Sensor cleaning; The plague of the century!

Jan 27, 2010 6 Comments by radraven

It’s been a while I’ve been silent… Yes, I’ve been busy trying to finish my never ending film, but the excitement of the first 5D videos and the expectations of what would be new in cameras like the 7D and 1D has come to an end… so I’ve been a lot less inspired to write… not to mention the never ending, boring delay of the Scarlet…

I’ve had my 5D for a while now and although I haven’t used it as much as I’d like, the truth is that I have used it in situations I couldn’t have anticipated. Like to shoot some action packed scenes for my movie…
I only made up my mind to buy the 5D after the announcement of the specs and features of the 7D. Mainly because of the lack of a full frame sensor, which is a deal breaker for me when it comes to taking stills.
12mm Aespherical

The 5D MKII has matched most of my expectations in the photography world, but has exceeded so many more when it comes to motion picture. I’m still gathering material to make an in-depth review on using the 5D MKII for motion picture, in the real world, meaning people like us, with limited budgets, small productions but the soul and ambition to make the very best out of what you got.

The focusing problems mentioned throughout countless blogs and user groups, when taking stills, hasn’t haunted me, but then again, coming from a first generation 5D I don’t see any differences there.
I confess I don’t know much about how the auto-focus system works and I have no experience with Nikon to compare what many people rave about. But if the 5D is the queen of shallow depth of field, could there be a direct connection there?! Not to mention most of us have sharpness dialed all the way down to get that “film-like look” and probably forget to re-adjust it when taking stills… Just my 2 empirical cents…

What has been haunting me though, and oddly enough I have found almost no information on this matter in sites that focus in shooting HD with DSLRs, is what I believe to be one of the biggest plagues of DSLRs; dust on the sensor! And if this is most annoying, it is relatively easy to fix in pictures, but in case of motion picture, your footage will in many cases be rendered useless… which is quite scary, as it isn’t an easy thing to spot it on the field, in our tiny LCD screens.

The good news is that there’s plenty of articles on how to clean your sensor coming from the stills world, so you can use all of that good info to take care of your HD DSLR.
I strongly recommend you explore this website: http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/

I thought the cleaning gimmicky graphic animation I see every time I turn my camera on or off, was assuring me the cleaning system was taking care of business, but all it took was a few outdoor shoots to realize it’s not enough!

The first generation 5D had a reputation for being the biggest dust hogger of the DSLRs and I barely see any differences in the sensor pit design… If you like shooting outdoors and like to change lenses often, it’s only a question of time until you’ll become a victim of this plague. It’s quite frustrating to come back home to a bunch of black dots populating the pics you were so excited about… Not to worry, nothing you can’t fix in Aperture and/or Photoshop. But if you were shooting HD for a client and find the same thing in your clips… you’re going to find yourself in a much more difficult spot without any easy or cheap fixes… (I’m working on a feasible solution and will be posting soon!)

This is a problem manufacturers never anticipated when implementing the first sensors in SLR cameras. Or any other interchangeable lens camera for that matter. Our friends with higher end (read retardedly expensive) Hasselblads suffer from exactly the same plague… and from what I hear, butterfly pens (static charged brushes for removing dust from sensors) are becoming quite popular on RED shoots…
You see, when we used film, our “sensor” was replaced every single time we exposed it. Now, not only do we expose in larger quantities, ’cause you know, it’s digital, “free” and easy to delete, the sensor stays with you for the life span of the camera… and all it takes is the tiniest dust particle to gently land on your sensor, for you to end up with a “dust bunny” on your pic… I wonder who started calling them “dust bunnies”?! “Dust Devils” sounds a lot more appropriate to me… ;(

OK, Dust is everywhere. Fair enough, we have to learn how to deal with it. But that’s where the whole ordeal starts. How do we clean our sensors?

Canon goes as far as saying you should send your camera in to get the sensor cleaned, when this happens. For me that would be every other outdoor shoot, or so… ain’t happenning… so there you are forced to delve into the risky world of sensor cleaning.
Be afraid! Be very afraid!!! You should know first hand you can literally condemn your camera when you decide to engage in such a task! I’ve heard horror stories! And usually, to replace the sensor, you’re better off buying a new camera, as the price tag is simply absurd.

I don’t want to scare you! I assure you, you can do this! But don’t go for it blindly! You should know what is at stake before you start, as whatever happens in the process won’t be covered by your warranty. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, don’t! Go to your local Canon Service Center or Photography shop and have them do it for you. If you start getting annoyed with repeated visits and spotted pics, talk with the person who’s servicing your camera, explain your problem and try to learn from them as much as you can!
If you photograph often, you will eventually feel like it’s time to try to do it on your own. You can also find instructional videos on-line that will give you the last bit of confidence you need.

