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.