Sensor Cleaning

Bill Martindale

Bill Martindale

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My son has been given a Canon 5D Mk ii. We took some shots over the weekend and a large number of spots showed up in the sky which I think are dust specks on the sensor. We tried the sensor cleaning cycle in the camera and blew over the sensor with a rocket type blower. All this was to no avail, after taking an image of a sheet of white paper there are still about 50 - 60 spots showing all over the image. Is there a better way of cleaning the sensor than we have tried? I am loathe to try anything that touches the sensor like a soft brush or swab for fear of damaging it. Is it now a case of a professional clean and if so can you recommend somewhere in the Lancashire area if possible? I see Canon offer a sensor cleaning service but not locally. However that may have to be our fallback position.
Thanks for any help or advice you can give.
Bill
 
You will not be touching the actual sensor with a swab Bill, there is a filter over it, the main danger lies in using too much fluid on the swab and having it 'creep' under this filter. I regularly cleaned my 5D MkII of 2008 vintage but in later years it has developed some marks that just cannot be removed by swabs. A friend of mine with similar camera/problems sent it for cleaning by a reputable company and although they removed some of the contamination they reported that some had become 'glued' in place and could not be removed and they recommended having the sensor replaced - which they didn't do. He was still charged for the cost of cleaning 'as is'.

I would try the swab method of cleaning first Bill (plenty of info on the web) and then assess the results. For my part I don't do any serious digital photography anymore so for me a regular swab and the Clone tool in software keeps my images clean and the cash saved on professional cleaning/replacement has bought me a lot of film and chemicals over the years.
 
Thanks Keith. As I am mainly darkroom I don’t know a lot about these cameras hence the question. I will pass your response to him.
 
Use a swab designed for the purpose though Bill. I use the VSGO ones from amazon but others are available.
 
A bit of a tongue in cheek answer, but I never get a problem on the sensor in my preferred cameras, the sensor is changed regularly - I use film! It gets changed at least 36 times in a roll of 35mm. ;)
 
John King said:
A bit of a tongue in cheek answer, but I never get a problem on the sensor in my preferred cameras, the sensor is changed regularly - I use film! It gets changed at least 36 times in a roll of 35mm. ;)
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But I'll bet you can't do N+ or N- development
 
Joanna Carter said:
But I'll bet you can't do N+ or N- development
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Why would I want to? What I produce on film is what I want, any alteration is done afterwards in the darkroom. Standing up when I do it, not slouched over a desk using a 3rd party technology:D
 
John King said:
Why would I want to? What I produce on film is what I want, any alteration is done afterwards in the darkroom. Standing up when I do it, not slouched over a desk using a 3rd party technology:D
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In the LF world, we will either under or over expose, anticipating having to either over or under develop, in order to produce a printable negative - or should I say that is easier to print.

If I take one sheet of film that requires 2 stops over-exposure and thus N-2 development, then I don't have to apply the same development adjustment to the next sheet that requires N+1 development, for example. With roll film it tends to be all or nothing, taking an average that you hope will cope with differing dynamic range.

You cannot using the N± system unless you either shoot sheet film or an entire roll at the same dynamic range.
 
As a film user myself I get the same as John, 36 clean pieces of film each time with 35mm, 10, 12 or 15 with 120 or just 1 if I use my LF camera. However if I remember rightly John in another thread you did say you had a DSLR, Nikon D90?, how do you sort that out if the sensor needs cleaning?
 
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The screen is clean, I hardly ever change the lens, and it isn't my 1st camera. I never have had to. Nor did I need to on my previous D300, D700 or D800. Unknown territory for me, but the camera has a screen cleaning mode - doesn't it?
 
John King said:
Unknown territory for me, but the camera has a screen cleaning mode - doesn't it?
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Yes it does and we tried about 10 cycles of that but it did not make much difference. As it was a gift we don’t know how it was treated previously. Going by the external appearance it was not gently.
 
The in-camera sensor cleaning of this camera purports to shake the dust off - and leaves it in the camera! Unfortunately this does not remove any contaminant that is stuck there by 'electo-magnetic attraction', or whatever the phenomena is called, and this is where swab cleaning is required. From your comment Bill it seems you have nothing to lose by doing a swab clean. Using Canons Digital Photo Professional software in conjunction with the camera self-clean process is also an option although I have never used it. According to the camera manual it can be used to remove dust spots automatically.
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I used to have the 5D mk2 and used to get lots of dust bunnies

I used to use the Eclipse sensor swab system ( I think it was called) and it was reasonably successful although it did take a whole packet of swabs to get it perfect

It surprised me how hard you need to press but it works

The caveat to only use a tiny drop is right

Start gently and don’t put the same side down again once it had made a pass

I tried various other swab systems but they were ineffective especially the more expensive one
 
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