Sensor Cleaning

Sorry... I'm new to all this forum stuff...

I'll search harder..

The copperhill site has the best tutorial you will find.
http://www.pbase.com/c​opperhill/ccd_cleaning

clip from the XT manual. They may be similar?

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Sorry Patrick, I missed your post.

As Bob said it has been said many times before, there is also alot of web sites about with detailed information with many different options. The first step is to read your manual, it tells you the least invasive way to rid yourself of dust. Get yourself a good squeeze bulb blower follow what the manual tells you and hold your camera so it faces down.

That doesn't always rid your camera of dust or pollutants so sometimes you will need to go a step further, there are many choices to follow down this path. I don't like to advise on anything when it comes to this as everyone has their own opinion or way they think is best. You have to look at the options and think which seems what your comfortable with.

Theres only 3 ways really,
1. brush your sensor (this is done with a totally clean nylon artist or makeup brush and then you charge it with static electricity by either blowing air with some force through it or rubbing it unpon litmus paper or something of this sort). There are purpose made brushes for this task which can be very expensive or you can research it and work it out for yourself.

2. Dry swabbing your sensor. This is done several ways as well, some people use a lens pen ( I don't like this as you need to throw it away after one use in my opinion). Other use a lens tissue ( I wouldn't use) or clinical grade tissue/pad free from impurities. The last is useing a bit of microfibe cloth, but you should only use whatever is used once so as not to re-introduce anything to contaminate/damage the lowpass filter.

3. Wet swabbing your sensor, this is done using one of the above materials with 1 or 2 drops of a cleaning solution. Again many choices, 90%+Methanol, 90%+Isopropyl or lens cleaning fluid of whatever brand.

There are an endless list of how to do all of these on the web and who prefers what for their own reason. You need to work out what you feel your able to do and what method you think is best for your own needs. Be very careful as most manufacturers don't recomend you do any of these and you do need to be very careful in what you do.

There are so many choices and ways it can be done and it's at ones own risk to undertake this kind of cleaning, this is why I don't like to advise. Theres just too many options and everyone will swear by theirs, as I said, just work out what you feel comfortable with nd research that method. The only other choice is have Canon do it for you.

I bought my sensor cleaning kit from Micro Tools here: http://www.micro-tools.com/Merchant2/dc​k.htm . Scroll down to DIGI-KIT4-F.

It costs only 17.95, and is essentially the same kit from the Copperhill site.

Dont be too frightened to use eclipse cleaning fluid and sensor swabs,it is easier than you think,just read the instructions and look for tutorials on the webpages.

Thank you so much... you're the man. After I had posted that I went to the local camera shop and they said they do it for $60... I think I might just fork over the money for now and let them do it....

I'm probably over-thinking this, but I have a question using the Swipe and PecPads...when you're looking at a picture to see if you have specks, how does the top/bottom/left/right of the photo correspond to the sensor. IOW, if I have a cluster of dust in the lower left hand corner of the photo, which corner is that on the sensor?

I'm not certain but I would think the top left corner of an image would be the top right corner of the sensor. But it shouldn't really matter, if you going to swip/swab a sensor you should do it in a fashion that either covers the whole sensor or a 2 pass method being sure to not change direction so as to not re-introduce pullutants you may have just removed.

I always find this cleaning the sensor issue very interesting, earlier on this thread I asked what is so special about the glass covering the sensor, why we can't use lens cleaner that we use on reading glass.
Mitcon said he thought it was okay to use this fluid, but I'm still curious as to what is so special about this "piece of glass"

Brian

Brian, that bit of glass is quite thin and is a lowpass filter.

BottomBracket wrote:
I bought my sensor cleaning kit from Micro Tools here: http://www.micro-tools.com/Merchant2/dc​k.htm . Scroll down to DIGI-KIT4-F.

It costs only 17.95, and is essentially the same kit from the Copperhill site.

Thanks for the link.
I already got a hold of the Copperhill guy and the order is on the way.

Cheers!

New sensor cleaning tool... updated sensor brush

http://www.visibledust​.com …eaning_self_cha​rging.html

Somewhere I saw a post about getting the right sort of brush for the static brush approach, that didn't cost an arm and a leg - can anyone point me to it? I have a stubborn bit of dust that the copperhill method has only shifted around (it got rid of all the others) - I tried three times, but I think it's going to have to be lifted off.

Any advice welcome!
Phil

One thought. You do need to make sure that the brush is clean, so you should clean it with distilled water prior to charging it. You should only go to the next step if the brush does not do a good enough job.