D750: Unable to Clean Dust off Sensor
- Thread starter voxmagna
- Start date
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
But it is a good excuse to show new members what to do and not do about dust.
OK thanks for the feedback and now I'll add another twist: I wasn't being stupid suggesting vacuum dust removal. Have a look at HEPA air filters sold for vacuum cleaners, some of the best can filter air down to 0.3 micron. My conceptual idea was a zip seal bag with a vacuum hose connector and a HEPA air filter on the bag. Connect the vacuum to the sealed bag (reduce its air flow with a hole in a circular plate), pop in the camera or lenses and dust free filtered air pulls out dust from inside the bag.
I have now bought myself a Carson SM-44 sensor maignifier. It doesn't lock into the Nikon baynet but rests on the ring surface. Now I can clearly see dust. Having just had to fix sensor dust on shots in PS I now realize the more spots you have the harder it gets. As for batch mode spot removal - fine until PS tries to do it where there is picture detail and grabs adjacent detail for the repair! I think Lightroom may be a little smarter but I'm not certain it works with a mixture of landscape and portrait orientations? My conclusion is get rid of dust before you shoot, fix no more than 3 or 4 spots in post and be careful using apertures smaller than f11. Sensor dusts spots are hardly noticeable in detailed or dark areas and I've concentrated on removing them on sky or plain area backgrounds.
Blowers, cloths, brushes and buds - all they do is move the dust to somewhere else! Have you noticed when the mirror is up to expose the D750 sensor there is that rough crinkly black surface light reflection stopper? That is a great material to hold dust and hairs then drop it on to the sensor after a mirror slap!
My second conclusion is sensor cleaning should not move dust or hairs to somewhere else and I thought I would be the first to come up with this idea - but I'm not. It's a bit off the wall and if you want to try it, experiment on an older unloved camera sensor first.
Wet cleaning (alcohol) seems to offer the property of picking up dust but either you buy proprietary cleaners or you must ensure the alcohol and wiper is pure else it will leave a surface smear. I've now tried Blu-Tack (U.K) but I think a similar product is UHU white tack. Wearing clean plastic gloves I wrapped a small ball around the plastic end of cotton bud stick (or cocktail stick?) and shaped it into a blade wedge to get into the corners. Not only does it pick up dust, but it can be gently wiped across the sensor glass surface like a squeegee. Sometimes I found a stubborn mark which was not dust. I don't know where they come from but suspect it is from the atmosphere and wet cleaning first is best. These cleaning parts don't need much space in the bag and you can prepare several disposable Blu-Tack sticks with gloves in advance.
The Carson led SM-44 illuminated magnifier is made of plastic and does its job for the price. It comes with a circular zip pouch looking like it cost more than the magnifier - but they didn't make it with slots to fit on a camera strap.
I have now bought myself a Carson SM-44 sensor maignifier. It doesn't lock into the Nikon baynet but rests on the ring surface. Now I can clearly see dust. Having just had to fix sensor dust on shots in PS I now realize the more spots you have the harder it gets. As for batch mode spot removal - fine until PS tries to do it where there is picture detail and grabs adjacent detail for the repair! I think Lightroom may be a little smarter but I'm not certain it works with a mixture of landscape and portrait orientations? My conclusion is get rid of dust before you shoot, fix no more than 3 or 4 spots in post and be careful using apertures smaller than f11. Sensor dusts spots are hardly noticeable in detailed or dark areas and I've concentrated on removing them on sky or plain area backgrounds.
Blowers, cloths, brushes and buds - all they do is move the dust to somewhere else! Have you noticed when the mirror is up to expose the D750 sensor there is that rough crinkly black surface light reflection stopper? That is a great material to hold dust and hairs then drop it on to the sensor after a mirror slap!
My second conclusion is sensor cleaning should not move dust or hairs to somewhere else and I thought I would be the first to come up with this idea - but I'm not. It's a bit off the wall and if you want to try it, experiment on an older unloved camera sensor first.
