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Mini review of Dust-shield. Sensor dust barrier

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bunyarra

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Dust-shield impressions

For sceptics: I am not, have not, and have no intention of being financially involved in any way with the vendor or manufacturer of this product .. so take that trolls.

All us 5D/5dII owners have dust problems. Sometimes we just ignore and other times we spend ages extracting the last mite from that dratted filter. And not to mention the $$ spend on sensor-loupes, wipes, pads, spec-grabbers, brushes and assorted blowers.

So, it was with great interest and some scepticism I read the new Dust-Shield. To quote:

“Stop dust and debris in its tracks with the new patent pending DUST-SHIELD. This optic quality disposable filter for DSLR camera chambers helps to deflect dust from entering the chamber when changing lenses. This optic filter has the highest light transmittance possible which allows for unobstructed auto focusing and image capturing. “

http://www.dust-aid.com/08dustshield.html

Hmm .. intriguing. Ever a sucker for gadgets (looks at corner of room to the pile of camera bags), this definitely peaked my interest.

Peter at CameraClean here in the UK kindly offered to send down a copy he picked up at a recent trade show. Marvellous! The caveat was that the packaging claimed it was for the 1Dxx and 1Dsxx.

Installation

Step 1 : obvious real, clean the sensor .. really well. Don't skimp this stage else you will regret it later. After all, the shield is meant to stop dust getting in :)

No instructions were provided but the actual install was relatively simple. First, peel the shield off it's protective layer on the camera facing side. Using the two wings, you position it just inside the lens mount and it stick to the plastic inner mount rim. In order to clear the lens contact points, a bit of jiggling is needed to ensure the shield is pushed far enough up into the inner mount's surface. When done right, the notch in the shield will line up with the electrical contacts.

Once positioned, press around the edge to seal and then peel off the front element leaving the clear shield.

And that's it. If you need to remove, you can reattach the plastic positioning strips and lift the shield out. I have done this twice now with no visible detrimental effect.

In use:

It is a bit early to tell if there is any noticeable real-world degradation in sharpness etc. The two quick snaps below are 100% crops from RAWs taken at full zoom with a 70-200 F4 tripod mounted. For me, the one with the shield installed is perfectly acceptable.

Will I use this for my next paying client shoot … not sure. I certainly want to play with personal images a great deal more first. I have concerns that it might induce flare or ghosting despite assurances to the contrary.

However, I can already say that I will definitely use these next time I go out to dusty places on non-critical work – better to throw one of these away than constantly clean a sensor or spend hours in post-production getting rid of dozens of dust bunnies. No idea on costs yet though.

Hopefully I'll be able to report back in a few weeks after some serious use.

Shield On



Shield Off



--
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Michael Gove
http://photosignals.smugmug.com
 
Marketing 101... no matter how ridiculous a product may be, someone somewhere will buy it. :-)
 
There are 2 thoughts that come to mind.

First, some debris that makes its way to the sensor is actually internally generated, such as tiny lubricant droplets that come from the shutter. These look just like dust spots on the sensor, but are tougher to remove. This has been an ongoing challenge with 1-series bodies and also the 5d class. Putting a dust shield between the body and lens ignores this fact and will not prevent the problem.

Second, I personaly would not put a plastic film between a top quality camera and a top quality lens. In theory, anything you put there will degrade the image quality.

For me, it's a simple matter to do an occasional wet cleaning. It's quick and easy, and no big deal. I think people are too obsessed with the dust issue, and make it out to be a bigger issue than it really is.

--

Gallery at: http://www.pbase.com/tim32225

 
TimR32225 said:
TimR32225 said:
For me, it's a simple matter to do an occasional wet cleaning. It's
Click to expand...
quick and easy, and no big deal. I think people are too obsessed
with the dust issue, and make it out to be a bigger issue than it
really is.
Click to expand...
For sure. I just finished a 10-week long theater shoot with my 5DII and probably have 25,000 images. I was changing lenses left and right. Do I have dust? Don't know, haven't looked for it. :-)
 
bunyarra said:
Dust-shield impressions

For sceptics: I am not, have not, and have no intention of being
financially involved in any way with the vendor or manufacturer of
this product .. so take that trolls.

