shop who can clean an EX-1?

Thanks Ben.  I agree that this is best done by a pro which is why I'm looking for one.  Removing the smudges in post won't work in this case: there are too many and they are large.

thielges wrote:

My EX-1 (TL-500) has developed a few spots of dust on the lens or sensor. They're quite visible and I'd like to remove them. Though I read a great article here on this forum about how to tear down and rebuild an EX-1 for cleaning the sensor, I'd prefer to leave such a task to a professional.

Are there any maintenance pros out there who can do this job? No parts need to be replaced, just a tear down, clean, and rebuild.

If you think the dust might be in the lens assembly - have you tried the vacuum cleaner trick?  Search on the forums here, you'll find things like this.  Worth a try.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60398540

Thanks for the suggestion. With a powerful shop-vac I tried suction on:

- the lens, camera off: no dice

- battery door and extended flash: no dice

- camera on, wide angle: no dice

- camera on, racking zoom from wide to tele and back: DICE !  Giant blotches are gone.

I guess that extra movement caused just the right turbulence to direct a microburst to the dust spec. There are still couple of tiny dust specs in there but only visible in extreme conditions.  Optics are now 50X better and this little EX-1 is useful again.

This nonsurgical technique has made me a believer in alternative camera medicine.

Gracias Amigo!

Here are a few examples of what the contamination looked like.  As you can see this would be hard to remove in post.  Both of those big smudges are gone now after applying some strategic suction.

The large size of the particles probably made them easier to remove via suction.

That's great to know that it works. I can see how working the lens in and out while applying suction would help it along. Gave your camera a new lease on life.