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Question on sensor cleaning.

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leicaman

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Hello,
I have s Z7 that I purchased before the lockdown. Since then it has lived in a camera case in a closet with very little use.
Now it’s time to shoot again…. Although there is little dust on the sensor there other deposits from vapors that would make
a cleaning necessary?
Hate to have a thousand images in Europe not as sharp as they should be

Thanks
 
Last edited:
To amplify Wahrsager’s “instructions” so they are useful:
  1. Set the lens to manual focus, set to its longest focal length if it’s a zoom. Otherwise pick a telephoto rather than a wide lens.
  2. set the f/stop to the smallest opening for rhe lens.
  3. Point the camera to a scene where everything is the same: a white piece of paper, a clear sky, etc. You want the scene to be boring and uniform.
  4. Set the shutter speed to 1 or 2 seconds.
  5. adjust ISO for proper exposure.
  6. Defocus the lens as much as possible. Set to infinity if your target is close; to minimum focus distance if it is the sky.
  7. While moving the camera around in a circle, fire the shutter. You want lots of movement.
  8. Transfer this image to your computer and examine it at 200%. If your sensor is dirty you will see dark areas. They won’t be sharply defined but will definitely be darker than everything else. Increasing brightness in NX Studio helps accentuate these areas.
Other posts here, including by me, discuss how to clean the sensor if it is dirty.

If the camera has been stored with either a lens or its body cap attached you won’t have to worry about overall haziness.

In general, sensor dust only appears in image areas with only one color, like clear sky. It also only appears at f/11 or smaller, so for most shots even a filthy sensor doesn’t present a problem.

If you need to wet-clean your sensor, just buy a kit and do it. It is easy and as long as you turn the camera off before you start you really cannot hurt the sensor. Ignore anyone who tells you that DIY cleaning will destroy it - they either don’t know or want you to pay a lot of money for 10 minutes of their time.
 
[No message]
 
PLShutterbug said:
To amplify Wahrsager’s “instructions” so they are useful:
  1. Set the lens to manual focus, set to its longest focal length if it’s a zoom. Otherwise pick a telephoto rather than a wide lens.
  2. set the f/stop to the smallest opening for rhe lens.
  3. Point the camera to a scene where everything is the same: a white piece of paper, a clear sky, etc. You want the scene to be boring and uniform.
  4. Set the shutter speed to 1 or 2 seconds.
  5. adjust ISO for proper exposure.
  6. Defocus the lens as much as possible. Set to infinity if your target is close; to minimum focus distance if it is the sky.
  7. While moving the camera around in a circle, fire the shutter. You want lots of movement.
  8. Transfer this image to your computer and examine it at 200%. If your sensor is dirty you will see dark areas. They won’t be sharply defined but will definitely be darker than everything else. Increasing brightness in NX Studio helps accentuate these areas.
Other posts here, including by me, discuss how to clean the sensor if it is dirty.

If the camera has been stored with either a lens or its body cap attached you won’t have to worry about overall haziness.

In general, sensor dust only appears in image areas with only one color, like clear sky. It also only appears at f/11 or smaller, so for most shots even a filthy sensor doesn’t present a problem.

If you need to wet-clean your sensor, just buy a kit and do it. It is easy and as long as you turn the camera off before you start you really cannot hurt the sensor. Ignore anyone who tells you that DIY cleaning will destroy it - they either don’t know or want you to pay a lot of money for 10 minutes of their time.
Click to expand...
All very good information, which could be helpful to many. It is information like this that I will miss after DPR shuts down. Thank you.
 
Ernie Misner said:
All very good information, which could be helpful to many. It is information like this that I will miss after DPR shuts down. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Thanks, and I agree. I don’t know anywhere else one can find useful info and a great community like here.
 
leicaman said:
Hello,
I have s Z7 that I purchased before the lockdown. Since then it has lived in a camera case in a closet with very little use.
Now it’s time to shoot again…. Although there is little dust on the sensor there other deposits from vapors that would make
a cleaning necessary?
Hate to have a thousand images in Europe not as sharp as they should be

Thanks
Click to expand...
Keep in mind there are several steps of cleaning. You should only wet clean after exhausting the other steps. Keep in mind the Z Nikon sensor is coated to resist dust so sensor cleaning is not as frequent as with older cameras.