All us 5D/5dII owners have dust problems. Sometimes we just ignore
and other times we spend ages extracting the last mite from that
dratted filter. And not to mention the $$ spend on sensor-loupes,
wipes, pads, spec-grabbers, brushes and assorted blowers.
Click to expand...
Two points based on your first two paragraphs, before I even read the rest of the test.

1. I think we know your conclusion already from the first paragraph, right? And that anyone who might question them knows at the start that he/she must be a troll. Always good to get that out of the way at the outset. ;-)

2. I have a 5D and a 5DII. I spend considerably less than "ages extracting the last mite from that dratted filter." Perhaps once every month or two (several thousand frames) I spend a few minutes with a blower and sometimes a brush getting stuff cleaned out. Regarding the 5D II, a couple things. First, while I have no illusions that the dust-reduction system in this camera will be 100% perfect, I shot a few thousand frames with mine so far and have had zero dust issues. Secondly, while I have read a few posts from people with dust on their 5DIIs, a) they have been small in number and b) the fix shouldn't be any more difficult than with the 5D.

Having shot DSLRs for a while, I'm always more than a bit skeptical about the latest Wonder Dust Removal Miracle. There have been quite a few - I won't recount the list here. In the end, dealing with dust on the 5D comes down to a few key practices:

1. Use a blower occasionally.
2. Use a sensor brush along with the blower every so often.

3. If you are unfortunate enough to get a bit of sticky "stuff" in there, a wet cleaning will take care of it. I might do that as often as once per year - or less.

4. A few dust spots can be quickly removed in post. On a very dusty image it might take me a couple minutes to get them if I'm printing big and there are a lot of uniform areas in the frame - more often it takes a matter seconds.

Take care,

Dan

For the record, I do NOT shoot exclusively in dust-free or low dust environments and I frequently switch among a fair number of lenses. I often photograph along the shore, on the trail, and in the desert.

--
---
G Dan Mitchell - SF Bay Area, California, USA
Blog & Gallery: http://www.gdanmitchell.com/
IM: gdanmitchell

Gear List: Cup, spoon, chewing gum, old shoe laces, spare change, eyeballs, bag of nuts.
 
Glad you don't have a problem in 1000's of shots. Quite remarkable really.

6 hours shooting in Wales last week resulted in a large number of dust spots in critical areas on my images. This resulted in many hours extra processing to clone out sensitive areas as my commercial client like clean images that can print v.large when needed. I have had images rejected before when cloning was less than perfect despite best endeavours.

I missed the spots while having to rapidly switch lenses. Sure, I should have been more careful and/or retire to a clean car to check but I didn't.

You not having dust issues does not = me not being plagued by them at the worst moments.

I do not know quite what you are suggesting in your response to my first para but who cares.

I have no idea if this product is any good - I am willing to give it a go and see. I try not to have a closed mind to new ideas.

If it does not work, it is no skin off my nose. If It does then I will have gained. This post was simply to document my trial of the product in the hope it might help people.

Geesh .. DPR is a cranky place.

--
----------------------------------------------
Michael Gove
http://photosignals.smugmug.com
 
My experience mirrors yours.

I live in a relatively temperate coastal environment without a lot of ambient dust, so maybe it's easier, but with a little care & the occasional sensor brush treatment, it is just not a big deal to stay on top of this. iHave had to wet clean my 5D sensor only once in the 3 years I have had it.

Adding a piece of cheap plastic into the optical path makes no sense to me. (I have a hard time accepting the idea of adding an expensive protective filter to the front of the lens but at least this is coated optical grade glass...)

