OK, so it’s been quiet all week after the flurry of photos from Easter. The plain and simple reason for this is that I spent several hours on Sunday trying to clean my camera.

Darrell noticed these odd spots in a photograph I’d published last week and correctly identified them as sensor dirt.



This sent me into a whole self loathing spiral.
I mean, I’m a good boy. I don’t fool around with other cameras, I don’t go into those sorts of shops, I always use protection and try to avoid exposing my sensitive bits in public…

But still, I’d picked something up.

Seems at some point when I’d been changing lenses a bit of pollutant had managed to sneak into the camera and that it was pretty well stuck as the sensor cleaning (some electro-static charge thing on my camera) wasn’t shifting it.

I asked Darrell some further questions about the issue and he pointed me here as well as providing me some good advice. It seems I could either clean it myself or pay someone to do it professionally.

Well, that sent me off to my local chain camera store to look for solutions. Whilst I’d prefer to have it done properly, the thought that it was something I could learn made me give it a go (that and I’m cheap. Hey! Nobody is sponsoring my camera madness and the amount I’ve spent recently…).

Firstly I purchased a Rocket Air Blower and tried that. The trick with using one of these is to set the sensor to manual clean then hold the camera upside down and blast air into the sensor area. This seemed to life a few little flecks which were sitting in the mount area – I’m guessing these had been kept of the lens by the electro-static sensor clean. But the artefacts on the lens lived on…

So, I resorted to a lens cleaning pen.

Now most photographers I spoke with went a bit green at this stage, you’ve been warned.

Basically you rub the lens pen around the sensor, making sure to get all the corners. Don’t rub too firmly, but at the same time make sure it’s not like getting touched by a rainbow. It’s best to make sure the camera is upside down to encourage the dirt to fall out.  Yep, that bit they say don't touch...

Well, it took a few attempts, but suffice to say I think I got the most of it. Do me a favour. If you disagree, don’t tell me!*

So, today’s lesson. To clean a camera.
1.    Hold or mount the camera upside down
2.    Set the camera to manual cleaning mode
3.    Realise the batteries are nearly flat and the camera will close the mirror before shutting down, so change the batteries and start again
4.    Try using an air blower first
5.    Try using a sensor pen, but be gentle!

Or

1.    Pay someone who knows what they're doing

I found the best way to test if the lens was clean was to take photographs of the white tiles in the bathroom. By looking closely I was able to track the marks and see when they were removed. Best bet is to set the camera to focus at infinity and make sure the picture is over exposed. A good uniform colour is what you need.

I’m almost frightened to post in case it’s not fixed. I'll post over the weekend and we can have a debate.

*Actually do tell me. Please.

The Sean O'Casey Bridge, Dublin

(6secs, f/8, 31mm, ISO-100, 18/2/2008)

 

 

I was sitting here, working on this photograph whilst finally getting some progress with my Unbuntu backup server. I'd finally got the thing to see my main pc, I'd even reconfigured some things to make general computer fun more, well.... fun.

...and then...

The disk in the Ubuntu box eats itself.

Yup. The backup server I'm building to backup my photographs, my documents, my saved games! It's eaten itself. Not quite smoke and a three fire engine call out, but still pretty annoying.

Come to think of it. This photograph was the last one I took before I broke my tripod. Coincidence???

 

... yeah probably.

It was all going so well.
And then there was a clunk...

I'm beginning to think Dermot is a jinx on my camera equipment. When we went out at Christmas, we were no more than 30 minutes into our shoot when my memory card ate itself. This time, we got about an hour before my tripod self destructed.

In fairness, I think it had been coming for a while. I'd noticed the centre column wasn't quite as secure as it used to be and that the adjustment pin was either too tight or too loose, but never just right.

Anyway, it all went bang. I cried (a little).

And I've bought a new one.

Manfrotto 190XPROB Tripod Legs Only - Black

It's very pretty. I'll do a full review when I get out and about with it.

When I originally kitted out for my adventures in photo I bought 2 memory cards. Mostly because I reckoned I'd be slow to upload them to computer and as a result alwys end up with one card full at any one time. when it turned out that I was in fact obsessed with getting them off (the card and onto a computer), I kind of thought the second card was maybe a bit of a waste.

Until Tuesday night in Dublin

I'd taken  maybe 20 photos in Stephens Green Shopping Centre and then either the card or the camera failed and locked into some sort of permanent write cycle. Turning the camera off and on made no difference and I ended up pulling the card to get the thing to reset. I reseeded the card and it seemed to work ok again, but just in case I changed to my never used spare card. A nights good photo followed.

I'm going to use a little time this weekend to test out the suspect card again, but to be honest I think its now going to gather dust and only be a point of absolute last resort.

So, here's my questions for today. How long should a memory card last, and if it is broke will Jessops (its a Jessops brand card) change it if I complain?

Oh, and just in case in case, I ordered 2 new Sandisk cards last night.

Lesson for today - always carry spare memory cards and batteries. And make sure they work...