The 1st rule of sensor cleaning is: ALWAYS BE ULTRA CAREFUL!!!
The 2nd rule is: Be patient and practice gently until you get your formula down. Oh and get ready to spend a bit of money… The only sad thing is that in the end, you will probably still not be completely satisfied… well, at least I’m not…

You will find a ton of cleaning kits out there and they will all claim to be the perfect solution… this whole ordeal is so frustrating I would not dare to tell you there is one… but what I can do, is share my experience in this matter, so far. And if you have some miracle recipe to clean your sensor, please, I would love to hear about it!!!???

The first thing you need to learn is where in your menu lays the sensor cleaning option. This activates a mirror lock mode that doesn’t disengage when you remove your lens, keeping your mirror up, so you can have direct access to your precious sensor. You’ll also realize that to deactivate it you’ll have to switch off your camera (at least on Canon’s), which for me is another sign that there was never much thought put into this whole sensor cleaning thing… Earlier models had this function buried deep in the custom function menus…

This is where the real fun begins…. not!

If you’re lucky, you might only need to blow off the dust in your sensor and sensor pit. To do that all you need is to point your mirror flipped open camera to the ground and use a blower half a dozen times, or so, but make sure the blower tip does not touch the sensor!!!! Then rush to the ON/OFF switch to flip the mirror back to it’s original position, so no dust can sneak back in. And why should you point it down, you may ask? Well, like everything else on this planet, dust is affected by gravity… so if your blower is strong enough to shake it of the sensor and pit walls, gravity will pull it down, but unfortunately never up… if you use the same method and leave your camera laying flat on your desk, you might find you have even more dust on your sensor then before you “cleaned” it…

If you don’t have a blower in your kit yet, this is probably a good time to get one. It is essential in your kit and handy for many things. And if for any reason your wittiness is thinking Dust Off or any other form of canned air, make this your 3rd rule; NEVER USE CANNED AIR!!! Why you ask? I’ll let you find the answer in this link: http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com/warnings.html
I once broke this rule and thought I was being quite clever and successful, until my Dust Off froze my sensor and I had a stain that took 2 days to disappear… quite scary… so just don’t!

With that said, there’s a pretty cool canned air solution out there, that instead of blowing, vacuums your sensor! Green Clean! Quite clever, but you’ll still probably need to go to the next level when dust just decides it really likes the sensor and just won’t come off…

In that case you’ll have to use a wet cleaning process, where you’ll use a cleaning fluid and some kind of swab to wipe your sensor with. And this is when things can get really sticky! You should always have in your mind that if that shiny reflective thing down there gets damaged, you can kiss your beloved camera good bye. So my advice is, you can never be too careful, so don’t “improvise” with a piece of cloth, a cleaning pen or whatever you might think that is going to solve your problem, because it will most likely cause more… Buy only good quality products when it comes to touching your sensor! I’ve been using Eclipse e2 and have no complaints. You can buy kits of fluid and swabs, just make sure you get them in the right size for your sensor.

A problem we might find in many houses is finding a dust free environment. Like I mentioned before, dust is everywhere and as soon as you lay down your swab, because, say you forgot to activate the sensor cleaning mode, it will probably get contaminated and instead of taking dust off, you might be bringing dust in… So it’s not far stretched to say you should clean the area where you’re going to be staging your exposed sensor.

The next piece of gear that is essential is some kind of illuminated loupe to check your sensor. This way you can see where the dust is and evaluate how you’re going to deal with it. I use the Lenspen Sensorklear Loupe which you can get for $39.95 on Amazon and provides both strong enough light, as well as plenty of magnification to see the tiniest dust particle.

Lastly you’ll need to double check if you were successful in removing all the dust…
Take your camera outside with 50mm or longer lens, make sure your ISO is low, crank your f/stops as high as your lens allows, point at a portion of clear sky (if it’s cloudy, over expose it to the point you lose detail), compensate with your shutter to get proper exposure (not a problem if it is really low), rack it out of focus and take a picture… download it, open it in your favorite software, crank the contrast up a bit and if you find no dots first time around, I would say you’re either a natural born cleaner, or lucky as hell… if you do… well, that’s how you’ll get your practice… go clean it again, and do the high f/stop sky picture to make sure you nailed this time…
Every time I think I have my cleaning recipe down, I return with dust spots on my pics, usually on an important shoot, where I made sure my sensor was clean the day before…

As proof that I’m not happy, I’m getting ready to spend some more money on a few other pieces of gear that have caught my attention… Still haven’t made my mind up between The Arctic Butterfly and Delkins SensorVac… so I’ll probably end up getting both, eventually…

Lastly, my recommendations for when you’re on the field is to blow your lenses’ bottom clean, before you change them (You can use Dust Off for this purpose, I do) , turn your camera off before you change your lens, so there’s less static charge on your sensor (not sure if this is scientifically true, but it makes sense) and swap lenses as fast as you can, in the cleanest environment possible. This is great advice, believe me… problem is when you’re in the middle of the desert with a strong wind stirring all the dust in the world around you… and the Sun decides to set faster that day… I swear it did!!!