Nikon Service

I use a Nikon D7200 paired with the updated Nikon AF-S 80-400MM F/4.5-5.6G ED VR, great combo for nature and bird photography. Since purchasing the lense when it was first released the amount of dust inside is quite a bit and I am considering sending it into Nikon Canada for a cleaning. First question is it a waste of time to do this as the dust will return? If I fill out the info at the Nikon Canada service website will they send me a proper size box to ship the lense so it gets there without being damaged? Recently I have cleaned my D7200 sensor a couple of times and am still getting a couple of spots showing on my images when you have lighter backgrounds IE: water or sky etc. My choice of Sensor cleaning is with Visibledust Thinlite-x Light Cleaning 1.6x 16 mm dry swabs that you put cleaner on that is included in the kit. See sample shot from this morning. My understanding is lenses rarely effect images with spots so maybe I am heading in the wrong direction by sending in the lense for cleaning. Any comments and help are most welcome. My go to software for cloning or removing the spots is GIMP, but is tiring after awhile especially with a big batch of images to process. I added one more pic, not the best of the dust in my lense.

I have an old 18-70mm lens that came with my D70 way back when they came out. It has a huge amount of dust inside but does not affect anything that I can see. It did make me decide not to sell the lens on ebay because I didn't want the headache of a buyer being disappointed. Try cleaning the sensor with a little more pressure (unless you think you already did). I've had some that required a little more effort than expected. I was nervous of course, but it was my older camera. Dirt did come off with a harder wipe. Not as delicate as I thought. Some people use a sensor loupe, I just use an over-powered pair of cheap reading glasses and get my face in close with a good light. Those spots will be small to see, like pinpoints. I have good luck with a sensor brush and it has greatly cut down my wet cleanings. Pushing against the flow of the bristles helps with suborn spots, possibly stuck pollen.
This might be interesting to you:
https://photographylife.com/how-to-spot-dust-on-your-dslr-sensor

The dust will return,its a difficult call to make but unless you think you have image degradation i dont think i would bother,if you decide to have it done think of something to take a test image of that you can repeat when the lens is cleaned,then you will know if its worth doing again in the future.

If dust got in there once, it can get in there again. That said ... if it took you many years to get dust in there, it's not something I would expect to see showing up very quick.

Do you see the dust in any of your images? If not, I would probably not send the lens off since the risk (damage in shipping, something not being returned just as it was before you sent it off) doesn't offset the improvement you might see when it comes back.

I'll give it another try but push a little harder, will also get myself a sensor loupe as it may be handy to have anyway.

I think I pass on sending in the lense, will try a better sensor cleaning technique.

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