Wet cleaning (alcohol) seems to offer the property of picking up dust but either you buy proprietary cleaners or you must ensure the alcohol and wiper is pure else it will leave a surface smear. I've now tried Blu-Tack (U.K) but I think a similar product is UHU white tack. Wearing clean plastic gloves I wrapped a small ball around the plastic end of cotton bud stick (or cocktail stick?) and shaped it into a blade wedge to get into the corners. Not only does it pick up dust, but it can be gently wiped across the sensor glass surface like a squeegee. Sometimes I found a stubborn mark which was not dust. I don't know where they come from but suspect it is from the atmosphere and wet cleaning first is best. These cleaning parts don't need much space in the bag and you can prepare several disposable Blu-Tack sticks with gloves in advance.
The Carson led SM-44 illuminated magnifier is made of plastic and does its job for the price. It comes with a circular zip pouch looking like it cost more than the magnifier - but they didn't make it with slots to fit on a camera strap.
Dust or spots can come in different sizes! This was large and visible on preview WITHOUT magnification. When I looked at the images on a PC there were also 6 or 7 smaller spots. It's a common DSLR problem for those that have it and it's not always that easy on location to shoot some clear sky or plain background, find the spots, know where they are, then successfully clean them off. Some don't worry about it and say they never see it. They must be shooting in murky U.K weather at f stops wider than f11 with no plain areas in the scene? If you buy and use a high res. camera you can expect surface spots on the sensor larger than a pixel to be seen against a uniform background, unless masked by darker content.
I saw that link and they say they are producing a Nikon lens version. My concern is they draw in air from around their substitute lens fitting. I don't believe a Nikon camera body is perfectly hermetically sealed and this would mean dust could come in through those parts. If dust is adhered and not loose free to be sucked out I think it will stay put. A sealed bag large enough to take the camera body or lenses with a vacuum cleaner hose adaptor at one end and a large area 0.3 micron filter at the other would do the same thing or better. A dust vac solution must consider both the camera body and the lenses plugging into it.
When you start locating and removing dust particles seen on the final image you should know exactly where to start looking on the sensor, or does everybody just brush away and hope for the best? It seems to me as you look down at the sensor the image is inverted and transposed left to right. Is that correct?
I actually Googled a few reviews about this thing.
Now, I'm off to shoot some leaves for the weekly challenge!
Re: D750: Unable to Clean Dust off Sensor - some progress
I've made some progress on sensor cleaning but I'm now a little concerned: When I got the problem in the field I didn't take much notice of what kind of 'dust' was on the sensor and only when I got a 4.5X illuminated magnifier could I spend more time. I've cleaned, blown, swabbed, blown and checked my work shooting my lcd monotor at f22 and opened up the test shots at X100 mag in PS. I defy anybody to get a perfect spot free sensor result, whatever cleaning method they use! I think F11 will be my aperture of choice in future and I'll fit ND filters if I have to.
I got a pretty clean sensor (not 100% perfect spot free, but I can't see that is realistically possible and would remain so) then dropped the mirror and fired off a few shots, went back and looked at the sensor which now had 'foreign bodies' on it. I looked carefully and they weren't the round grey dust particles or hairs I might expect, but 1 or 2 black wiggly filaments.
My D750 mirror compartment is lined with a black non-light reflective material. It recently came back from its shutter recall and I don't know what that involved (?) When I got it back they said they had cleaned it for free. What I saw on the sensor (and through the illuminated magnifier) was black filaments which could only have come from the material used inside the camera body. I accept the common DSLR problem of dust getting in from outside although I don't often change lenses, but black filaments falling on the sensor from inside the camera is not what I expected. During sensor cleaning I was very careful not to touch the lining as I could see it had a coarse fiber surface.