Use a bulb blower. The Giottos Rocket Blower and similar devices are an inexpensive way to remove almost all dust. Get in the practice of regularly blowing off your sensor, the back of your lens, and the sensor box. This works better if the lens opening on the camera is pointed down so the dust can fall out. Use the blower at an angle and don't touch the sensor.

Wipe the mount with a soft swab or cloth. Nikon techs clean the mount with every sensor cleaning.

Use a brush designed for sensor cleaning. The are solutions like the Arctic Butterfly at the expensive end of the spectrum, or inexpensive solutions like this one on Amazon. Only use this tool for your sensor. Keep it very clean and protected from dust. The better tools use a mild static charge to attract the dust to the brush.

Amazon.com : Movo MV-B100 Sensor Cleaning Brush with 4 LED Lights and Motorized Static Brush for DSLR and Mirrorless Camera Lenses : Electronics

Amazon.com : Movo MV-B100 Sensor Cleaning Brush with 4 LED Lights and Motorized Static Brush for DSLR and Mirrorless Camera Lenses : Electronics
www.amazon.com

Each of the steps above remove 90-95% of the dust or more. If these don't do the job, you are left with a wet cleaning. The video and tools suggested are good. Just make sure to use just a couple of drops of an ethanol based fluid and a clean swab each time. Smudges from excessive fluid are more of a problem than a few dust particles.
 
If you are at all a perfectionist, I’d say don’t do it yourself.

I have one of each of the wet/dry/sticky products, and I *never* got a *perfectly clean* sensor on my D750. Yes, I’m obsessive on this. There’d alway be the tiniest residue in a corner of the sensor that nothing would dislodge.

Send it to Nikon, as I did once. It came back with a completely clean sensor.
 
I used to take my cameras into a local camera store to have them cleaned about 6 years ago, but I decided to do it myself after realizing how costly it was to have them cleaned. I was at the coast a lot back then and they’d always get spots Especially my D750.

Now I do it myself and go through the steps listed above with white paper to check for spots and use the blower before anything else. All good suggestions.

Cleaning isn’t hard at all. One thing that really helps is a sensor loop. It’s a magnifier with a light. I use it to clearly see the dusty areas of the sensor before I clean the sensor and also after I clean it to be sure I got everything off.
 
HRS said:
If you are at all a perfectionist, I’d say don’t do it yourself.

I have one of each of the wet/dry/sticky products, and I *never* got a *perfectly clean* sensor on my D750. Yes, I’m obsessive on this. There’d alway be the tiniest residue in a corner of the sensor that nothing would dislodge.

Send it to Nikon, as I did once. It came back with a completely clean sensor.
Click to expand...
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.

Here's my sensor cleaning before/after from the 7th of this month. The "before" picture was taken at 3:28pm. The "after" was taken at 3:35pm. It took just one wet cleaning to arrive at this result.

Before cleaning

Before cleaning

After wet cleaning.

After wet cleaning.

You really cannot argue with this - my sensor is now perfectly clean. It took seven minutes.
 
Last edited:
PLShutterbug said:
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.
Click to expand...
Yes, sending my D750 every month for a $100 sensor cleaning did add up quickly, now at about nine years, or 108 months in, for a total of $10,800.

Since you’re the expert, how much would you charge?
 
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.
Click to expand...
Yes, sending my D750 every month for a $100 sensor cleaning did add up quickly, now at about nine years, or 108 months in, for a total of $10,800.

Since you’re the expert, how much would you charge?
Click to expand...
I don’t think you understand.

Learn to do it yourself, the same as how you learned to clean your lenses. Then you don’t have to pay anyone; it becomes part of your workflow.
 
I bought the Visible Dust kit with swabs, liquids plus a few extras to get what was likely shutter/mirror oil off my D810 sensor. It worked perfectly and continues to protect my digital sensors. Like any really good tool, just having it insures you will never have to use it.

At the same time I bought the Visible Dust Blower which has a filter and valves so you are blowing only clean air. It's a good tool and I use it often when changing lenses on my Z7 but isn't quite as good as the kit I can leave in a drawer.
 
HRS said:
If you are at all a perfectionist, I’d say don’t do it yourself.

I have one of each of the wet/dry/sticky products, and I *never* got a *perfectly clean* sensor on my D750. Yes, I’m obsessive on this. There’d alway be the tiniest residue in a corner of the sensor that nothing would dislodge.

