OIl on sensor ?

John P

Senior Member
Do these look like the dreaded oil spots on the D600 sensors?

They are top center and just to the left of top center.
D71_0796.jpg
 

John P

Senior Member
I have not heard of any other complaints about the 7100 either.

I have never had dust in the past that looked like such big blotches.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
Take another photo of the sky out of focus at the very smallest aperture you lens will go to. That's the best way to visualize potential dust/oil on your OLPF
 

Dave_W

The Dude
Relatively speaking, that's not very bad. I've seen OLPF's look like a dalmatian when you stop the lens down. (btw, the area at the top of your image represents the bottom of your "sensor" that is closest to the opening which is why spots tend to start up there). Have you tried using a blower yet? If you have already and they're still there you can easily remove them from your images using Lightroom until it gets so bad that you need to wet clean them.
 

John P

Senior Member
Yeah I used the in camera cleaning function. Then tried to blow it 3 different times.
So you think it's dust. Not oil.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
It's really hard to tell if it is oil or dust. Many of my dust spots would not blow off, but came off when I dry cleaned it, so it was not oil.
 

06Honda

Senior Member
Clean the sensor yourself with a swab kit and keep an eye on it. If you don't change lenses often in the field it should not get dust spots very often. My body is a D50 with the older 80-400VR and almost never change my lense. Rarely need to clean dust spots, maybe twice or three times per year. My dust spots do sometimes look like yours so its not possible to say for sure if its oil or dust.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
The Oil/dust issue is concentrated at the edges and corners. That looks like good old fashioned dust, the way it's supposed to be. Get yourself a bulb blower and have at it. I'm guessing it clears right up.
 

John P

Senior Member
Thanks guys.
I think it is dust. But the blower isn't working.
Would the lack of an aliasing filter change sensor cleaning techniques?
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Cleaning a sensor (wet or dry) is something that all DSLR users should learn. It's a basic thing that is not so different from negative cleaning when we were in the dark darkroom age. I don't see it as a problem unless the spots won't go away with a good wet cleaning. I did notice some dust on my D600 last weekend when I did a few HDRs. By the way, HDR is a sure way to tell if you do have some dust on the sensor since it exagerates these to excess. It only took me about 10-15 minutes to clean, check, clean again, check and then I was fine. It takes me less time to clean my sensor than it takes me to clean my car… So, why should I complain.
 

John P

Senior Member
The spots have definitely been determined to be dust.
They keep coming back fairly quickly after cleaning. Especially when shooting in continuous shutter mode.
I called the local retailer about it yesterday.
They are exchanging it for a new camera today. He had one other one come in with the same issue earlier this week.
Hopefully it was just a bad batch.
I'll keep you posted.
 

John P

Senior Member
They did exchange my camera.
The store manager did test shots with 3 cameras. ALL had dust spots. Some less than others. But none were as bad as mine.

Now to shoot the hell out of it. And wet clean @ about 1,000 actuations.
 

Eye-level

Banned
Cleaning a sensor (wet or dry) is something that all DSLR users should learn. It's a basic thing that is not so different from negative cleaning when we were in the dark darkroom age. I don't see it as a problem unless the spots won't go away with a good wet cleaning. I did notice some dust on my D600 last weekend when I did a few HDRs. By the way, HDR is a sure way to tell if you do have some dust on the sensor since it exaggerates these to excess. It only took me about 10-15 minutes to clean, check, clean again, check and then I was fine. It takes me less time to clean my sensor than it takes me to clean my car… So, why should I complain.

With my old F2 can't tell you how many times I cleaned the eyepiece, prism glass, focusing screen, mirror, and front and back of lenses so that when I looked through the viewfinder I saw absolutely no specks of anything whatesoever...I never made it to the negatives... LOL :)

Just with the F2 though...all the other po dunk cameras I could care less if it looked like the camera has just took part in a color run...color runs are a whole other thread though...stay away from them!

Personally I would time lapse a thousand...clean then do it again...and then see what happens...

I'd go through the hassle of 5K actuations for a clean as a whistle 7100 or 600 for sure.
 
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