Sensor Cleaning: VisibleDust
Since the emergence of digital slr cameras, dust on the sensor has been a HUGE issue. It is very upsetting when you take that beautiful landscape, get home, download, and find out there are so many dust spots that the image is ruined. It would take hours upon hours to retouch by hand. This is an example of a landscape from Ecuador that is full of dust spots. You can notice them more in the blue sky and clouds. On the final print, it did take hours for me to remove the spots by hand. Click any image to view larger and not all spots are noticeable in these low resolution images, but trust me, they are there.
Rainbow over Baños
One of my favorite cameras to use is my Canon EOS 10D. I pick it up every time I go go out the door. I bought this camera back in 2004. I love the way it feels in my hands, the balance, the sound the shutter makes, I just love this camera (pictured at the top with my Canon 17-40 f/4L). My personal opinion is that this is one of the best digital cameras that Canon has produced to date. I have argued with people about this camera. They always say, “It’s too slow,” but they never say anything about it having bad image quality. Yes, it’s slow but it takes beautiful, quality images. I process them with Adobe’s Lightroom, my choice of developer.
Let’s get back on track. This post is not about how wonderful my 10D is, but to give a personal review on cleaning my sensor. I have never cleaned it. The camera is 5 years old and has never been cleaned. The sensor was very dirty. I decided it would be more beneficial and time consuming to clean the sensor instead of fixing everything in post. I did a little research about different products and what was available. There are fixed brushes, static brushes, vacuums, blowers, wands, wet cleaners, dry cleaners, and sticky tape, wow. My findings were that the products are very cheap or very expensive with no middle ground. I narrowed my choice to two different companies, VisibleDust (visibledust.com) and Dust-Aid (dust-aid.com). I read plenty of reviews that helped me narrow down to these two companies.
Now, the real choice was what to actually get. I decided that a wet cleaner to remove natural sediments, oils, water spots, and dust would be my best choice since I really don’t know what’s sitting on my sensor. I went to B&H photo online to place an order, my favorite store in the world (bhphotovideo.com). Here is where my choices got even less. B&H doesn’t ship most of the cleaning liquids because of federal shipping regulations. That left only left two companies’ products that I could actually get shipped to me, VisibleDust and Dust-Aid, my two main choices. I placed my order and had it delivered to my front porch in 3 days. Now it was time to start my project and see how clean my sensor becomes.
My choice of product this time to clean my sensor is the VisibleDust VDust plus solution with the Orange VSwab. They go hand-n-hand. To start, let’s take a picture before the cleaning happens. I took a picture of the sky since that’s where I find the spots to be most noticeable. I underexposed by a stop at f/22 so the dust spots would be more noticeable.
Start frame
Then, I went in the house and cleaned the sensor with the solution and swab. I put a few drops on the bottom of one side and gently swiped in one direction, then flipped the swab, rewet, and re-swiped. After this, I went back outside to re-shoot. My findings are that it helped a lot, but still was not clean enough. I did the cleaning and testing 3 more times. I think lack of experience with a very dirty sensor contributed to a 3-time cleaning. Notice below–there are just a few spots, but now with a mystery string or hair.
Second test
My end result was almost perfect. If you notice in the picture below, about middle ways to the bottom right, there is a little, faint spot. I just could not get it completely clean. It’s also possible that my camera came from the factory with that spot and I just now noticed it. As clean as the rest of the sensor is, I am not worried about that spot, since most of my shots are in the f/2.8-5.6 range. It will not even be noticeable.
Final frame
After reading most of the reviews on these type of products, it seems to be said that a good cleaning is recommended once a week or at least once a month. That’s if you shoot a lot, you shoot a lot outdoors, you change lens frequently, you change lens frequently outdoors, and do not have an integrated cleaning system. I think this describes every photographer.
I am happy with my outcome. I do recommend using VisibleDust products. I am planning on using more of their products, especially the arctic butterfly with the sensor loupe. I do use my 10D quit often. I believe that I will be maintaining regular sensor maintenance from now on.
