Topic: the dust

[Frank in JC]

I wanted to share this with the rest of you, many of whom are like me and relatively new to digital SLRs.  It's common knowledge that dust is an issue when it lands on the sensor, so I try not to change lenses constantly or open the shutter and stare into the thing the way I did with my film cameras. 

Attached are a few pics that show what dust might look like in your camera.  The first two are before/after crops (1" exposure, out of focus, directed at a white wall).  The third is the result of overlaying the before and after images in Photoshop, blending the layers using the difference option (i.e. mathematically subtracting one from the other), and then tweaking the curves to amplify the result.  Ignore the noise and vignetting, the dark blobs are where the dust particles were before cleaning.  This picture isn't cropped so it shows the relative size of the blobs--not small are they?  It's worth noting however, that these were rarely visible in most of my photographs... it's when I had large areas of even tones, like with a sky, that they're objectionable.

Okay... the main reason for my post: a recommendation.  If you don't have one already, get a Giottos Rocket or Q-Ball blower!  It's not exactly a technological breakthrough, it's just the right tool for the job.  It actually provides a real blast of air unlike those tiny blower-brushes.  Even more clever is that it has check valves that allow fresh air to enter the bulb only from the rear so it doesn't suck in the dust you just blew off from inside your camera.  The last thing I want to do is touch the sensor in my camera with any thing or any chemical, so I'm relieved the Q-Ball worked as well as it did. 

http://www.giottos.com/


before dusting


after dusting


difference



...and how about an actual photograph?  Just one more reason I love my wide angle lens!

[Brian]

thanks for the recommendation.  i got a a lot of lens cleaners but i overlooked removing dust from the sensor

[stirinthesauce]

yup, thanks for the recs.  I've got one of the shitty little brush blowers.  It doesn't do anything.  I've got a speck of dust I can't get off my sensor.  I can see it.  I've been painstakenly using the cloning tool and paintbrush tool, what a PITA.

[Frank in JC]

I forgot... there's another cleaning product I wanted to recommend [highly] as well, the Hakuba Lenspen.  It works much better than microfiber cleaning cloths, which tend to leave oils behind once they get dirty.  Stubborn marks and stains on some of my lenses that I couldn't remove with the cloth come off fairly easily with the pen.  One spot required some condensed breath, but no cleaning liquid.  Apparently its design has something to do with graphite, as it leaves a very tiny bit of black dust on the lens afterwards.  (Not an issue so long as you don't get it INSIDE the camera.)  And other than the dust, the pen doesn't re-deposit oils back on the lens; it doesn't smear a fingerprint across the entire face of your lens the way a cloth can.  The other end of the pen has a retractable brush which sweeps away any remaining debris, leaving a very clean lens.