Send it to Nikon, as I did once. It came back with a completely clean sensor.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you need more practice. ...and I don't mean that in a rude way. When I wet cleaned my sensor for the first time I was prepared for that it will get worse before it gets better, so I bought a 5-pack kit. After the first go it got EXTREMELY worse and I panicked. After the second go, definitely not better than it was when I started the first round. But after the third swabbing it was clean, as clean as I could think of. I am not a perfectionist, but have high demands, so if I am happy with something then it is good.

That said, even if you pay people to that for you and they remove every freaking speck you should consider how long that perfection lasts. I mean, as soon as you attach or change lens the perfectly cleaned sensor is no longer that perfect. Sending it once is one thing, but sending it in regularly is waste of money and reduces your access to your camera a lot, because every time you send it in you are without it for a week or so. Basically, it's OK if it is free of charge, which it was for me when I bought my D300s and also the D800, but if you have to pay for it, it is a different thing because it quickly adds up to large sums.

So it is better to learn how to do it. It is really not rocket science, just read the instructions and follow them by the word. The most important is not to reuse the swabs. In my case I used up three for the three sessions, even though I could have used the same. I chose to do it this way and it is advised to do it this way also.
 
PLShutterbug said:
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.
Click to expand...
Yes, sending my D750 every month for a $100 sensor cleaning did add up quickly, now at about nine years, or 108 months in, for a total of $10,800.

Since you’re the expert, how much would you charge?
Click to expand...
I don’t think you understand.

Learn to do it yourself, the same as how you learned to clean your lenses. Then you don’t have to pay anyone; it becomes part of your workflow.
Click to expand...
No, I quite understand

I said I'm not able to clean the sensor to *my*, not *your* standards,

How you inferred my monthly cleaning needs, speaks to your cognitive abilities, or lack thereof.

One of the benefits of the demise of DPR will be not having to deal with people here who just don't have a clue.
 
olyflyer said:
HRS said:
If you are at all a perfectionist, I’d say don’t do it yourself.

I have one of each of the wet/dry/sticky products, and I *never* got a *perfectly clean* sensor on my D750. Yes, I’m obsessive on this. There’d alway be the tiniest residue in a corner of the sensor that nothing would dislodge.

Send it to Nikon, as I did once. It came back with a completely clean sensor.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you need more practice. ...and I don't mean that in a rude way. When I wet cleaned my sensor for the first time I was prepared for that it will get worse before it gets better, so I bought a 5-pack kit. After the first go it got EXTREMELY worse and I panicked. After the second go, definitely not better than it was when I started the first round. But after the third swabbing it was clean, as clean as I could think of. I am not a perfectionist, but have high demands, so if I am happy with something then it is good.

That said, even if you pay people to that for you and they remove every freaking speck you should consider how long that perfection lasts. I mean, as soon as you attach or change lens the perfectly cleaned sensor is no longer that perfect. Sending it once is one thing, but sending it in regularly is waste of money and reduces your access to your camera a lot, because every time you send it in you are without it for a week or so. Basically, it's OK if it is free of charge, which it was for me when I bought my D300s and also the D800, but if you have to pay for it, it is a different thing because it quickly adds up to large sums.

So it is better to learn how to do it. It is really not rocket science, just read the instructions and follow them by the word. The most important is not to reuse the swabs. In my case I used up three for the three sessions, even though I could have used the same. I chose to do it this way and it is advised to do it this way also.
Click to expand...
You're stating the blindingly obvious. I *said* I couldn't do it to *my* standards, so I send it to the professionals, WHICH HAS BEEN ONE TIME IN NINE YEARS.
 
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.
Click to expand...
Yes, sending my D750 every month for a $100 sensor cleaning did add up quickly, now at about nine years, or 108 months in, for a total of $10,800.

Since you’re the expert, how much would you charge?
Click to expand...
I don’t think you understand.

Learn to do it yourself, the same as how you learned to clean your lenses. Then you don’t have to pay anyone; it becomes part of your workflow.
Click to expand...
No, I quite understand

I said I'm not able to clean the sensor to *my*, not *your* standards,

How you inferred my monthly cleaning needs, speaks to your cognitive abilities, or lack thereof.