Have Nikon always used this coarse anti reflection stick on stuff in their cameras? I can see an area where it is cut away for the mirror hinge and the cut has left long filaments hanging loose which I could pull off with tweezers although a few mirror slaps and they will probably will fall off!
If your D750 is like mine and you get 'sensor dust', have a look at it with a magifier and if it is jet black you can guess where it might have come from. After cleaning your sensor, fire off a few shots then go back and check it has stayed clean. If you see 'dust' on images in post that is highly visible and curly, don't assume it is a hair from outside and just one of those things you get with a DSLR.
I've made some progress on sensor cleaning but I'm now a little concerned: When I got the problem in the field I didn't take much notice of what kind of 'dust' was on the sensor and only when I got a 4.5X illuminated magnifier could I spend more time. I've cleaned, blown, swabbed, blown and checked my work shooting my lcd monotor at f22 and opened up the test shots at X100 mag in PS. I defy anybody to get a perfect spot free sensor result, whatever cleaning method they use! I think F11 will be my aperture of choice in future and I'll fit ND filters if I have to.
I got a pretty clean sensor (not 100% perfect spot free, but I can't see that is realistically possible and would remain so) then dropped the mirror and fired off a few shots, went back and looked at the sensor which now had 'foreign bodies' on it. I looked carefully and they weren't the round grey dust particles or hairs I might expect, but 1 or 2 black wiggly filaments.
My D750 mirror compartment is lined with a black non-light reflective material. It recently came back from its shutter recall and I don't know what that involved (?) When I got it back they said they had cleaned it for free. What I saw on the sensor (and through the illuminated magnifier) was black filaments which could only have come from the material used inside the camera body. I accept the common DSLR problem of dust getting in from outside although I don't often change lenses, but black filaments falling on the sensor from inside the camera is not what I expected. During sensor cleaning I was very careful not to touch the lining as I could see it had a coarse fiber surface.
Have Nikon always used this coarse anti reflection stick on stuff in their cameras? I can see an area where it is cut away for the mirror hinge and the cut has left long filaments hanging loose which I could pull off with tweezers although a few mirror slaps and they will probably will fall off!
If your D750 is like mine and you get 'sensor dust', have a look at it with a magifier and if it is jet black you can guess where it might have come from. After cleaning your sensor, fire off a few shots then go back and check it has stayed clean. If you see 'dust' on images in post that is highly visible and curly, don't assume it is a hair from outside and just one of those things you get with a DSLR.
Re: D750: Unable to Clean Dust off Sensor - Contamination coming from inside camera!
I'm surprised nobody has come back on this?
I'm trying to get an answer from Nikon and still do not know if they applied the black Velcro type finish to reduce flare as part of their mod. or it has always been there. Now I am also seeing the fiber filaments getting on to the mirror! This is NOT dust but being shed from the materials used in the camera body design, construction or Nikon modification. Considering all the clean room assembly done on cameras, it seems stupid to introduce a material into a critical part of the Nikon D750 camera body that appears unstable and can release contamination many more microns larger than the clean room standards used?
Using any kind of jet blower could make matters worse by stirring up more of the fibres lying loose on the surface.
I'm surprised nobody has come back on this?
I'm trying to get an answer from Nikon and still do not know if they applied the black Velcro type finish to reduce flare as part of their mod. or it has always been there. Now I am also seeing the fiber filaments getting on to the mirror! This is NOT dust but being shed from the materials used in the camera body design, construction or Nikon modification. Considering all the clean room assembly done on cameras, it seems stupid to introduce a material into a critical part of the Nikon D750 camera body that appears unstable and can release contamination many more microns larger than the clean room standards used?
Using any kind of jet blower could make matters worse by stirring up more of the fibres lying loose on the surface.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
I bought my camera around Christmas of last year. I have never had to clean the sensor of my camera and I change lenses all the time and shoot almost daily. I did see one dust spot the other say when I had a lot of sky. I have just never had any problems with anything on the sensor.
