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Sensor Cleaning

This is my D3 sensor as it looks today. This was shot at f/36 3 seconds ISO 200 so naturally you see every little thing and not what I normally see under usual conditions. I am however having to clean up more and more spots in PP and I am ready for a cleaning. I have never cleaned a sensor in my life. On a camera such as the D3, with someone like me that has never ever tried cleaning a sensor of any kind, do you think it is something I should be able to successfully do myself or would it be safer and possibly less costly for me to just send it in and have a pro do it for me? I have tried my rocket blaster and it still ends up looking basically the same. Thank you.
James Newman

dirtysensor.jpg
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
The 'smudgy' bits will probably need wet cleaning. I've done my 5D a couple of times and it seems fine, but make sure you get the right fluid (Eclipse 1 is not suitable for all sensors apparently).

If you're not confident the cost of someone else doing it is less than a new sensor assembly:)

Mike
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Hi James
like you're new President would say : Yes you can ! ;-)

I've done cleaning my sensors since year 2000… (though a local shop do it very well for me now, but they are 10 minutes from the office and do it always for the next morning, if ever it's not completely to my satisfaction, they redo it instantly…)
If you do it smoothly, you won't damage anything (as many things in life…)

The best infos and details can be read there:

http://www.copperhillimages.com/

Be patient! it can take 10 minutes only or a few hours…
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Actually James, I don't know that it's necessary to clean the sensor! It really depends on the apertures you use. I doubt you ever need f32!

Likely you hardly every use anything more than f11. I am generally between f1.2 and f5.6, only rarely at f11 and then the dirt might appear. Otherwise I live in bliss! The little pests might very well be there but it might not impact on your work.

The actual cleaning is no problem. I use the camel's hair brush's that one electrostatically charges with air from the Rocket blower. For wet cleaning, any of the commercially available swabs and cleaning fluids will do about the same job.

Since you know how to spot the dirt you have no problem checking your work.

The important thing is to really make sure you have cleaned the dirt spots off before you embalk on an important shoot at high f stop. That to me is above f8 up to f16. You really dont want to go above that anyway.

Asher
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
Hi James. you never clean the sensor. it is the filter over it that is being cleaned. it would be a very careless person and method that would do any damage. After having said that:

practice cleaning a small piece of plastic or glass, till you become confident. Any cotton swab
can be used for the ' practice ' run. I would take a normal cotton swab flatten it, put some window cleaner
on it..just a drop or two..and try cleaning a very tiny piece of your window.

Once you gain the confidence, attempt the 'real thing'.

1. use a bulb blower to clean first..if it does not solve the problem, start with cleaning with the bulb blower in the first instance.

2. use the correct size swab..x1.3,x1.6 etc.

3. Eclipse 2

4. ' Visible dust ' products also do fine.

5. If you are averse to following steps 2,3; follow Asher's advice. use wide apertures only.

Good luck.
 

charlie chipman

New member
Here is a link to a nikon specific forum that talks about cleaning the D3 sensor, apparently it is more difficult that the average sensor to clean for what ever reason.

I do not have a D3 so can not comment myself I just remembered seeing this thread some time ago and thought it might be useful to you.

Cleaning your D3 sensor
 
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