One of the benefits of the demise of DPR will be not having to deal with people here who just don't have a clue.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Where did I state that I think you are sending your camera in monthly?
 
Last edited:
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
HRS said:
PLShutterbug said:
Sorry, as soon as you change your lens you risk a bit of gunk on the sensor. It just happens. Sending your camera off for a week or longer, and paying $100 or more for someone to do 20 minutes of work, is in my humble opinion, insanity.
Click to expand...
Yes, sending my D750 every month for a $100 sensor cleaning did add up quickly, now at about nine years, or 108 months in, for a total of $10,800.

Since you’re the expert, how much would you charge?
Click to expand...
I don’t think you understand.

Learn to do it yourself, the same as how you learned to clean your lenses. Then you don’t have to pay anyone; it becomes part of your workflow.
Click to expand...
No, I quite understand

I said I'm not able to clean the sensor to *my*, not *your* standards,

How you inferred my monthly cleaning needs, speaks to your cognitive abilities, or lack thereof.

One of the benefits of the demise of DPR will be not having to deal with people here who just don't have a clue.
Click to expand...
You must have higher standards than I. I've owned my D500 since January of 2016 and may have cleaned the sensor once or twice, but I really don't remember. I did clean the sensor on the camera of a guy who hunted ducks out of a layout boat, which is a very harsh environment. He apparently changed lenses out on the water. I didn't charge him as it's so easy to do.

As stated above, unless your sensor is incredibly filthy, and you shoot quite stopped down, dust really isn't an issue. I've never had any spots on any of my images in seven years.
 
Last edited:
Paddler213 said:
You must have higher standards than I.
Click to expand...
I'm not going mind-read, but it appears I do.

Nikon's cleaned the sensor exactly one time.

I used a blower, the sticky pen, and maybe something else, with finally a wet cleaning as advised by the "experts" here. A few fibers from the Pec Pads stayed in the corners of the sensor, so off to Nikon it went. Again, a perfect job done by professionals.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, all I did was relate *my* experience.

I didn't claim those who had success were wrong.

Yet, several used *their* success as a way to demean others who don't share that success.

Which is why this forum in particular has grown so tiresome and combative.
 
PLShutterbug said:
After wet cleaning.

After wet cleaning.

You really cannot argue with this - my sensor is now perfectly clean. It took seven minutes.
Click to expand...
With all respect, this is what I'd call a decent cleaning. I downloaded your "after" image and took a close look. I upped the contrast a lot to accentuate any remaining spots, of which I found at least three, shown in the pic below, circled. (If you're spot-peeping, the leftmost spot is only visible if you download the full file.)

Let me be clear, your "after" sensor condition would be generally fine, unless one of the spots was in the wrong place in the wrong pic.

The above "after" image is about as good as I ever got with mine, except my remaining spots were in the corners, where nothing I did would remove them. Since I'd have been satisfied only with *no* spots, period, as I said, off to Nikon it went.

So, your job is fine but I wanted perfect. Yes, I'm obsessive about stuff like this.

Three spots still remain. Yes, I'm obsessive.

Three spots still remain. Yes, I'm obsessive.
 
Last edited:
HRS said:
With all respect, this is what I'd call a decent cleaning. I downloaded your "after" image and took a close look. I upped the contrast a lot to accentuate any remaining spots, of which I found at least three, shown in the pic below, circled. (If you're spot-peeping, the leftmost spot is only visible if you download the full file.)

Let me be clear, your "after" sensor condition would be generally fine, unless one of the spots was in the wrong place in the wrong pic.

The above "after" image is about as good as I ever got with mine, except my remaining spots were in the corners, where nothing I did would remove them. Since I'd have been satisfied only with *no* spots, period, as I said, off to Nikon it went.

So, your job is fine but I wanted perfect. Yes, I'm obsessive about stuff like this.

Three spots still remain. Yes, I'm obsessive.

Three spots still remain. Yes, I'm obsessive.
Click to expand...
So, HRS, when did you have your sensor cleaned and how does it look now? I know mine looks a lot worse than Shutterbug's after file, as another member demonstrated that to me. Not sure how she did it, but both before and after I blew it off with my Rocket blower it had maybe a dozen spots, all of which looked worse than the above.

But, I have never seen one iota of dust on any of my photos. Maybe because of the composition, maybe because I shoot mostly at f/8 and wider.
 
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