CCD cleaning fear put to rest

[JeffinDEN]

For those that are experiencing the dread of cleaning those dust bunnies from your D-SLR sensor, this is for you! I needed to get my Nikon cleaned BAD. It has been close to a year with only a few puffs of air inside to clean the sensor. Never quite enough for my tastes, so today I purchased some of those "Pec" pads and Ecliplse fluid, made a swab from a rubber spatula, and went to it!

Here is what I was looking at prior to cleaning.....



N A S T Y ! ! !

a little over 10 minutes later, two swipes of the sensor.....



Not the same location of the sky, if you are wondering about the difference. There are still a few spots in there, but I'll wait and get them next time. If you had any fears about doing this procedure, well, I can't say you shouldn't worry, but I can say that it is very easy if you do a little preparation before hand. Also, I tested my swabbing technique twice on a mirror to see if anything was left behind by that fluid. Nothing, absolutely nothing! If you blink while it is drying, you will not see anything when your eyes open again. Now I will feel comfortable enough doing this as needed instead of waiting. The camera shop wanted $$58 to do this procedure.....

Hope this helps someone....

Jeff

[philb]

As long as you don't use any solvent, water or get your fingers on the CCD cleaning a D-SLR CCD is kids' play. My brother in law who is a press photographer has to do it almost weekly and, in November 2001, in Afghanistan, had to do it two or three times some days in less than ideal conditions with B-52s dropping nasties some 8 miles away.

Try cleaning a CCD on a top end prosumer digital when you have to pull the camera apart. I've done it twice on my 6900z (the dirt was in from manufacture as there is physically no way it can enter the CCD after manufacture and Fuji prosumer cameras are notorious for dust). The reason a second trip inside was necessary is that during the first cleaning I missed one small piece which had read all about the law of sod and, within a day or so, had migrated from somewhere on the CCD cover to the top left of the CCD.

As to cleaning methods, I took the brush end off a rubber "puffer" brush and just blew air across the CCD. Worked fine and I've had no more trouble since doing the job just after Christmas.

[egll]

Thanks for that advice, my leopardskin CCD is a pain in the a**, hopefully I can sort it out now


Matt