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Photolife · Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 20

How should I clean the sensor of my canon rebel xt?

csubick · Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 187

The easiest way is to put the camera on sensor cleaning mode and use a Rocket Blower. If that doesn't get raid of all the dirt you may want to try this method...

http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning

Note: It's not for the faint of heart :)

Photolife · Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 20

What a Rocket Blower is?

csubick · Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 187

http://www.adorama.com/GTRAB.html?searchinfo=Rocket%20Blower&item_no=1

Rom · Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 34

just don't spit on it and rub it with your hanky.

No, seriously, take great care. Don't, for example, use regular canned air - it contains a propellent which will spray itself all over your fragile sensor. Use canned co2, propellent-free.

Alternative, I use a sensor swab with sensor cleaning fluid. Don't ever use anything unless it ays quite clearly on the product that it is designed specifically for cleaning camera sensors!!!!

I clean my camera's sensor monthly with a swab, and give it a blast of gas intermitantly. The gas usually does the trick.

the joys of digital... as sensors pack their pixels more tightly together (getting 'bigger' but remaining the same size, as it were) this problem will get more and more irritating!

StuartE · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 7:42 pm

If you're going to clean your sensor yourself, can I suggest you take a good, close look at the 'Visible Dust' sensor brushes?? While the copperhill method has been validated by a couple of manufacturers, and is in fact better than the method that some service centres use, I think you'll find the Visible Dust is vastly superior - I have a contact who runs a Dslr cleaning service, and he's swapped over to them because of the issues with cleaning with other methods...

Cheers,
Stuart

Photolife · Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 20

So it's better clean the dust my self exactly where is it than send the camera to the technical service?

Rom · Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 34

Sure is, it's actually quite easy to clean a sensor - as long as you follow the instructions clearly. You'll save lots of cash too.

Photolife · Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 20

Finally I've used compressed air, it's great! I risolve the problem.

justinkthornton · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 95 Location: Colorado

What I did is I got one of those, what aret they called, the blue tear drop shape things used to clean your ears, for like 2 bucks. It works great as a blower.

So what I do is set my typod up so the camera is facing down, put it on cleaning mode and blow some are in it. It takes a few time, but works great.

CarolinaSmith · Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Wow. Stepping up to dSLR meant stepping up to dust.
My first attempt at cleaning the sensor (full frame Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n) was a disaster inspite of my trying to read up ahead of time.

I actually bought all the stuff from Invisible Dust but don't like it.
You have to be VERY CAREFUL about the canned air you shoot on the brushes. I think what happened to me was I shook the can before spraying, and the propellant came out with the air onto the brush, then onto my sensor. (*&$&^%*&

Their fluid only made it worse. I read up on the forums, and others like the brush (DON'T shake the canned air!!!) but also had problems with the fluid streaking.

So then after more research, I bought the Giotos Rocket Blower
http://www.2filter.com/prices/products/rocket.html

and Sensor Swabs and Eclipse fluid. Much much better for me.

I am a fanatic about keeping dust to a minimum.
Here's how I change lenses:
1)Get the lens you want on the camera and take the back cap off.
2) Blow of the back of the lens with the rocket blower.
3) Take the lens (or body cap) off the camera
3) Use the rocket blower to blow off the mirror in the camera
4) Immediately place the wanted lens on the camera body.
5) Now I blow off the back of the lens that just came off (rocket blower)
6) I cap the lens on the back.
7) THEN I PLACE THE LENS IN A ZIPLOCK BAG and close

Even though I keep my lenses in a camera backpack, I keep them in ziplock bags (they even make 2gal size bags). And when I am not actively using my photo backpack, the backpack gets zipped shut and placed in a large plastic (garbage) bag. I take a camera with me to work daily, and, yup, the camera is stored in a ziplock (2gal size works) bag until I need it.

With this routine, I have yet to clean my camera with the Eclipse fluid/Sensor swabs a second time...

And I have saved hours NOT cleaning sensor dust spots off of my images in Photoshop.

The Giotos Rocket Blower is amazing, it goes with my camera always, too.
You can get it from 2filter.com in connecticutt (see link above)

Hope that helps!