-evan

--
I do know how to spell. I'm just a lousy Tipyst!

http://www.pbase.com/eheffa
http://eheffa.zenfolio.com/



'Let's see...8 times the square root of 2 is 11...Hey, I think I'm on to something!'
 
retro8888 said:
no store listed on dustaid website carry it.
Hmmmmmm
Click to expand...
Oh FFS .. I give up. Yes, it is a complete hoax and the product was manufactured just to give you a jolly good laugh. Well spend $$ I think.

I have NO idea why stores don't carry it yet. The UK reseller broght a few back from a recent show and was kind enough to offer me one to test and am doing so. Perhaps the show launch was premature ... dunno. I am not even vaguely affiliated with them.

--
----------------------------------------------
Michael Gove
http://photosignals.smugmug.com
 
I for one will love to see what you think after more tests
Thank you for the post
 
like you and dan, i haven't been 'plagued' with dust issues on my 5d, 5d2, or any dslr for that matter. in three years i only had to wet clean my 5d sensor twice--and i change lenses everywhere, even on the beach.

my first thoughts about this product were 1) lots of nasty debris comes from inside the camera. 2) i don't even use b+w mrc filters unless i really have to (ie, raining or some such); while i don't lose sleep over degradation caused by front filters, even that is sometimes perceptible--this looks far worse. 3) i can see reflections on the surface of the 'shield' in your photos, and even the photos on the company website; granted these will be oof most of the time, but if you think this isn't generating flare and loss of contrast, you're kidding yourself. 4) the "shield" clearly (or translucently?) doesn't even fit tight enough to close the gaps around its edges; i don't see how it's supposed to keep minuscule dust particles out of the chamber. 5) good luck if an edge of that thing somehow gets pushed in far enough to interfere with the mirror.

i appreciate your reporting your experience to the forum, but this product had me checking how close to april 1st we are.
 
I have put in in my 5DII 2 months ago. Can't see any nasty effect, but I would be interested by more precise testing (ie not from people talking about what they have not tried but from people who have actually tried).
 
If I were to go where theres lot of dust, I would give it a try. Good thinking.
 
Interesting concept. After breaking my 1ds-mk3 sensor while wet cleaning and finding out it costs $2295 to replace (insurance paid the first time). I ended up with a dust policy as follows.

1. Buy a 50D for widlife and leave the long lens off my 1ds-mk3. Dust is not much of a problem at f5.6. Also the FF seem to be dirtier probably because they lather the mirror and shutter with oil and the sensor comes right to the edge. Harder to clean, and a bigger taget for axel grease.

2. Have the sensor cleaned once a year by Canon. This will result in about 5-6 spots instead of the 20 or so you get after a time. I have never seen a clean sensor new, or serviced.

3. Remove the rest in post processing.

4. Use a blower to remove the really huge dust bunnies which are not much of a problem anyway. Its the oil and grease that cause most problems.

I would love to see a removable cleanable filter added by the manufacturer. Get rid of the mirror and they could seal the sensor area.

I actually have about 10 spots that are a problem above f8. At least 4 of those were there when it was returned from the last service. It does not take long to remove them because I know where all of them are and they never move.

--
http://www.pbase.com/roserus/root

Ben
 
Ben_Egbert said:
I actually have about 10 spots that are a problem above f8. At least 4 of those were there when it was returned from the last service. It does not take long to remove them because I know where all of them are and they never move.
Click to expand...
You might want to try this:
  • Shoot a typical 'reveal dust' shot.
  • In PS, start to record an action, and use the healing brush on each spot. (don't forget to use the [ and ] keys to resize the brush for each spot, only making the brush barely big enough to do the job)
  • Save
Depending on each scene you'd run it on, you might expect some abnormality to crop up from time to time (say, when a spot might appear in a blue sky next to a cluster of branches), but for the most part it should satisfy. When I had a stubborn spot issue it worked like a charm (that issue later cleared up over time with routine wet cleanings).

--
...Bob, NYC

'Well, sometimes the magic works. . . Sometimes, it doesn't.' - Little Big Man

http://www.bobtullis.com
 
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