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| After three years of use, my EOS D60 is ready for cleaning of its sensor. |
Cleaning by steps
Since the dust was already on all three new test cameras EOS 350D, I've decided to clean them first. I've inserted a completely full battery, removed the lens, went into the MENU, found the function »Sensor Cleaning«, confirmed it with the SET button and the shutter opened. Then I've followed the steps as in instruction manual. I've picked up a brush with its hair upwards, took a CO2 spray in the other hand and sprayed for a couple of seconds (10 sec recommended), which electrified and cleaned the brush.
Then I inserted the brush into the camera and swept once from the left to the right edge of the sensor. I turned the camera off, the shutter closed, then I remounted the lens. I made three shots at apertures 16, 22 and 32 and transferred the photos to the computer. Instead of the great success, I was disappointed. Were these brushes worth anything at all or did I make something wrong? Lower edge of the sensor had a lot of dust, all placed in a row.
I've repeated the exact test only to find out that the result was the same. Instead of a clean sensor, I've got all the dust spots aligned in rows all over the sensor. For the third EOS 350D camera, I've decided to use an ordinary hand blower instead of CO2 spray. I used a specialized pump from Hama, which was made exactly for cleaning the sensors. It has an extra hole at the back from which it pumps the air, so you don't blow the dust back to the sensor. I've squeezed it a couple of times while rotating the brush. Then I've repeated sweeping the sensor and taking test photos. Now the sensor was completely clean, without any new dust. So the problem was the spray! I've remembered using spray on my drum scanner. Because of color patches »Newton's rings« at the contact of emulsion of the film and glass, in 90's we stopped using talc and used special Anti Newton spray instead, so there was no longer a direct contact between the film and the glass. In the beginning I've also noticed small drops on the film, caused exactly by the spray. So the real problem was that I've shaken the spray and than directly sprayed on the surface.
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| Sensor Brushes come in various sizes for different light sensors (4, 8, 16 (1.6x), 20 (1.3x) and 24mm (1.0x)). We get two brushes in the set. The wider one can be cleaned and electrified with CO2 spray and the smaller one with a hand pump. |
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| On the left is a brush for APS-C sized sensors (1.5 – 1.6x crop), on the right is a brush for full format LEICA sensors. |
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| CO2 spray for cleaning and electrifying the brushes. Be careful not to shake it too much and for the first two seconds to spray into the air and not directly onto the surface. |
Before each cleaning, I've shaken the spray, pressed the button and for about two seconds you could see the trace of CO2 under pressure. The right procedure would obviously be to shake the spray, then spray for two seconds in the air and only after that use it for actual cleaning. By doing so, I've successfully cleaned the brush.
I was lucky I didn't use any cheap spray. As I learned later, I could soil the sensor so much it would need wet cleaning (about this test a bit later). However, wet cleaning is recommended for cameras older than a year. The thin glass that covers the sensor, can gather enough garbage on it to have »an additional layer« on it. The effect is the same is with the car glass, where problems occur mostly in direct sun light. I will try the wet cleaning test soon on my EOS D60, too. Unfortunately I couldn't get the necessary equipment in time for this article as I am very curious if there will be any additional change on my photos.
At that time I had enough experiences to completely clean all three EOS 350D's.
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| Hand air blower. It has a special hole for sucking the air, so it doesn't suck the air from the front side, where it blows the air out. |
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| Dust and other filth are collected on the brush. You have to clean the brush extensively. Some fluids are also used for cleaning (I will write about this in some future article). |
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| You have to spray the brush with CO2 for at least 10 seconds. Don't rotate the spray, turn the brush instead. |
It's best to do the sweeping twice. I didn't completely clean the sensor even after two sweeps, as I would also need to clean the mirror housing, the mirror itself, the prism, etc. There are special tools for that, too. After a few consecutive shots, between each two I've removed the camera from my face, changed the aperture and made another shot, on some photos, there were dust spots, which magically disappeared on the next shots. There's a lot of dust in the interior of the camera which we can't see and is floating around. It can fall on the sensor in the time of exposure and then fall off before we make the next shot. We also have to be aware that it is really easy to get the dust inside your camera. It's not even necessary to remove the lens. The lens itself has plenty of dust. Zoom lens even more so. While the lenses are moving, they produce under pressure which moves the air and the dust. The rear of the lens is open and can cause real draught in the camera and thus the dust is traveling in a relatively strong airflow to the shutter and when the shutter is opened, the dust is free to reach the sensor. The biggest problem are lenses which are not fixed in length (they expand and retract while focusing) and push-pull zoom lenses, where we move the front part of the lens in or out. In this regard, the best lenses are the ones with fixed focal length and have internal focusing. Considering that the dust is so common in a camera, I think that manufacturer's repair centers are very kind. They clean your camera under warranty once for free. But after a day the dust can be back and customers might return their camera, saying it's dirty again. Well now you know where the dust comes from and that you can't expect to be cleaned for free forever. You have to deal with it yourself.
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| All new cameras have a function in the MENU called Sensor Cleaning. When you confirm it, the shutter will stay opened as long as there is some power in the batteries or until you manually turn the camera off. With the EOS D60, I had to use the bulb setting and hold the shutter release button until I was done with cleaning. |
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| The sensor is ready for cleaning. |
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| The instruction manual says you have to clean from left to right. |
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| It is recommended to sweep the sensor at least two times. |
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| Plenty of dust remained in the camera and it can fall on the sensor at any time. There's nothing you can do about it. And there's more. While photographing the cleaning procedure, I've notice a small burned out area above the mirror. Can you guess what caused it? The camera was on the sun without a protective cover. Lenses have gathered enough light to burn the thin plastic. Be careful to keep your camera away from the sun and always place lens cap on. This can happen inside the lens too. |
At the end
I am very satisfied. I got a lot of new experiences and have a clean sensor on my D60. I feel much better now, but since I rarely saw the dust on my photos, there was no need to clean it in the first place. At least that's what I thought!
I was lucky that dust spots didn't ruin any of my photos, otherwise I would be thinking differently. As of now, there's no way you can avoid the dust problem (except users of Olympus DSLR cameras and even there the dust can be removed only few photos later). I've already published an interview with Mr. Takaya Iwasaki, who said that Canon indeed has a cleaning technology in the development and we can only wait for it to become available for us.
At this moment I can say that Sensor Brush brushes and hand pump are a necessary piece of equipment for all serious photographers. I can confirm reports from many users that these brushes really work. However don't expect any miracles. If you look for dust, you will always find it. Just don't be too pedantic. You can see for yourself some shots before and after cleaning and can judge yourself whether the dust is bothering you or not. There's no exact rule to say there is dust or there isn't. Everyone has to decide for themselves.
My personal opinion is, dust spots are photographic errors! However even after this article and many double-checked photos, it still doesn't bother me for my kind of photographing.
