local camera store or Canon service center that is right near my house and let them do it for $20....That's just me but that $500 bill cured my desire to take the risk of doing it myself.