Sensor Swab

[herron]

Anyone had any experience using a Sensor Swab item like this? I've always been a "film" guy, and don't have any experience with them. Do you really need something like this to clean your sensor, or will ordinary lens cleaning items work?

Also, is something you need to do regularly, or just when you start to see those little round artifacts in your images?

[kiev4a]

I don't think one would want to come anywhere near the sensor more often than is absolutely necessary.

[GeneW]

Ron, they work well, as long as you're very careful, but consider them a 'last resort' method. The preferred method is simply to blow out any dust particles with a rubber blower (e.g. Hurricane blower -- taking off the brush). Don't use canned air -- it leaves a residue. If that doesn't work, then use the swab.

I wish more manufacturers would use an internal vibrator to shake off the particles. Oly does this and, I think, the latest Pentax.

Gene

[GeneW]

herron said:

Anyone had any experience using a Sensor Swab item like this? I've always been a "film" guy, and don't have any experience with them. Do you really need something like this to clean your sensor, or will ordinary lens cleaning items work?

Also, is something you need to do regularly, or just when you start to see those little round artifacts in your images?

Forgot to answer a couple other parts. No, don't use any of your regular lens-cleaning stuff.

Definitely not something to do regularly. Only if you start seeing little blobs on your images, and even then, if you can live with it, better to clone them out with Photoshop.

I have a few blobs on my sensor right now -- I change lenses frequently so this happens. I'm ignoring them for now -- touching up the spots in Photoshop. If I get a few more showing up, I'll use the blower. If they get worse, I'll use a swab.

A tip I once read. Turn your camera body OFF before switching lenses. Evidently when the camera is on, there's a small charge build up around the sensor that attracts dust particles like a magnet. Can't prove if this is true, but I turn my camera off during lens changes now and I seem to get fewer blobs.

Gene

[bobm]

I use swabs to clean the sensor on my 5D - sparingly.....

For some reason, my 5D sensor seems to be prone to spots that won't shift using a blower, hence the swabbing.

Having said that, when you clean the sensor, you're not actually cleaning the sensor itself, it's the IR filter that is fitted in front of it.

I still keep the cleaning to a minimum however as it's all too easy to make things worse.

And ditto to all of Gene's comments...

[majicman]

Everything that GeneW and BoBM said is right on target. I bought the Green clean wet/ dry swabs that have methanol. and they seem to work well, DO NOT use any ordinary lens cleaning stuff.www.greencleanusa.com

[bobm]

From looking at other forums, there's quite a lot of discussion of, and for some, a fear of sensor cleaning but in reality, it's no big deal as long as one uses the correct cleaning materials, follows the manufacturer's usage instructions exactly and only performs the operation when absolutely necessary.

Unless you're taking shots with large expanses of solid colour like skies or whatever at very small apertures, there's a fair chance that for the most part you'll never see a lot of marks unless they're really bad or in the aforementioned solid coloured area.