Sensor Cleaning kit reviews

I thought It would be handy to have a collection of reviews of cleaning kit.

Post your reviews here

I'll start:

The Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly 724 arrives in a leatherette zip case with a quick release attachment to strap it (presumably) onto your camera bag/rucksack. Inside that case is a soft touch (turquoise?) plastic box with 'Arctic Butterfly' engraved on the top and 'Visible Dust' engraved on the latch. Inside protected by a foam surround is the 'Arctic Butterfly' itself. It is made of the same soft feel plastic (not sure how else to describe it). Emblazoned on one side is the name and logo and on the other 'Super-charged Fibre (SCF). Man this is 'designer' sensor cleaning and with a price tag to match! . Everything looks just like it should for a really expensive and presumably 'the best' piece of kit. Impressed so far.

Sadly it's downhill all the way from here on.

No batteries included, for that money you'd have thought they'd include a couple of little AAA batteries. Not impressed#1

Using it on a 5D; my very first attempt out of the box, untouched by any fingers resulted in smears over the sensor! Had it been returned and resold as new or was there some other reason that the brush was not uncontaminated?. Either way there was something on the brush that smeared the sensor. No it didn't touch the sides and no I didn't touch it with my fingers, I was very careful about that. It should either have a seal to show it is unused or instructions to clean before first use. Not impressed #2.

Their brush shape is not strong but straggly. Some filaments splay out awkwardly after spinning and make it way too easy to touch the sides. Even if only one little filament does this it could spread grease or oil. Not impressed #3

The brush is too insubstantial. They even sell a more substantial version as a separate attachment. So why not include the substantial version as integral. i.e. why make an inferior product knowingly (except to maximise profit at the expense of customer satisfaction). Not impressed #4

On returning the brush to the cap, the cap entrance and in fact the whole cap, is too narrow to avoid bending some of the bristles back on themselves, unless you are very careful. Bad design. Not impressed #5

The first one I received I returned immediately without even opening as half the brush was bent back on itself inside the transparent cap. (underlining my previous point). not impressed #6

My final opinion on this product: 'style over function' - the marketing and advertising hype could be interpreted to mean that this is a superior piece of kit. Not in terms of its ability to clean your sensor It isn't IMO. There are better and much much cheaper alternatives out there IMO. My advice: save your money.

Photographic Solutions Sensor swab and Eclipse

The 59ml (2oz) bottle of Eclipse and packet of Sensor Swabs come in cardboard packages that don't have the quantity or size on the outside. The actual bottle of Eclipse does have the size on, and I count 8 swabs in the swab box.
[edit: according to photosolutions site there should be 12 per box - so check when you get it; as it's not sealed anyone can nick a couple and you won't be any the wiser until too late - as I just found out from warehouseexpress you're not getting a retrospective replacement]

First I'd like to say these products are reasonably priced and they do work

However you may need to repeat the process several times before you get the results you need, I used 6 of the 8 swabs before I got the results I wanted. This was no doubt due to inexperience though and I expect to need less attempts on my next try.

The instructions say to put one or two drops on the 'tip' of the swab, the diagram says two drops but their demo video says two to four drops. This is confusing as most reports of using this product also state that it works best with one or two drops at the very most.

A diagram to show what the 'tip' is would be helpful (does it mean leading edge, where it joins the handle, or one of each of the corners?) In the video it doesn't seem to be important exactly where it goes as long as it goes on the right end

How hard to apply the swab? I was being too gentle I believe to start with, I mean I was scared of scratching the sensor! Average pressure seems to be the thing, they recommend 'firm' pressure - just enough to be sure the swab is fully located on the sensor, but not enough to 'scrub', seems to be the way to go. However the video says enough pressure to bend the swab handle slightly!

After one swipe they instruct to 'turn over to use opposite side' or 'rotate 180 degrees'. However on the diagram they then drag in the opposite direction having rotated it, -- er doesn't this present the same side to the sensor? Shouldn't it be swiped in the same direction once rotated, or not rotated if swiped in the reverse direction? i.e. if reversing the direction do not 'rotate' but simply lean handle to use opposite side? Fortunately the video concurs i.e. they just swab back in the opposite direction without any rotating of the swab.

The Eclipse bottle doesn't deliver drops until you get te hang of it, what it does is pour. Not ideal when you're trying for one drop! It needs to be tipped very slowly and carefully against a dark background in good light so you can see exactly what is coming out

However once I got the hang of it, it produced the results needed at a cost that was affordable. This is a product I will stay with.